Since it’s autism awareness month, I want to speak as a momma of my precious son Owen. You see, he’s always been a little quirky and different. There weren’t any “red flags” or the “typical” things you look for when you hear people talking about autism. But deep down, I think Grant and I knew something was different even from a month old.

 

What causes autism…

I can tell you this.  Those articles I see floating around about “we know what causes autism” or “if the mom hadn’t done this when she was pregnant” type of stuff causes a mixture of emotions for me.  Nothing I did when I was pregnant or when Owen was a baby caused him to be this way.

In fact, God makes no mistakes and knew exactly who Owen would be before he was even conceived.

So what causes autism?  I’m not 100% sure anything does except for genetics.  Owen’s cousin also has a form of autism, so genetics must play a huge role in it.

Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion.  But, unless you walk a day in an autistic parents shoes, I don’t feel like spreading those types of articles around are helpful.

It causes major guilt actually.  It makes autism moms think, “Did me being sick when I was pregnant cause this?”  “Maybe him getting vaccinated, although my other two children don’t have autism, caused this.”  “We didn’t give him enough affection or attention.”  “My water breaking early made his brain not develop fully.”

You know what?  Nope, nope, and nope.  First of all, autism doesn’t define my Owen.  He is a child of God, is smart, funny, sweet, a great friend, loves big, and is so into LEGOS.

People talking about “what causes autism” makes autistic children think something is wrong with them.  The only difference is their brain works a little differently and that’s ok!  My Owen sees the world in ways you could never imagine.  He will pick up the most random things in our house and will entertain himself for hours with it, like a paper clip.

I think in general, people just like to state their opinions on social media.  Along with having a child with autism, all three of our boys have different food allergies.  Wouldn’t you know it?  I’ve also been told what we did as parents, what I did when I was pregnant, or what we should be doing now to “fix the problem”.

For the love people, just for the love.

 

 

In the beginning…

I look back now and think about when Owen was a baby.  First of all, he was our first of three boys, so we had nothing to compare him to.  After my water broke at 37 weeks, he was born a healthy 6 pounds and 10 ounces.  The very first day in the hospital, he didn’t want to eat and I even had to pump colostrum and we had to teach him how to eat by sticking a syringe in his little mouth while he learned to suck on a pacifier.  But, he got the hang of it and he ate like a champ.

As a baby, he slept 12 hours a night from 6 weeks on.  Talking to friends of mine who had babies the same age, they were struggling to get 5 hours of sleep.  I remember Grant and I feeling like we were super parents or something.  The boy just loved to sleep and took great naps.

He met every milestone from talking, to walking, to speaking, to everything else on the checklist.  But, looking back now, I can see subtle things that stand out to me.  When he talked, he would have a hard time looking right at me.  I would get eye contact, but not for long.  He would play with one toy for a long time and would basically pick “the toy of the day” and nothing else.  He wasn’t a big snuggler and would rather rock a little bit, then just lay right down and go to sleep.  His body was stiff at times and it’s almost like he tensed up if he was touched too much.

I remember him being a toddler and would cry if it was too windy, he didn’t like running through the sprinkler, hated getting his hands dirty, and getting him to do something took about four times of being asked.

But like I said, there were no blatantly obvious signs he had autism and so we never mentioned it.

 

 

 

The preschool years…

At 3 years old, Owen went to preschool 2 mornings a week and at 4 years old went 3 mornings a week.  He had the same teacher both years.  Ms. Crystal and I talked about him, because he kind of marched to his own beat.

I would get there to pick him up and as all the other kids were waiting quietly in their chairs for their parents to pick them up, with their backpacks and jackets on, Owen’s chair was empty.  I had to wait for everyone to clear out of the classroom so I could get his little wandering around self to his cubby.  We then started the 15 minute process of getting his jacket and backpack on.

Owen has always loved to learn.  The problem is, he knew every letter, color, number, and shape before starting preschool and then would start to forget things little by little.  During conferences, Ms. Crystal would show me how if they learned the triangle and circle, he would forget the square and rectangle.  He started forgetting more and more letters and numbers and that alarmed us.  Basically, his brain could only retain so much at once, so he would push out old knowledge to replace it with new knowledge.

During centers, he would sit next to the kids and has always had a desire to make friends, yet he wouldn’t parallel play.  He would hyper focus on a toy and would be oblivious to what everyone else around him was doing.

We went with him on a field trip to the zoo.  While there, he wouldn’t stand up during the drive thru to look at the animals part and wanted to stay buckled in his seat belt on the bus.  When it was time to go, he cried and screamed and we couldn’t calm him down.  We started noticing these meltdowns starting to happen more often, and didn’t understand why.

Although we kept noticing more and more things, we agreed to wait until he started kindergarten full time to see what they noticed.  Wouldn’t you know it?  It took one month of him being in school for me to get an email from his teacher asking if we could meet.

 

 

Kindergarten through second grade…

His kindergarten assessment before even starting school is kind of a funny story.  The teacher (who is actually my middle sons kindergarten teacher now) brought Owen back to a room.  She took some bears off the table and asked him to count the ones remaining.  Instead of doing that, he asked her why she moved the bears and asked about the coffee stain on the table.  When she asked him to spell his name he said he already did (because he had practiced with me that morning). Then, when she asked him to say the alphabet he only said a few letters because he was still focused on the dang bears.

The fall came and he started kindergarten.  In September, I got an email asking if we could meet.  Basically, his teacher noticed everything the preschool teacher had noticed and more.  He was the last one to line up, wouldn’t sit to face her during carpet time, had to have her standing over him to redirect him on the task they were doing, and kind of wandered outside.

Our sweet boy did make friends and is a great friend to others.  When he plays though, he wants to “direct the show” and doesn’t like not knowing what’s going on.

We were going to test for sensory processing disorder, and something in my gut had me ask them to also test for autism.  He is at an AMAZING school, and they agreed, so we got the process started.  In March is when we had our formal 4 hour meeting to discuss everything.  The speech pathologist, psychometrist, his teacher, special ed. teacher, and us met to discuss.  Basically, all of the paper work, observations, and questions with Owen came back with a resounding, neon sign blinking, diagnosis of autism. The sensory processing and attention disorder all fall under the autism category also.

Right away, he started going to the resource room for math and writing and began meeting with the speech therapist for the language part of therapy.  We’ve made huge strides the last two years, yet have a long ways to go.  This year, Owen also started taking medication to help him focus,  which is working amazingly.

 

 

As a family…

Owen is our oldest son of three boys.  I know God had a plan when he designed our family.  He knew Owen would need built in best friends in his brothers Brady and Reece.  These boys love each other so much and are each others biggest fans.

Grant and I have learned so much over the years.  There is no manual that comes with an autistic child.  We have educated ourselves, cried together, laughed together, prayed a lot together, and know we are Owen’s parents for a reason.

We are constantly aware when we go out of crowds since he will walk off without telling us (because his mind is somewhere else).  Owen gets more exhausted than most kids, so we have turned friends down before when being asked to hang out because we know he will just end up crying and not be able to handle it.

Owen is learning to use his words more to express his feelings instead of just shelling up and getting upset.

Speaking of patience…everything he does, he needs more time.  Getting dressed, brushing his teeth, putting on his coat or shoes, eating a meal, taking a shower, etc. all take three times longer than his brothers.

But, Owen is teaching us to slow down and smell the roses.  Life doesn’t need to be rushed and he takes it at his own pace.  He really teaches us to not sweat the small stuff.

 

If you have a child with autism, I would love to hear your story too.