The Diagnosis

First, I would like to say that I think I would have eventually discovered the warning flags by myself, but instead we recieved a phone call when Nathan was just over 2 years old from my husbands sister. She expressed her concerns and shared her experience being educated in early childhood developement. With what I thought was completely normal, if anything I had a genious, apparently were signs of autism. My sheilds went up, automatically accusing her of 'How dare you say that! You don't even know our son' and demanded my husband to hang up the phone on her.

Once I settled down, I realized this was probably the hardest phone call she had ever made I called her back and we actually talked, and I saw what she was trying to say to me. I made an appointment with my family doctor who sent me to the pediatrician, who then sent me to the 'peds team'.

After a couple months of waiting, we started working with a speech and behavioral therapist, and a dietician. The first couple of visites Nathan showed his strengths in his letters and repetitive play, but wouldn't do what was expected of him, like pointing to a picture, he would get quite rigid and hard to handle. Let me tell you!! We went home and I worked so hard with him so the next time going in he could point to a bloody picture!!!

When we started with the peds team, Nathan was just turning 3 and was diagnosed at 24 months. Needless to say, this was quite the surprise to me, as he's so incredably smart. Every session we went to, I took the tools I learned and brought them home and continued his intervention working hard each day to bring him forward.

At this point, we've been working with this team of amazing people for 9 months. Throughout, they continued to encourage me to take him to a child phychologist for a confirmed diagnosis. Now, I've been hearing the words autism, and aspergers since we started this with Sara's phone call, but, I just couldn't allow myself to take that step. It wasn't denial, as I knew there were problems.. Just scared.

Finally, I talked to the peds team asking for another assesment, where is he at? I see so much improvement. He's such a joy now... etc. They again, encouraged me to see a child phychologist. I made the appointment and somehow with Nathan's age and the help of my pediatrician and the peds team we had an appointment in just a month, instead of a 6 month wait.

The appointments consisted of 4, 2 with just the parents and 2 with Nathan. The first one, Jason and I went in and talked for at least 3 hours. I was impressed and felt yes.. this is positive, we need this. The 2 appointments with Nathan were really quite cool, they took him into another room while we got to watch in another room on a TV what was going on. Watching them assess, and Nathan's reactions both made me proud and cry.

On the last appointment it was just Jason and I, we went in to go over the report and confirm the diagnosis. Yes, our child is on the autism spectrum. He has PDD-NOS. Although, this didn't really come as a surprise, I was still floored. The date was Dec 14th. I had to get through Christmas, the shock didn't hit me until after.