PARENTING AUTISM The Early Years: How We Found Hope and Peace on Our Unexpected Journey

PARENTING AUTISM The Early Years: How We Found Hope and Peace on Our Unexpected Journey

True stories from parents who live in the daily trenches of autism give readers a deeper understanding that professionals who work in the autism field cannot provide. Although every autism journey is different, there is common ground. Every parent wants to know why it happened to their child. Every parent feels lost and wonders what to do next. Every marriage is affected by grief and the different ways that each parent reacts to the life-changing news of their child's autism diagnosis. This is our parenting story - a story that needs to be shared with the world. People want to have hope and feel peace. How did we find it? How did we forge our way through the unknown and depression that followed our son's stroke and autism diagnosis? We keep it real in this book with full transparency and vulnerability in hopes of helping others relate to our stories and find encouragement. We share our parenting journey which began with our first miscarriage followed by the loss of our first son in a second miscarriage due to Trisomy 18. Our third pregnancy gave us Bryce, our miracle boy! He survived a grade IV brain hemorrhage that happened the day after his birth. We talk about our time in the NICU and his recovery was also an inexplicable miracle. When Bryce turned two, he was able to stop taking his seizure medication. What we expected to become a new season with no more specialized care had an unexpected change. Bryce began losing his language and stopped engaging with us. Our boy who was so happy and full of life had disappeared. Thinking that the changes were related to his stroke, the diagnosis of autism took us by surprise. In addition to the steps that we took to help Bryce learn how to talk again, we share parenting stories that may make you laugh and cry. Chris talks about his bout with depression, while I talk about how having autism in our home affected our marriage. We share our attempts to send Bryce to a regular school setting but had to change plans to home school. Our story also includes our holistic approach to treat Bryce with functional medicine. Do you feel lonely on your autism journey? Do you find it hard to have conversations with other people about your struggles because they just don't "get it"? Do you see children acting awkwardly or behaving out of control in public places? Or maybe you work with children who have special needs but struggle to know how to help them? If more people learn how the autistic brain processes information, our child will receive more compassion, understanding, and acceptance for how he has been created when he encounters strangers, teachers, therapists, doctors, nurses, first responders, employers, and others outside of his "protective bubble." Bryce has also been diagnosed with Auditory Processing Disorder, ADHD, and a reading disability. He has to work hard each day to build his muscle tone, process information, and figure out how to have meaningful conversations with others. In spite of his challenges, he is described as sweet and joyful by all who meet him. He has a gift to bring sunshine to the darkest day with his infectious smile and giggles. What has helped us through our darkest hours? Our trust in God and our willingness to accept that He has a special plan uniquely designed for Bryce. We have learned to work through the pain and reframe OUR plans and dreams. We have learned to find ways to help Bryce understand our world while we also learn to understand HIS world! We wrote this book with a prayer that our autism journey will bring hope to those who need it and enlighten others who may not understand the daily struggles and challenges that come with having a child with special needs.