Round III - The "A" Bomb

December 19, 2006. Dirty Job, myself, and Local Grandma head into the developmental pediatrician's office. The rooms are different than a normal doctor's office, instead having a TON of toys, a set of stairs, and a kid sized small round table with a couple of chairs.

Dirty Job begins exploring the room and not too long after, the dp (developmental pediatrician) joins us. She begins an extremely long series of questions, many of them being ones that I already answered on the intake form, which to me was extremely frustrating. We were just here for a speech delay!!!

As the dp was observing Dirty Job, she asked other questions - questions regarding his interaction with others, whether or not he plays appropriately with toys, if he tries to do things independently - even when it would be easier to seek help. She asked if he had any peculiar behaviors, such as head banging, arm flapping, rocking. As I thought through each question, I remember trying to be so very accurate.

After a couple of hours of questions, observation, and testing (yes, he tested!), the dp asked me what I thought was up. And I told her, I think he's speech delayed, and an active boy, and that we would be watching for ADD or ADHD markers as he got older, because, HELLO, have you met his dad?

She responded by telling me about autism. And that she suspected my son, my not quite 2 year old, had it.

Talk about rockin this mama's world. Talk about feeling closed in on. There are very few things I remember her saying after that. I remember her handing me an article called Welcome to Holland, which strangely enough, I had heard before at a conference for Special Needs Kids Ministries.

The other thing I remember the dp saying is that I needed to practice saying AUTISM until I could say it like any other word, like spaghetti. And I remember thinking "I will NEVER, EVER be able to say that word as if it's like spaghetti....we're talking about my son."