Here we go again.....

So, I'm not going to lie. Going through this process with one child is tough. It's taxing, and some day's can be both emotionally and physcially draining.

Now, imagine if you were doing it X 2.

Yup, you read that correctly. Now, we are facing the potential of having two children who fall under the autism spectrum.

We've noticed the odd quirk about our 3 year old daughter, but never really knew if it was my daughter feeding off my son, mimicking him or if it was just her natural reaction. We've noticed her covering her ears when she is startled, not liking tags from the clothing that are located on the side and more recently walking on her tip toes. She is also currently in a pre school program, and her teacher's had mentioned to us that her fine motor skills appear to be behind the other children in the program. The red flag for me was when the teacher added on the sentence, it wouldn't concern us if she wasn't so smart.

I can almost recall those same words being said about my son when he was younger.

So while in the midst of having one child diagnosed, I started asking questions and making phone calls. There didn't really seem to be a fine line saying yes persue this, or no - see what happens. Alot of it just boiled down to her being so young still.

One of the questions during my son's assessment was if he had any siblings on the spectrum. Having just had the conversation about my daughter the week before, we answered honestly. We didn't know. We proceeded to fill in the psychologist (who also has a background in autism) as to the signs we were seeing and made aware of.

At the same time I received the phone call about considering our son switch schools, my son's resource teacher also had said that they discussed Shelby during the team meeting and we were strongly urged to consider having her tested given my son's diagnoses.

At the peditrician's appointment my son had last week I also mentioned my daughter and some of the concern's. She quickly added my daughter as her patient and made a referal for us to talk with Trellis. Trellis called last Thursday and I spent a good chunk of time that morning, recounting her infant years and answering questions. The end result, there is someone who will be coming out to observe her on Friday morning and see if this needs to be taken further.

Meeting at the autism center with my son Thursday, and having a professional observing my daughter Friday morning.

Wish us luck, this is shaping up to be quite the week!