more info :)

hey there...

so, one of the main reasons that i decided to start a blog is because my second son was recently diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. there were developmental concerns from his pediatrician at his 18 month check-up which led to him getting evaluated by the local early intervention program. they said that he had a severe speech delay and recommended that we start speech therapy and occupational therapy once a week.

during this evaluation, i realized that my older son may have some delays too--so i went to the school district and had them evaluate him also. he also ended up having a speech delay, which they think also contributed to his social delay, and now he has an iep and goes to an early childhood program through his school district. it is an amazing program and am SO glad son #1 is in it! he has really been making big strides since he started; we are so happy that he is communicating more clearly and being able to express himself in ways he was not able to before :)

but back to son #2, we did the early intervention therapies and they seemed to be helping a lot. but i definitely had a little pit in my stomach like i should maybe do more... so, i decided to take son #2 to a neurologist and have him evaluated. i also called my pediatrician to see what she thought and she said to call the children's hospital development center and set up an appointment with them. i also decided to contact one of the local autism therapy agencies and make an evaluation appointment with them too. all of these things took a REALLY long time to get into, so if you ever have any inkling of anything being "up" with your kiddos, just get it checked out. it is better to know than to not know. anyhoo, we are still in the process with the Children's child development center (they actually referred us to the Feeding Team), but we went to the neurologist and he assured us that there is nothing medically wrong with son #2. he does not have any abnormal activity in his brain or evidence of any seizure disorders. it was difficult for them to decide if son #2 was on the spectrum since he was only 2 years old and had made improvement from appointment to appointment. they definitely believe that there are some delays, and told us to continue to do any other evals we had scheduled and keep up with the early intervention. we will see them again in the summer. then we went to the autism therapy agency and they did some of their evaluations and diagnosed son #2 with mild to moderate autism spectrum disorder.

i totally thought i was ready for that. but i totally was not.

it kind of felt like a stab in the stomach, but i have never been stabbed in the stomach, so i am not sure if it really felt like that. but i did have both boys naturally, and it definitely did not hurt as much as that! hehe. but it hurt in a different way. it is weird, you know, how with your kids, you automatically turn it around on yourself... "did i do something to make them this way?" "did i give them something?" "did i not do something?" "do i have bad genes?" but i have to keep reminding myself that i am doing things to try and make things better for them. we are getting them evaluated. we are getting them the support they need to start and get through school. we are aware of what is going on with them. and that is a good thing. right?

i kind of went through the "stab in the stomach" thing when son #1 and son #2 were both diagnosed with speech delays... did i not talk to them enough? did i let them explore things on their own too much? i thought i was doing an okay job with all that... but the autism thing was definitely a bit harder to deal with. but i gave myself a couple days to feel really bad and then i had to get my stuff together and start moving.

so, i started all the paperwork. there is so much paperwork. but it is worth it.

both boys will benefit from the things that we are learning right now. the husband and i are talking a lot and letting it all out so that we can really deal with the things we have on our plate. communication is key! i know that sounds cheesy and cliche, but it is the truth.

so, it is kind of a long post, but there is so much information. i can't do any more at this moment, i will continue on tomorrow. i hope this is not too all over the place; i am still figuring out the blogging thing :)

thanks for listening :)
lolo