The Beginning

So as most of you know my son Hunter has autism and I decided to blog about or daily trials and tribulations and tell his story....Hunter is 9 now so I will bring you up to speed...Hunter was born on September 28,2001 at 1:05 pm and it wasn't an easy birth I dilated to 9 after 36 hours and ended up having to have a C-section.He was a happy baby and was developing normal as we thought he had alot of ear infections at first so when he was 14 months I took him to the doctor and explained to her I didn't think he was hearing good because he wasn't saying words or making sounds that all of the parenting books said he should be doing.The doctor examined him and said to me"I would say he has autism but he has good eye contact"my heart dropped when those words came out of her mouth.Autism was the new growing term used alot then and I had no idea what it was I just knew I had to help my baby.I did exactly as the doctor said not to do that day I looked up info in the internet.I had pretty much diagnosed him myself by reading what the signs were.One sign was rolling cars or trucks on the floor and staring at the wheels, yep he did that, another was opening and closing cabinet doors repetively, yep he did that too.That was all I needed to read and I just felt in my gut that he had autism.Over the next year we did everything to rule it out we had hearing tests and all were normal it was going to be a waiting game because they usually do not diagnose Autism until children are 3 or 4 is what my doctor told us.We immediately got him in speech therapy and boy that was not fun he did not want to cooperate when we took him he wanted out of that room.Not to mention it was costly the insurance would cover 10 visits with a copay of $100 and had we had the Autism diagnosis at that time it would of not been covered at all.Hmmm....I was told to contact the Monroe County Isd after our 10 speech therapy visits ran out to see if we could get help from them and that was when I met some of the greatest people I know.Hunter was now 2 and they came to our home and evaluated him and told us he could attend preschool in the fall because he was definetly showing signs of delay.