More News and Research

In the last post I mentioned that we had some more news last week. The day before the ultrasound appointment we had a long-awaited appointment with a developmental specialist. Our pediatrician had recommended a while back that we take Ryan in because of his language delay and some other things she had noticed. SO . . . the dr. kind of turned our world upside-down last Tuesday when he told us Ryan is autistic.



I debated whether to even blog about this because it is something so personal, but I feel that even if it's just for myself I need to get the feelings out there. I've had an experience with a friend already that wasn't easy. This friend, when told of the diagnosis, quoted to me from a book written by Micheal Savage, the radio commentator. His view of autism is extremely harsh. He basically said that autistic kids are little brats whose parents haven't disciplined them and who probably don't have a daddy around. WOW! Needless to say, I am very grateful for the friends who have been supportive and understanding.



Ryan has been more difficult than his sisters, but the main indicators of this have been other things. For one, his language is almost non-existent. He will say words occasionally but he has lost some of his language. I cried the day I realized he wasn't saying "I love you" anymore. He used to say "Grandma" and his full name and all of that has been lost. It's so strange. There are MANY other things that he does differently from other kids that we didn't even realize. For instance, he has never pointed at anything. That doesn't sound significant but it's an indicator. He will laugh and cry and scream at inappropriate times. (The laughing has often happened in the middle of the night.) He'll walk and run on his tiptoes and go in circles over and over. He doesn't make eye contact as well as he should, but thankfully he does make some eye contact. He also has a really difficult time processing sensory input.

I guess we have our work cut out for us as far as figuring out how to help him. I'm glad we found out now when he's only three years old. I love my baby boy!

Baby News! It's a . . .

GIRL!

Yep, it looks like we're going to be seeing more pink around here for the next several years.

Sigh.

This has been a really hard couple of days. We got some rough news yesterday that is going to take some time and adjustment, but it is what it is. (That was yesterday, not to be confused with the baby news of today.) I'm happy we did the ultrasound to find the gender because there were a lot of feelings for both Ethan and I. You don't think it's going to matter, but it was emotional despite our best intentions.

The baby is super healthy so that is great, of course. However, when the ultrasound tech said I have the "bad luck of the draw", I could only imagine what she was going to say. Apparently I have complete placenta previa. I'm sure everyone is familiar with this. They say that when it's partial at this point there's a good chance the placenta could move out of the way, but since mine is just completely covering the cervix it's not likely to move. This means we have to really watch for bleeding. There's a possibility of having to go on bedrest. (Yeah, I'm not even going to think about that right now.) Also, there's a really good chance we'll have to do a c-section.

This isn't all bad news. Our baby is healthy, so that's all that really matters. I think I just need to take a nap and not think about everything else right now. Prayers are appreciated. :)

Crazy Hair Night

Last night was Crazy Hair Night at AWANA. Allie is on the blue team so we went with that as our theme and cut a bunch of fabric strips from old, stained clothes. (Luckily for us we still had a bag in the garage waiting to go to the ARC.) She told me she was the ONLY kid who didn't have hair color in her hair. Who would've thought?