Autism and Siblings…Now What?
Autism Awareness month has ended and we now have an official diagnosis…for the second time. Let me clarify.
My son received a very early diagnosis thanks to my daughter. You see our girl had her difficulties in language development leading to early intervention services. Yet no autism diagnosis.
We did the developmental doctor visit and left with a language developmental delay and sensory processing disorder as I was hugely pregnant with our son. Do I dare say relief?
As our daughter’s language developed it was a breath of fresh air. As our son grew into his second year language did not happen.
We knew. We knew to call in the early intervention team that once graced our home with their love and support for our daughter.
Did we know autism was knocking at our door? The answer for me was no way!
That diagnosis was one of the hardest moments for me to face. The guilt of what I did wrong in pregnancy and that first year of life.
It was almost a year before we openly talked about autism to the world.
Our son had a birthday meaning he was not going to blow out those candles. He was not going to sing and he was not going to open presents. None of these things interested him but we knew his big sister would enjoy every moment.
Now let me not bore your readers with years of therapy and move on to the growth as our son flourished and our daughter started to decline. We knew.
We have known from the start that she was autistic. We cannot be upset with the medical professionals who didn’t see the signs because we didn’t see them or more honestly didn’t want to it.
We walked away satisfied with that language delay. We walked away with hopes she would catch up. We had hope.
This year has been a real. Our son let us into his world of autism as we dug deeper into ABA therapies and found our community.
We started to get questions from other professionals in our little community bubble and more importantly questions from other parents with children on the spectrum.
Here was our need to finally push for our daughter for what we knew from the start. Her official diagnosis brings new hope this year.
You know what they say…if you have met one child with autism then you have met one child with autism.
Our children and their ASD are total opposites. Not just by age but social interactions, language development and all those characteristics that come along with autism.
So, as we wrap up another autism awareness month please remember that we celebrate autism year round. We comfort in the bad and cheer in the good.
We do not go back into hiding as May comes around then summer into fall and winter and back to the spring again.
We love our children for all that they are and all the hope we have ahead for them to change the world for the better. We are so lucky for them both.
They bring us laughter and happiness that no other can touch and for that we are obsessively grateful.
Written by, Brandy Haid
Brandy Haid is a mom to Izabella and Garrent, wife to Matthew and work at home mom both in sales and fitness. Brandy lives in Hurricane, WV and is involved with her local autism community group to speak acceptance and support for all families with children on the autism spectrum. You can find her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bhaid and Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/
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