My son is normal. I've never questioned that. When he was born he was perfect, and I was a terrified single 19 year old mother. He hit all of his milestones, or so I thought. In hindsight, he never waved or really interacted with people. I just chalked it up to him being shy. I never thought anything was amiss, until a counselor suggested I see a doctor, since his speech wasn't up-to-par. I brushed it off, and just thought that all babies progress at their own rate and he would be fine. Then his 2 year check up came, and his doctor expressed concern about his lack of vocabulary as well and set us up an appointment with a speech specialist. We went in, my daughter just a few months old, and he did the evaluation. At the end, he asked me if I had ever considered autism, and shocked I said no, it hadn't even crossed my mind. That was when he gave me the diagnoses. After the appointment I called my mom and told her the news, and that night started devouring any information I could about autism. Everything I read made perfect sense. Where I had thought the flapping of his arms was a cute little quirk he did when he got excited, it was actually an autism trait. I always thought I just had a very independent and well-behaved little boy. Looking back I see it now-the inability to communicate, the tantrums when he couldn't get me to understand what he wanted, lining up his toy cars, never telling me he loved me even when I said it to him. He was in behavioral therapy and did extremely well, but it ended when we moved out of North Carolina and up to New York. It didn't matter, though, because if I thought he was excelling in therapy, he absolutely exploded when we moved. He is in his 2nd day of kindergarten in a regular classroom and loves school. He pretend plays, has an amazing imagination, and tells me that he loves me on his own.

Brittany
South New Berlin, NY