The A Word

I want to bang out a quick post before Aaron wakes up. It’s 8:10am and he’s still sleeping. I didn’t sleep well last night. I tossed and turned for many reason or a combo of reasons. Yesterday, Aaron had a follow up speech assessment. He’s been in speech therapy before. I honestly think he didn’t need it. Being enrolled at 21 months seems a bit extreme, but hell it never hurt anybody. All it was the ST teaching me ways to encourage his language development through play and every day things.


Yesterday, was a bit different. His ST said she wanted to send him for an autism referral. My jaw didn’t
drop. This had come up before and I dismissed as health care professionals overreacting. I’ve always dismissed he language delay to him being a boy and kids developing at their own pace. There are other things he does so well.


I can hear him waking so this can’t be long. As his mother, I am wondering if I have been in denial all along? He talks. He has words, he uses them in the right context. But there are little things that he doesn’t do.



When he is very engrossed in an activity, and we call his name, he will out right ignore us unless we shout is name. he also can’t answer yes or no to a question or shake his head yes or no. And he doesn’t always make eye contact when communicating with people. I wonder if this is something I’ve done by anticipating his needs? He also doesn’t call me “mommy” or “mama” or Eric “daddy” or “dada.”


It’s the little things. This will sound so cliché and somehow I wonder if I’ve failed him as a mother. I know I haven’t but I can be doing more. Last night I stayed up reading a text book that I never returned from an Early Language stimulation course I took last year. I used to feel guilty about losing it and not returning it, buy hey everything happens for a reason right?


The kicker is Liz. After I emailed Eric to tell him. I had to email Liz. I feel so bad. She must feel like fate is playing a cruel joke on her. She’s so close to having an egg donor then fate drops this bomb on her. But I guess it’s better than us having already gone through a cycle then her being pregnant me dropping that bomb on her. This is what’s keeping me awake. If hope Aaron if cleared of this so we can proceed with a cycle.


I don’t think that Aaron is autistic, but there is so a broad range on the spectrum. God how I know hate that
word. Spectrum. Such an ugly word. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard this word in the last 24 hours.


I’ve refrained from googling “Autism.” So far I’ve been good. But it wouldn’t surprises me if he had some form of it due to fate playing a cruel joke on us. Days before I found out I was pregnant Eric and I were vacationing back east and were visiting his grand parents and we were watching an episode of Oprah dedicated to autism. Eric said something to the effect I hope our kid doesn’t have it.


I am going to love my little boy and do I everything I can do to get his speech up while we wait.