THE DISCOVERY… and the overwhelm…A mixed bag of lovely.
So… let me tell you about how we found out that there was more going on with Jack than just delayed speech…
Jack was born at the end of an era… the last year ever to be known as ‘pre-covid’. My husband has three other children, A son, and girl and boy twins. My beautiful step children. At the time they lived in Suffolk and we wanted them to know Jack so the plan was always to move to Suffolk for a year during my maternity and hopefully we could all bond as an extended family. We finally found the right rental in August 2019 and moved in October 2019. We’d committed so despite my maternity basically coming to an end in the October, we moved and I started work part time with one day back in London. The first few months were a blur of unpacking nursery visits, childcare at home and one of the best Christmases we’d ever had, with the ‘Big Three’ spending it with us in our gorgeous house in the fields on a lane with an AGA. My absolute dream.
In January 2020 Jack started to walk then he was whacked with a viral infection and the worst conjunctivitis I’ve ever seen. He got sick again in March and I suspected it was the same illness as the one in January and at this point I realised it was Covid. I then went down with it and we had a very rocky summer.
My contract had run out on the 12th of March and we went into lockdown on the 22nd. What are the odds? So again these facts chalk up to my ‘was it this’ when in the wee small ones I run over and over the details of what might be the cause of the ASD diagnosis.
Jumping ahead to 2021 we decided not to move back to London and instead had a very stressful time selling our flat and attempting to buy. During the lead up to the move on July 21st Jack really suffered serious sleep degradation. He was awake 3-4 hours a night between Nov 20th and May 21st. It was a case of running on adrenaline and when the sale and purchase went through and we were in the new house the axe really fell!
As we didn’t quite know what was happening we had enrolled Jack at a nursery in Kersey Mill, a midway point between where we were buying and where we were renting. Hedging our bets. we knew he could be tricky and also we obviously knew he wasn’t talking yet but we just thought it was delayed, some kids are slow starters and physically he was super active, strong and big (I know now that despite what any of the professionals say… DON’T WAIT) if there is a delay then there is something not quite developing in the correct way in the brain so the sooner you can start to look at and work on imbalances the better. Don’t get me wrong, some kids can catch up or compensate or make up for any issues but those issues often don’t get healed at root cause and it might be mild sensory or other seemingly ‘emotional’ responses that sprout later on. Anyway, my point is if it’s not regular behaviour or skills then there is a reason.
I won't go into detail of the odious and awful awakening that was delivered to us by the women who owned and ran the nursery, who called us in to tell us in no uncertain terms that Jack had developmental issues and who (it transpired) had been restraining him in his pram for much of the time that he was at the nursery. It makes my blood boil to think about it, and how they were caught out red handed by the Health Visiting team member (that they had requested come and observe Jack) and who they had forgotten was coming. Suffice to say she assessed him in the morning, came to see us in the afternoon and Jack never went back.
THAT… was the beginning of our journey and it has been a roller coaster ever since.