My daughter Lily is 16 months. 5 days ago, I was watching the news and saw a clip on a website about autism called www.autismspeaks.org . Intrigued, and because I always had this strange suspicion that my daughter might be effected by this disorder, I decided to check it out. The first video I watched was of a little boy, 12 months who was "typical". This little boy answered to his name, he looked at his Mom when she spoke, he showed her things and pointed to things she was talking about in books. My heart sank. I immediately emailed my husband (who was underway with the Navy). All through my daughter's bedtime routine, and 2 hours of work following that, I had a horrible sinking feeling inside of me. Something was not right.
As can be expected, at first my husband disagreed. He said, "No way does our daughter have that, she is just a baby, Sarah. She is just in her own little world" Those words stabbed me like a knife, as I knew that is the exact description I have used to describe autism to others in the past.
I emailed my mother, I searched the internet, I read as much as I could over the next 24 hours. The more I read, the more I knew. The more I knew, the more I realized. My beautiful, perfect daughter has autism.
It hurts, it hurts so deep inside and then it makes me feel guilty for hurting.
But she is still my Lily, she has never changed. She is the same girl she has always been. The same beautiful, innocent, giggly, happy, smart girl that I love.
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Have you had her properly tested? Before she retired, my mum used to work with autistic adults and there are ALL SORTS of tests that need to be done before someone can be properly and officially diagnosed. And there are many things to be found out too, like where (if she IS diagnosed) on the autism continuum she lies- is it mild? moderate? all that sort of thing. The testing and diagnosis MUST be done by a qualified professional, it's not something that can be diagnosed off the internet or TV. She's so young now, it may be a case that she might just be a late developer. One of my friends from elementary school didn't speak a full sentence until he was six years old. He was just a late developer.
One thing to remember is that to a certain extent, EVERYONE lies SOMEWHERE along the autism continuum....that's what it is, a continuum. It's nothing to be ashamed of at all. It's such a common thing now as the tests for diagnosing it are getting better and better, it's just something that isn't talked about very much in society. It's like uterine polyps- so common later in life, but so little talked about that it means that so many women have unecessary cancer scares.
And another thing, it reflects NOTHING about you as a mother.
You know we're all here for you
*HUGS*
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