"Your Princess Falls on the Spectrum."

Hello, Lovelies! Today, I wanted to do a bit of a follow up piece to the "Not MY Child" post.-- If you haven't read already, you can read here.-- seeing as how that was simply when the word "autism" entered our world. It hasn't left since, but there were steps that lead us to this point. If you are a parent of a child with autism, you're probably going to be at least remotely familiar with the process, though each of ours is different.

As I was leaving the appointment that fateful day, the doctor told me that she'd be setting up a referral to Early Intervention. What they would  do is evaluate the Princess and we'd go from there. I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I agreed, and then went home and proceeded to have my breakdown. A few weeks had passed before I heard anything at all about the appointment, and we were in the process of moving to a different town. When I told the lady on the other end of the line, she told me the best thing to do is wait until we know for sure when and where we are moving to, as we may be in a different county and therefore a different office would be taking over.

OK, time consuming, but at least I was able to ignore the greater problem for a bit. I'd been in a cocoon of denial anyways for the time being, so what was a couple more weeks? Finally, we found a place to move into, and were on our way. Which left me with the next step of contacting the Early Intervention people, and figuring out where to go from there. We had indeed moved to a new county, and had to go through the new office. They told me that they'd be passing the referral on to the new office, and I should get in contact with them in a few days. So far, all it had been was a whole lot of phone tag. Great fun!

Once I did get a hold of the new office, we set up the appointments. The previous office we had gone to had appointments within weeks. This new office had an appointment in three months. Longer wait, but feeding my now living, breathing butterfly of denial wasn't so bad. The three months passed by way to quickly regardless.

First, we started with an office visit. They tested her hearing, which was a totally new experience for me, since I had never gone through this process. The Princess in my lap in a booth with various toys and noises going on around us. All the while they're noting if she looks or responds in the direction to. She didn't always, so they put little ear buds in her ears and told me her ears where working properly. Maybe she was just distracted. Then we moved to a room where for about an hour and a half or so, we watched the Princess play. They asked me questions, they tried to get her to respond. They left the room to tally the score.

"She qualifies for early intervention," they told me, "but we're not autism specialists, so we can't say to that. We do recommend an autism screening." We signed up for it. So far all this means is that my Princess is very delayed, but we don't know much more. Yet.

The autism screening was even more different than the early intervention. They come to your home. I was so not prepared for that. Now it means on top of everything else, I have to make sure to keep my house clean? To my standards of clean for company, you'd barely know there are children living here. Alas, we must move forward, there is no going back. Over the next couple of months, we had various people come into our home, from special education teachers, to autism specialists, speech therapists, occupational therapists, the works.

In each, we'd sit in my living room while the Princess ran from her room out to the living room. And back again. They would ask me the same questions that I'd already been asked a dozen times before. Making notes. Always making notes. While I hated this process, I was more than happy to be doing what was best for the Princess.

After what seemed like forever in this process, it was time for the fateful meeting. Everybody was there, each and every one that had come and gone through my front door to observe and evaluate my beautiful little Princess. Now they were all sitting in my living room. Each with their notes, each with their opinions. One by one, they told me where they saw her delays and her successes. With each one, I look and nod and smile. All the while wondering, 'Yes, I know this. But what does it MEAN?'

Finally it was the autism specialists turn to talk. I focus in on her, looking for either my damnation or salvation. Whichever it chose to be. And then I heard it:

"Your Princess falls on the spectrum." I think my world went a little blank at that moment. The end of that meeting really is a blur. I think we spoke about some assistance's. We spoke about what this would mean for the Princess, and for us. We were now her autism team. Her support, and we would all be fighting for and with her.

That was around a year or so ago. Since then, I wouldn't say she's a whole new child. An improved version, yes. We are making progress, very slow, but it's still progress. I know that we made the right choice for her. I also know most of all, that I am blessed to know this beautiful girl, and for her to allow me to be in her world.