I had pretty much a normal pregnancy; Anthony was born August 26th 2003, the day after his Grandmama's bday. He weighed in at 7 lbs 5.6 oz and was 19 in. long, had all 10 fingers, all 10 toes, and his cry was so loud and so strong, but to us sounded like angels. He was just beautiful!
Over the next few months Anthony did really well, met all his milestones early, he actually said "mum" at 4 months old, I will forever hold that moment in my heart. The next several months he started saying "Pap", "bap" for bath, and several other words. Slowly I started to notice he would love to spin things as well as line things up. Then the sensory problems came. My oldest son Tyler also had sensory problems and I felt at the time I was being a little bit to concerned when Anthony started these odd behaviors.
I talked to his Dr. about my concerns, and I still remember his words he said that day "looking at the big picture, it does seem like a bit to be concerned about" little did I know then how those words would become reality.
I then got him into early intervention; he was getting OT, special instruction as well as speech. The first time he had any type of intervention was very hard, all he wanted to do was run back and fourth, he would not even sit for 3 min. which made therapy almost impossible. I remember telling his therapist there is no way he has autism, he makes eye contact, he’s very social, there’s no way he has it. His Dr. then referred him to UVA to see an autism specialist, and just a week before his appt. I remember sitting in my living room with his OT and filling out all this paper work when I looked at her and said "I doubt he’s going to get that autism DX". I felt there is no way my beautiful child has this awful thing wrong with them and no one was going to tell me different.
The day of Nov. 16th 2005 came so fast, and we are sitting in this office for what seemed like forever answering questions with a nurse, she then took her report based on what we have told her and said that she would back. She was just gone a seconds and came back in with the specialist, he then talked to us for a bit, as well as played with Anthony, then he took Tyler and Anthony out of the room, to a play area, and came back, sat down, looked right at us and the words he said to us will forever haunt me. He said "I’m sorry but Anthony does have autism" My mind just went blank, I thought "this guy is NOT telling me my child has autism", "he’s wrong" , he said a lot of stuff after that but to this day I still can not remember what he said. It was like I saw his mouth moving but nothing was registering within my brain. They gave us a lot of information about autism, and we left. As we were driving home, it really hit me, and every piece of my heart broke that day. I felt as if I did this to my child, I did this to my beautiful perfect little boy. I started reading about autism, and soon found an article about mercury, ok this proves my point, I ate tuna while I was pregnant, and so that’s what caused it. Oh Wait, I had a lung scan with contrast when I was 6 weeks pregnant, the dye they used caused it, if I hadn’t agreed to have this scan done he would be ok, even if it was a life and death thing. At one point I even wanted to do an English paper about the effects of shots causing autism. I let the Dr Give him a shot, so there for it was my fault. I even went as far as approaching his Dr. about this, and thank God he set that record straight for me. I was looking for anything to blame myself for this, JUST so I would have an answer.
Then the anger set in, why my son, why my perfect baby, I begged God to just make it better, I even went through a stage where I was mad at God for doing this to my family. What did we do that was so awful to deserve something like this?
It's been almost 2 years since Anthony's DX and I have to say looking back at it and seeing him now, it's been a beautiful adventure. I know they say that a parent is suppose to teach a child however I have to strogly disagree with that, because Anthony has taught me more then I ever thought possiable. One huge thing that I had to learn is to see the world through his eyes and I have to admit we have one big amazing world. Once I was able to do that and only then was I able to help my child.
Anthony is now in special needs preschool and doing awsome! He's talking, sings, count to 10 in spanish. They are actually talking about mainstreaming him into a regular preschool program next school year, pulling him out for therapy!
I would like to say thank you for taking the time to read Anthony's story, and if you are one of them parents that just got that DX please remember it's nothing you did, autism can be very beautiful!
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