It was summer of 2012 when we first heard the word AUTISM. I was still pregnant, in my third trimester, with my 3rd child when we got our first appointment with a Developmental Pediatrician for P who was then 3 years old. What made us see a developmental pediatrician was not even from a recommendation of the regular pediatrician. Our son, P, hit all his milestones in the first 24 months of his life. He walked early (10 months old), he could say words by the time he was 12 months and he was just a happy baby. It was months after he turned 2, when we noticed that he was not talking as much as he used to and we would often catch him just staring in space. He started getting more sensitive with noises, and he flapped, jumped and was walking on tiptoes. My mommy instinct says “Something is not right” and it became even more of a concern when he started having issues with food textures. He started gagging on solid food and would only eat when it’s mashed. I googled all of this and checked on his milestones and then the word “REGRESSION” came up in a lot of the articles I read and suggested seeing a specialist, a Developmental Pediatrician.
Apparently getting an appointment with a Developmental Pediatrician takes a long time. It took us maybe a couple months to get one. So that day came, and off we went. The assessment was pretty quick. It took maybe 40 minutes where the doctor and her assistant was making P do certain activities while me and my husband were answering sheets of medical history. After the activities, the doctor started scribbling a bunch of stuff on a piece of paper and then when she was done, she just looked at us and says “He has Global Developmental Delay leading to Autism Spectrum Disorder”. I honestly did not know what to say or ask. I had no idea. Then she started telling us what he needs such as occupational therapy and speech therapy and writes therapy center recommendations that we were supposed to contact. And that was it.
On our way home, I was quiet for a long time and then I cried. I cried because I was not sure what to do, the diagnosis didn’t come with a manual. It was like opening a door to the unknown, or being dropped off in a different country so different from what I was expecting. I did not know anything about Autism and I was not sure how I can help my son. I cried at that moment and many days after because I felt helpless, I felt that I was supposed to be the one to teach my son, to help him create an amazing foundation of his life but I was not sure where to start. By the way, we went to see 2 more Developmental Pediatrician in the course of that year, to get more insights and simply trying to find the best doctor for us, the best fit.
Despite the crying, my husband and I knew that we cannot fail P. He needs us and we needed to do everything we can to help him, to learn everything we can about his diagnosis. We started buying books, reading online stories, and sleepless nights of research. We knew that if we learn everything we can on what this Autism diagnosis is then we would be able to help him. We were and still are each other’s strength, and this was the start of our family’s journey into the world of Autism.
A Family's Autism Journey 