The Journey Begins

Pierce had a bit of a rough start in life. I had preterm labor in my seventh month, so I was put on medication and bed rest for four weeks. Five weeks before my due date, I was told it was safe to stop taking the medication, but within twelve hours, I was in active labor. When Pierce was delivered, he was barely breathing. He was immediately placed on a ventilator, and he needed it for the first eighteen hours of life. He received another twenty four hours of oxygen nasally after being taken off of the vent. Pierce spent five days in the NICU, but once we brought him home, he was the picture of health. He became a very chubby and happy baby. With the exception of a couple of ear infections, he had no complications the first year of his life. He was a little slow to crawl and walk, but that is pretty typical for a preemie. He had a couple of words at nine months like "dada" and "doggie", but at twelve months, I noticed that he had stopped using them and was just babbling nonsense. The pediatrician didn't seem too concerned, because he was a preemie. She also explained that she had a speech delay as a child, so our doctor was confident that Pierce would catch up just as she had. By the time Pierce was fifteen months old, I was getting more concerned. When he was eighteen months old, my pediatrician finally decided it was time for some speech therapy. I remembered watching an episode of Montel Williams that dealt with the topic of autism recently, so I asked the pediatrician if this could be a possibility. Her question to me was, "Will he smile at you and let you hold him?". I answered yes, so her conclusion was that he couldn't be autistic. Pierce received speech therapy for over a year, but he didn't seem to make much progress. We noticed some strange behaviors like an aversion to loud noises and horrible tantrums, but we continued to be reassured that his only problem was a speech delay. Reagan was born when Pierce was three months shy of his third birthday. Like most first born kids, his world was rocked. However, Pierce seemed to be seriously disturbed that there was a squalling newborn in the house. He refused to be in the same room with her, and if he had to be around her, his hands were clamped over his ears. One day, when Reagan was only six weeks old, she was crying from her bouncy seat that I'd placed in a chair in the living room. I was busy in the kitchen, and before I could get to her, Pierce, being unable to take the noise any longer, ran to her and shoved her bouncy seat onto the floor. I freaked out and rushed Reagan to the pediatrician. When I explained what happened, this was the first concern I saw from our doctor about Pierce's behavior. Still, she seemed to believe he had some anger issues that needed intervention. When we checked out the program that she referred us to, we decided that it just didn't seem to be the right solution. After speaking to a dear friend that was very concerned about the treatment we were receiving, we made the decision to seek out another pediatrician. A month later, Pierce turned three. Having been identified as a child needing early intervention with speech therapy, he could now receive treatment in the public school system. Pierce started a special education pre-school program in the fall of 2001. After being there for a few months, his teacher shared some concerns about Pierce's behavior. She saw some red flags that could indicate autism. He was tested by a school psychologist, but her conclusion was that he was not autistic. In his second year of pre-school, Pierce seemed to be more and more in his own world, so the decision was made to test him again. In the meantime, we took matters into our own hands and had an appointment made at Vanderbilt's Child Development clinic. Both the school system and Vanderbilt came to the same conclusion in the spring of 2003: Pierce was autistic. Based on that decision and the fact that he was still so far behind his peers, we held Pierce back for one more year of pre-school. This time, he would be at a school with a blended pre-K program. This class had a few special needs kids mixed in with the average students. Pierce was given an educational aide. She kept him on task, and Pierce was able to hang with the "normal" kids. With that extra year of pre-school, Pierce was prepared for a mainstream kindergarten classroom. He was once again assigned an educational aide that stayed by his side all day, every day. I was so worried that he would be teased because he was different, but his classmates absolutely loved him. His kindergarten teacher told me great stories about how understanding and patient the other kids were with Pierce. He definitely had struggles, but we were confident that he would thrive in this setting as opposed to a full-time special education classroom.

This is a rather condensed version of how our journey into the world of autism began. It's not the path that I would have chosen, and I sometimes wish things had turned out differently. My favorite Bible verse is Romans 8:28--"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." I can already see good things happening because of what we have endured (details are forthcoming in a later post). In my next post, I'll give a summary of how Pierce is doing today.