2 and a half years later...

It has been almost 3 years since my last post...we have been busy.  Narnia is now 4 years old and Noah will be turning 4 the end of this month.  They both have therapy 20 hours a week and the changes we have seen in them have been incredible.  Both Narnia and Noah are able to communicate and interact so well that Jim and I often get confused looks from people when we tell them that our children have autism.  Narnia is able to do 65 piece puzzles completely unassisted and her coloring skills are out of this world.  Noah loves to use his wooden train tracks and construct railway sets that would make any engineer jealous.  They both attend preschool at a near by Christian school and seem to be thriving there.  The past 3 years have been extremely difficult, good, scary, fun, and fast.  Although both Narnia and Noah have progressed beyond what we thought possible, they are still autistic and we still have a crazy life.  One thing we discovered a couple years ago was that we couldn't always do activities that families with typical children could do.  We would try to take them on different outings and, more often than not, ended up leaving 10 minutes in with screaming children.  Due to their autism, they tend to get overstimulated easily, especially Narnia.  For example, a carnival or fair would be a child's dream outing; however, with so many options of things to do and so many people running around, Narnia and Noah would quickly become overwhelmed and start throwing a temper tantrum not long after arrival.  So, we got creative and began doing activities that worked for us and started saying "no" to outings that would lead to frustration, tantrums, and tons of wine at the end of the day.  Being a parent of children with disabilities, I can honestly say that it is a whole lot easier to stay home than to go out and risk one or both of my kids having a meltdown in public.  So, to counteract the hermit life style, we began making bucket lists each season to make sure that we got out and did something fun together as a family.  The outings are ones which we can come and go from as needed, have lots of space to run around in, and do not cost much, if any, money.  Some of our favorite things are: visiting the zoo, going to the beach, playgrounds, and going for walks.  We also started doing family movies nights, complete with a movie themed dinner,a craft and a game.  Sometimes it is hard to not be able to take them out to eat or out to see a movie, but we do what works for us and our family is better for it.
Next time:  Noah James

Spring in winter

                                                                      
I never wanted to have children.  However, one week after saying our wedding vows, Jim and I conceived a baby girl.  I was devastated and extremely sick.  I spent most of the pregnancy in bed, doped up on anti-nausea medicine.  I would constantly pray that I would have a miscarriage and that life would go back to normal.  It wasn't until sometime in the second trimester that I began to get excited about having a little girl.  After a healthy delivery of our little Narnia, I was immediately struck with post-pardem depression.  I couldn't stand being in the same room with her, I was constantly having panic attacks, and when I held her it felt like I was suffocating.  We fought to get some help from the medical profession, but not much came of that.  After about a month I began to somewhat adjust to having Narnia in the house, although depression was also a constant companion.  To be honest, I do not remember the first 3 months of Narnia's life.  I am so glad we took a lot of pictures during that time. 
About 2 months after Narnia's birth, I found out I was pregnant with Noah- so I spent the first year of Narnia's life pregnant with her brother.  After Noah's birth, I got post-pardem depression even worse than I did with Narnia (more on that later).  After having two babies 11 months apart and developing severe depression and anxiety, I was looking forward to things getting somewhat better.  I remember desperately praying that I would not get post-pardem with Noah and feeling that God really let me down when I did.  When we found out that Narnia had autism, it felt like another slap in the face.  One night, after I had fallen asleep, I woke up scream-crying and telling Jim, "This can't be happening!  She's perfect, she's my baby!  This can't be happening!!"  There is something that's built into the heart of a mother that cannot seem to believe that there is something physically or mentally wrong with her baby.  I went thru times of thinking that somehow this was my fault; that maybe because I had post-pardem depression and couldn't hold her a lot in the beginning that somehow that caused this to happen to her.  The truth is, that I can never really know what caused this, so I had to stop trying to figure out why it happened and begin the process of acceptance. 
Having Narnia was one of the most intense things I'd ever done.  Not in the sense of physically having her, but emotionally having her.  It felt like pushing out one of my internal organs and watching it walk along outside of my body.  And, finding out that Narnia had autism was like watching that organ begin to fail and there was nothing I could do about it. 
Narnia's name means "spring in winter".  I didn't know that was it's meaning when we decided to name her that, but I find it very fitting- especially now.
God and I are still trying to repair our relationship in regards to all of this.  There are questions I have for him that I feel he needs to answer in order for us to move forward in our love affair. 
In recent news, Narnia has started having therapy five days a week and she seems to be responding very well to it.  She has 35+ words now and can communicate much better than before. 
I think that is all I can process thru for now.  *Breathe*

