I remember pretty vividly the day Coleman was born. My water broke in the middle of the night, my sweet friend Dacy who was on call, came over to be with my other two kids. And it was a blizzard of snow outside. It took us at least double the time to get to the hospital. Everything went well and easy, just like the other two and we went home with Coleman having a little jaundice. The next day we took him to get tested for his jaundice levels and he ended up having to stay in the hospital two more nights under the lights, where he screamed most of the nights. Before I was going to take him home, I was on the hospital bed with him and had a moment with him that I knew I wouldn't forget. It was a just a powerful feeling that he was a very special little boy who Heavenly Father sent to us. I know that it doesn't sound much different than what any mother would have with her new born child, but I knew it was different. At least different for me compared to the births of my first two.He grew up very normal and right on target developmentally, but he was a little more fussy. He loved books and could tell me what everything was, his animals, colors etc.. After he turned two, I remember thinking he wasn't quite where he should be. When I showed him toys he would sometimes ignore me and he just liked his certain things. I would joke around with Chad saying that I think he's deaf. But then again, that can be very "boy" normal. He just kept getting bigger and more and more tempermental, and I started to think he was just a little immature for his age. So when I went in for his 3 yr. check up, I told my pediatrition my concerns. As I watched her try to interact with him, he never looked at her and it took a lot of effort to get him to do what she asked. Physically he was right on target, but socially not so much. My doctor said, " I think he is fine, but did autism cross my mind?.., yes." The words hit me in the gut, thinking that there was no way. When I brought him into this same office when he was two, I filled out this paper about Autism and if he had any signs. I remember marking no for every one of them and the same doctor said, "oh this is just routine stuff to ask, but I can tell that Coleman is totally fine." After that I trusted her to catch him up on his shots, and he got 4 jabs, 6 immunizations. He did have a fever for almost a week and his legs were swollen, but hey, they say that is normal.
My pediatrition sent me to a Developmental doctor and I started to go through our school system to have him tested. The first school testing I took him to was not good. They took him in by himself to do the tests, and when I came in, the first thing they said was that they were very concerned. He couldn't tell them what shapes or animals were that they asked, but I thought to myself, "he knows those things at home." I could hardley hold back my tears when they were talking to me and when I left, I just cried and cried in the car. At least Chad was the strong one. His attitude was that Coleman was going to be fine no matter what the outcome. It was who he was and he came that way for a reason. He was the same sweet little boy who we loved, no matter what is development problems were.
After all this stuff started happening, I would see something about Autism somwhere every week. One sunday, I opened the newspaper, and the Parade magazine cover page was something like, "AUTISIM, is there any hope." I threw the paper down and went into the other room and cried. After that cry, I haven't cried about it until now that I am typing this.
We took him to the Developmental Pediatrition, he had us do a test, and after 4-6 weeks time, Chad took him back to the doctor for the results. Chad called me on his way home, told me that Coleman was High Functioning Autistic and the doctor gave us some papers and pretty much sent us on our way to do the work ourselves. By that time, I was almost relieved to know what we were dealing with and now I knew what to research. Coleman started preschool, and after the first day of screaming the whole time, he did great after that. The teachers were great and had such high hopes for him. We moved to Colorado shortly after, so the transition throughout the summer and getting moved in was a little rocky for Coleman.
Now he is in school again, and is doing so well. Academically he is advanced and we laugh at how he knows just as much or more of things than his 5 yr. old brother. He of course needs help socially and things like waiting his turn are not easy, but I think he functions pretty well. I don't think Coleman is a whole lot different until I get around other 3 yr. olds and see how they talk and how freely their conversations run. Little Colme has a pretty scripted vocabulary.
We found a DAN! doctor and after weeks and weeks of collecting urin, stool, blood, hair, and more and more blood, we will have a lot of knowledge of what is going on in his body. We meet with the doctor in a couple weeks to go over everything and we will start the Vit. B12 shots. I'm excited to see him continue to get better and better.
I have been thinking about writing about this for a while now. Mostly to get things documented and I knew the process of writing things out would be good for me. A while ago I was talking to my friend about different trials people go through and how we stand in awe about what people deal with in life. She asked me how I felt about Colemans autisim, and if I felt it was a trial. I honestly never really viewed it as a trial. Especially when I think about how much more other families have to deal with. Starting a gluten and dairy free diet will not be easy, but really very trivial to what things could be. I feel really blessed beyond measure for what I have. I have four beautiful children and a husband who really acts like the mom more than I do. He not only works hard in his job, but comes home and can make up for anything I have missed in the craziness of the day. He reads to the kids, helps them with their homework and still finds time to play, wrestle, jump on the tramp, and then run them to Karate or mini-poms. We truly have nothing to complain about, but all to be grateful for. I appreciate all my family and good friends who helped me throughout this process with Coleman. For all those who watched my other kids while we had doctor appointments and who were there just to listen. THANK YOU!
