How we got here....

It was November of 2014 that my husband and I (newlyweds, I mean married for one month at the time) found out we were pregnant! Along with both of our families, we were beyond ecstatic to bring the first grandchild on both sides into this world. My husband a Structural Engineer and myself a middle school Special Education Teacher, we were ready to add parents to those descriptions. We had a very uneventful "normal" pregnancy with no major concerns throughout. Our son Alan, who we lovingly refer to as "Alley" was born on August 18th, 2015 after a pretty tumultuous 24 hour labor. I like to say that he has rocked our world since the day he was born and turned it upside down entering the world during a tornado!

As new parents, we were just happy to have him. He was our first and we had a lot of learning to do. We watched him grow and develop just like any first time parents, anything he did was perfect. Looking back I see a lot of things that had come up that could be considered "red flags" of developmental delays. But he was perfect and nobody could tell us differently. Both my husband and I were still working during Alleys first year of life and it is hard. It is hard being a working parent, it is hard being a stay at home parent. It is just all hard and if anyone tells you differently, I wouldn't trust them.

Eventually we decided that I was going to retire from teaching early (real early) and stay at home with Alley and our second baby on the way. We wasted no time, I mean NO time. Vinny is our second son and him and Alley are only 19 months apart. Our third, Joey was shortly after that as well. Being a pregnant emotional exhausted Mom, Alleys developmental doctor appointments were always heartbreaking. During them we would have to fill out the milestone tracker and he would fall short on many categories every single time. I found myself and my husband reeling in our brains trying to remember that one time he had done something on the list and cling onto hope that it was enough to check it off. It was like we NEEDED to check those boxes not for our son, but for ourselves. As we progressed as a family, and Alley grew more and more physically, there was always something missing cognitively. His voice. He has never had a voice. He may have babbled and said a word here and there but then they were gone. To this day he is six and is nonverbal.

We received the diagnosis of Autism when Alley was 18 months old. This was on our radar at his fifteen month check up from his pediatrician. We knew it, our family knew it, we expected it. But to hear it formally after having him for eighteen months, was a hard shift. A new level of heartbreak for our family. Some people do not feel what we felt, and that is great that they didn't. Every journey with Autism is different, just like every child.

Here we are, six years later still navigating this ever changing journey. I wanted to start this page to have a safe space for parents of children with Autism because there was nothing like this when we began. Whether it is ideas, connection, support, friends, a community, anything you need while navigating your journey, I hope you find it here. I know I can use a community of people just like me and I hope you can too.

With grace-

This Autism Mama