Autism is a word that I have feared since I noticed Jack at 12 months was not talking or showing any signs of receptive or expressive communication. He had a blank stare to match his blank eyes.
Jack had been a seemingly normal baby. He slept and ate, sometimes he was fussy and sometimes he was content. We were thrilled when he was born five years ago. He was a wonderful addition to our 2-year-old daughter. My husband, who is Jack's namesake, was ecstatic to have a little boy. He began to dream of football and playing catch where I began to dream of that special bond between a mother and her son.
In addition to Jack's "blankness" came some other tendencies - rocking, some flapping, and frustrated temper tantrums. We visited our pediatrician who said not to worry yet, but gave us some resources. We called immediately.
Needless to say, none of these therapies or clinics were helpful at all. They threw us a few hours of therapy a week and sometimes they would not show up. Meanwhile, Jack was slipping away, along with our dreams of little league and elementary school and friends. Now, we were facing an unknown future of therapy and constant supervision.
Noah's Story - "The unending 'why' questions, the 'I love you daddy' times, and everything in between… it’s priceless."
As written by Darrin, father
I remember the first time we walked into Quest. It seems like just yesterday. We had no idea the incredible journey we were about to embark on with our family… Which takes me back to the days when we were trying to start our family. My wife and I were married for a number of years before we realized we were not able to get pregnant on our own. So we turned to a fertility specialist. It took a couple of tries until we were finally successful, but after only a short time we lost our little baby.
That was one of the most devastating things we have ever had to go through in our lives. That is what turned us toward adoption. My wife always had a heart for adoption, but I was the one always dragging my feet. After losing our baby, I was ready to look into adoption.
Which brings me to the first day we saw our baby boy. We got to bring Noah home from the hospital when we was just 3 days old. We couldn’t believe we were parents. For months we would stay up late just watching him sleep. We couldn’t believe he was our baby. Everything seemed perfect. We couldn’t have been happier. As Noah grew, my wife, who is an incredible mom, noticed that he was hitting certain benchmarks in his development, but not others. Ashley wanted to get him help, but once again, I was dragging my feet. I kept thinking, he will be just fine. I even had the support of our pediatricians, who told us, “Just wait – he’ll be fine. He just needs time to grow out of it.” Little did we know that was the one thing we didn’t have much of: “TIME.” Fortunately for all of us, especially my son, my wife didn’t listen to any of us. She kept pushing for him.
