My mam had brought up the subject quite a few months before and I retorted with the 'his too young' and refused to acknowledge this possibility even though the signs were there and my husband was just as adament in not believing this.
At 18 months and still no progress on the standing alone, or walking along the furniture I did think how long can I bury my head in the sand and keep saying he will get there. I had always thought William was unique but never quite knew why, I would quite often say he was one of a kind!
Some of the issues we were having with William I kind of blamed myself for, like the weaning issues we had, food has always been a major problem and it still is, the not walking or learning new words despite going over the same words over and over again and trying at least 2 new foods with him every week. I felt like I was sinking and there was nothing else I could do apart from keep doing what I already was even though I knew it wasn't working.
One day I looked up the signs of autism in babies/toddlers and the amount of things I had not even thought were a sign of autism William does, and had been doing for a very young age and he had a lot of signs, when reading a light came on and I knew it wasn't me failing, William had autism. I admit I did break down and I cried alot that day, I tried to approach the subject again with my husband and once reading the website he felt the same way there was too many things for it not to be looked into, he was also very upset. I think it was more the realisation.
I arranged a home visit with my health visitor and wrote a list of all the things we were concerned about, when she came out she referred him straight to a peadtrician to assess him further we knew now that this was quite serious.
The peadtrician appointment came around slowly and after going through Williams short history and reading what I wrote down for our concerns she concluded that he was on the autistic spectrum and had global delayment. I did feel relieved that we were now going to get the help and support to be able to teach him new things as what we were already doing was not helping William and we were feeling lost. The peadtrician referred William to a dietician, Specialist speech therapy and a peadtrician who specialises in autism, she also wants him to get a early nursery place.
We both felt positive after this as William is still young and will be getting plently of support both from specialists and us. We still have days when the autism is quite apparent and we do get upset, for example we couldn't take him to a birthday party as he got so distressed. Both me and my husband have felt the tension and frusteration through this process as we had no idea, William is our first baby and we didnt know that anything was 'different' until quite late on.
William is our child and regardless of the autism we will always love him so much, he brings us so many happy moments and normally has us laughing with his expressions that he pulls now!
Heres our precious boy:
I know how you feel hun, my son Oli is in the process of being diagnosed with autism too - we've seen one paediatrician already who says she believes he is on the spectrum but she wants a specialist opinion to make it official.
ReplyDeleteWe're still waiting for the appointment to come through and it's so frustrating, we just want it over and done with so we can get on with helping our boy.
I've always thought my son was "one of a kind" too, we always said he was quirky but soon had to admit it was more than that.
I'm glad I found your blog, it's nice to talk to others who are going through the same experiences! :)
- Nikki xx