Member-only story
C and his Autism diagnosis.
The feelings that surround getting told your child has Autism.
My son C got diagnosed with level 3 ASD not long after he turned 2. I knew he had ASD. When I was in high school, I helped out in the special needs classroom. I worked with ASD kids, bipolar kids, and deaf kids. That is why I “knew” C had it.
At 13 months old, he was saying 5 words. Mama, dada, bubble, bye, and baba( brother). At 15 months old, he stopped saying those. It was like he went back to being a newborn. All he did was cry and grunt. There was no pointing at things, no talking, hand flapping. I had to fight with his doctor for her to send a referral for testing. It took what felt like forever to get her to listen to. Just after he turned 2, I got the call to schedule testing. I was told the testing would take 2 different days. 3 hours each day. Then, after 2 weeks, we would have the results. The 2 appointments were a week apart.
I took him to the psychiatrist for his first appointment. We were there the 3 hours. At the end of the appointment, she looked at me and said there was no need for the second testing day. She told us she would have the results. At that moment I knew for sure that that next week we would be told. It was a long week, but then again, it wasn’t. I started researching everything that I would need to know. The next…
