Our history....

Michael and I got married on October 27, 2012. Very soon after, Michael received a job offer that required us to relocate to St. Louis, MO. We then found out we were expecting our first child. Sebastian was born on October 12, 2013. Sebastian was a beautiful, healthy 6 lb 13 oz baby boy. He was a colicky baby for the first couple months with bad reflux...but when he was about 6 months old, that settled down and he became a lot happier. Although, he had trouble going to sleep and staying asleep....we had created a lot of bad habits (i.e. rocking him until asleep, and then trying to pry our arm out from under him, once placing him in the crib, out of fear of waking him) We then decided to bite the bullet, and hired a sleep consultant, and did the whole "cry it out" thing.  It was life changing, it WORKED, and it worked quickly. Very hard on us momma's but worth every second of angst. 

 

When Sebastian was just over a year old, we found out we were expecting baby #2, and it was a GIRL! When Sebastian was around 18 months old, a family member had expressed some concerns with Sebastian's behavior, and had mentioned the word AUTISM. I remember my first reaction being defensive, like super defensive (how dare you say such an awful thing, this is my son, my first born, and he is perfect, like seriously PERFECT, are you crazy? Autism, what are you talking about?) haha! 

 

I knew next to nothing about Autism at the time, and what I had "heard" about it did not describe my son. Some of the behaviors that they were concerned about were: limited to no eye contact, not responding to his name, and just a vacant expression on his face as if he wasn't "with" us in the moment. My defensiveness became anger, my anger turned to worry, and my worry turned to action. We enrolled him in early intervention through First Steps....just to get the ball rolling and to address any possible delays Sebastian may have had. First Steps in St. Louis was wonderful (and frankly much better than other cities/areas, including Louisville). They started us with an Occupational Therapist and a special instructor to get Sebastian used a "structured" learning environment. Granted, we knew he needed speech therapy first and foremost and I kept pushing for that. But if I have learned anything on this journey....everything comes in baby steps. There was absolutely no point in having a speech therapist come out to the house to work on communication, if he couldn't sit still and focus, let alone acknowledge that someone had entered the room and was willing to look at them and actually interact. This is absolutely necessary to make therapy sessions beneficial (something I did not realize and had to learn). 

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A few months after starting First Steps, they mentioned ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) therapy. I had no idea what that was....so OFCOURSE, I googled it. Well needless to say.....I was not ready for what I saw. AUTISM!!!! Screaming at me from every angle on the screen...ABA therapy was for children with Autism...it was black and white on the screen, no gray. Of course, my usual defensive self was not ready for this, but realizing that treatment didn't require a label....and regardless of what Sebastians diagnosis was, I knew early intervention was key. 

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Which brings me to our beautiful, sweet Aspen, who was born on September 19, 2015 and completed our imperfect perfect little family of four. She was JUST what we ALL needed! A bright ray of sunshine during some cloudy times. She was such a good, EASY baby. 

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It took a little while....but I think Sebastian has now realized that Aspen isn't going anywhere and he has accepted her as part of the family :-)

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We continued with speech, occupational and ABA therapy while in St. Louis, until we moved back to Louisville in April of 2016. Woo hoo! I couldn't wait to get back HOME and see our family. I really wanted our kids to grow up with their cousins and now they get to. Not to mention, the worlds best babysitter that lives 5 minutes from us....the infamous NANA! I still wonder what she does when we are not around to get get such an unwavering desire from our kiddos to be with her. ;-)

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Which brings us to now....Sebastian is currently 3.5 years old and Aspen is 1.5. Sebastian is currently going to a specialized preschool that is amazing at dealing with any of his unique needs. Aspen will join him at this preschool in June of this year. He currently goes to preschool 5 days a week, has speech 5 times per week, and ABA therapy 10 hours a week.....he is a busy little guy. 

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We are taking an 8 week break from this rigorous schedule to admit Sebastian in an intensive feeding clinic in Omaha, NE (of all places ;-)). My first post will go into more detail as to why and how we got to this point. But that is why I started this page, I wanted to write about our journey and allow those who wanted to ride along beside us....kept up to to speed.

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