My husband and I had been blessed with two wonderful sons in our 13 year marriage. We always thought about one more child, and in 2012, that wish came true. Dylan Robert was born October 15, 2012 and our family was complete with our trio of boys. He was a perfect little bundle of joy and we just loved him to pieces. Our older sons were 11 and 9 at the time, so there was a bit of an age gap, but they loved having a new little brother. It really brought us all closer feeling like we were all somewhat 'raising' him. Dylan met every milestone timely, some even early. Crawling, walking, climbing.....however, he never made strong eye contact with anyone in our family and he wouldn't say any 'real' words, even after his first birthday. He mouthed everything he could get his hands on, he walked on his tiptoes, he only ate 'certain' foods and he loved to stack and un-stack tiny items over and over. We grew worried as we would look back at baby books and videos of our older sons and see Dylan was no where near either of them in certain areas. It just didn't seem 'normal'. I had friends and family who supported us and even brought up odd behaviors they had witnessed as well with Dylan. In December 2013, after multiple visits with neurologists, developmental pediatricians, psychologists, you name it. Dylan was diagnosed on the autism spectrum and sensory processing disorder. He currently does speech and occupational therapy weekly. This fall, he will be attending the Autism school in our state, which is a wonderful program for children and we are ecstatic he was able to get early intervention. Autism is not a disease. My son is perfectly happy and healthy. He shows us the world from a different perspective. He has made me a better person. Our family is closer. We are more patient. We celebrate the little things. We are his biggest supporters and we always will be. The world is a better place with Dylan in it!

Jennifer Sparks
Middletown, DE