My last post is doing just what I hoped it would: starting a dialogue. Bill and I have often wondered about Henry's birth and subsequent problems, and their relationship with autism. Which came first- was he born with autism and that triggered some other difficulties? Did his difficulty breathing cause (for lack of a better term) brain damage of some kind that triggered the autism? Or are all these things just unrelated coincidences that make Henry who he is? And does it matter?
Kristina always says things so perfectly, and as she commented, if one thinks about this too much, "it's an ocean of regret". So I often push these thoughts away. Just as many parents may agonize in hindsight over the choice to vaccinate their child, fearing afterward that it "caused" that child's autism, I can't let myself think too much about his birth. Was it the herbal tea I drank during pregnancy to help me sleep? Did it contain some kind of dangerous herb? Should I have demanded to start pushing before my doctor arrived? Was it because I swam in the lake that summer? That last one may sound ridiculous, but who knows? We start to question everything. Unlike many of the children I read about, who seemed to develop normally until a turning point around a birthday and/or vaccination, my Henry was always on the small, slow end of every chart. I don't see a correlation with vaccinations in his case.
So I welcome you to Henry's second year. He was back in the 3rd percentile for his age, and we thought that with his allergies conquered, we'd have smooth sailing ahead. He had started sitting up around 8 months, and began crawling at 13 months. Walking came at 18 months. All of these, according to our pediatrician, well within the normal range and not surprising considering his rough first year. He was just catching up.
He did have a fondness for throwing his plastic stacking cups around on the kitchen floor and chasing them. I didn't really think of it as "spinning" them. It made him laugh and smile- I thought it was cute.
When he was 1 1/2-2 1/2, we would take lots of walks which involved looking at cars, both moving and parked. I found this kind of boring, but not alarming. I had friends whose children obsessed over rocks they found, or taking toys apart and removing the batteries. Kids just have weird habits and interests, right?
Around age 2 1/2, our beloved friend and child care provider, "L", dropped the bombshell. One day when I arrived to pick Henry up, she said "I want to talk to you about something..." She said she thought Henry might be autistic. She had printed out some information from a medical website (I forget which one). I was defensive and argued with her. Believe it or not, I didn't cry. (You may have picked up on the fact that I'm quite a crier.) Not until I got in the car anyway. I called my mom for reassurance and she provided it. Then I called the pediatrician's office and made an appointment.
When we showed up for the appointment, Henry cried and clung to me. "An autistic child wouldn't do that" said our doctor. I feel like that was in the dark ages of autism awareness, but it was less than 4 years ago.
I went ahead and scheduled a speech and hearing evaluation for Henry, because he was clearly delayed in that area. By the time they could see us, he had celebrated his third birthday.
I did cry on his birthday, out of happiness, because we got him some letter and number flashcards for his birthday, and he could easily name all of them. "There's nothing wrong with him," I thought. "He's so smart." When the speech experts asked me how many words he could say, I truthfully answered that he knew hundreds. I later realized that he knew hundreds of nouns. Names for things. He didn't put any of them together with any other words to make sentences. And while we could understand all these words he said, no one else could.
The speech center referred us to an ENT, who recommended tubes and removal of Henry's adenoids. I remember the ENT saying something like "I don't think that's all that is going on with him, but it will be a good start." Did he think Henry was autistic? I didn't ask- probably didn't really want to know.
So we had the surgery and started speech therapy once a week. I also had Henry evaluated by our school district, to see what services he might be eligible for.
To be continued...
2 comments:
Oh my god!...I'm on the edge of my seat! I find everyone's story so fascinating. Our individual journeys seem like an unexpected fork in the road. Sometimes, Autism can feel like a dead end, but really it is becoming a more traveled destination for parents. Everyone's journey so similar, yet different. wow.
Charlie sat at 7-8 months. Rolled over at 9 (well, actually, he rolled over 1 time at 4 when I let him scream---following the pediatrician's orders--for so long he must have been blue in the face. He walked at 16 months.
He was in daycare in St. Paul and, at 18 months, Something Was Wrong.
I don't know if it's that I've entirely walled off certain feelings (a closet refrigerator mom? lol), but I look over Charlie's first years with a feeling of true bittersweet. I loved just to watch him--"better than TV," I told all my friends. But his development did not happen. He had no words that he could say or that we could say to him. He could ALWAYS find our car in the Cub Foods parking lot.
It's a dialogue among blogs--MOM-NOS too--me, I'm just trying to see if my site will get back up (Typepad is down for maintenance today).
That's why I have to write about Charlie. If people can just know what to watch for in a 6 month old, they can get a child started sooner on the long but good path.
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