Narnia Grace

Narnia turned 2 on March 3rd, 2012.  2 months after her birthday she still couldn't say any words.  It stung every time I would try to get her to say "mama" and she would look at me with a blank expression on her face.  Since we knew it would be several months before she started therapy, Jim and I decided to try vitamin therapy with her.  In this case, vitamin therapy is using high doses of certain vitamins in an attempt to decrease the incidence of certain symptoms, as well as increase positive behaviors.  So, in the beginning of May we started Narnia on two different liquid vitamins, and by the middle of May she went from having no words to having four.  She now has 30+ words that she can say and identify.  Needless to say, Jim and I are quite sold on the benefits of vitamin therapy and use it for both Narnia and Noah. 
Narnia's disorder not only affects her language skills, but also causes some major behavior problems.  She is non-compliant and can be very aggressive.  At daycare, she bites other children- sometimes because she wants a toy they have and sometimes for no apparent reason at all.  She has a difficult time with routine transitions, especially if she was doing something she really enjoyed.  She will throw a tantrum involving thrashing around on the floor, hitting her head against walls, hitting others, and screaming.  One time, Jim, Noah, Narnia and I were outside and had to come in for supper.  Narnia didn't want to stop what she was doing, so a trantrum began.  Once we were all inside, I saw that she was literally pulling her hair out in clumps.  I had to sit her in my lap and hold her arms down so that she wouldn't keep pulling it out.  While she failed and screamed, I just restrained her and cried.  I was covered in clumps of her hair.  It was so sad.  She was such a different person, I just kept thinking, "This can't be my daughter.  What happened to my baby?  This can't be my daughter.  This can't be my life." 
Narnia also has a hard time transitioning out of activities she doesn't want to do anymore.  For example, she will be playing with bubbles and having lots of fun, but after awhile her facial expression changes and she starts getting aggrivated.  Although she she doesn't want to continue doing that activity, she doesn't know how to stop doing it.  Sometimes she will keep doing an activity until she physically can't do it anymore and ends up having a trantrum. 
There are ways which this affects me that I can't even begin to communicate, but I will try to relate the ones I can next time.

A brief lesson in pyschology

Autism is a complex neurobiological condition that impacts normal brain development.  There are varying degrees of autism which fall along what is called the autistic spectrum.  It can impact social interactions, language development, and patterns of behavior.  Just like no two typical people are alike, neither are two people with autism alike.  However, there are general behaviors that people with autism typically tend to exhibit.  There is still a lot of uncertainty in the medical world regarding the causes of autism, but factors such as environment and genetics are areas under high scrutiny.  There has also been research done on the possible link between vaccines and autism; however, depending on whether the medical profession is funding the research, the results can be biased. 
The different types of autism are autistic disorder, asperger's disorder, pervasive development disorder, rett's disorder, and childhood disintegrative disorder. 
Narnia has been diagnosed with autistic disorder.  Noah will be assessed at the end of August. 
Next time, more on how Narnia's disorder manifests itself.

So it begins

 Narnia Grace is 2 1/2 and Noah James is 1 1/2 years old- both have autism.  We are just in the "start of therapy" stage and therefore, are still learning how to swallow with these dry throats of ours.  My husband (Jim) and I have been married for 3 years this past May.  We had a whirl wind romance spaning 9 months, were married, and became pregnant 6 days after the wedding.  After the birth of Narnia, about two months past and we discovered we were pregnant again.  Noah James arrived on the scene in January of 2011.  Since then, we have had to endure strange looks when people ask Narnia what her name is and she cannnot answer them, stop Noah from sitting on the floor in stores and spinning endlessly around in circles, cart them both to countless pyschological evaluations and pediatrician appointments, wait out temper tantrums lasting up to two hours, and try to learn to accept and live a life we never 'sewed' for ourselves.  This is my process thru the greys and into the colors.