A Mother’s Intuition

Merriam-Webster’s defines intuition as “1. a natural ability or power that makes it possible to know something without any proof or evidence: a feeling that guides a person to act a certain way without fully understanding why; 2. something that is known or understood without proof or evidence.”

I have often been told that my intuition is one of my greatest personal strengths. I know things before anyone else does and I can see patterns in behavior, environments, people, etc. that lead me to understanding something deeper than what is on the surface. Oftentimes I do this without any amount of effort, and information just comes to me. I don’t even realize I am putting together pieces of a puzzle until much later. I know, it sounds hooky or crazy, but it’s part of who I am. Even my personality type, INFJ, is extremely intuitive. My intuition on the Myers Briggs assessment is off the charts strong or “extremely definitive”. I hadn’t realized the power of my intuition or how strong it was, until becoming a Mother, having it knocking me over the head with “Something’s different about my baby”.

For me, I started noticing this gut feeling around the time Desmond Fox turned 9 months old. It started with little things, like him being extra fussy when his routine was disrupted, refusing to eat any solids or baby purees whatsoever, after having eaten them 3-4x a day – all varieties, meats, fruits, vegetables, etc. for the last 5 months, to now only eating from a bottle, and his obsession with anything that rolled (i.e. cars, whether real or toy, balls, cups even. At the time, I chalked it up to going through a developmental leap (ala the Wonder Weeks, if you’re familiar with that). Maybe he was regressing a bit due to going through a huge leap in his development, I’d tell myself, quieting the inner voice telling me that something was different.

By the time Desmond Fox turned one year old, I started really listening to that inner voice and watching, analyzing, and jotting down notes about things that seemed different for Desmond. I remember while my Mother was out in WA for his 1st birthday, we briefly touched on the subject and talked about it maybe being a possibility. She had seen and/or felt something was different too. Desmond’s obsession with things that rolled increased substantially at this time. This is actually one of my favorite strengths about him currently, and it continues to grow. He can look across a room and instantly zero in on something, even an ordinary every day item, like a candle for example, a cup, a spool of party ribbon, and know that it rolls without testing it. He will examine the exterior of the item like a scientist or engineer. And then he’ll get to work – rolling that item back and forth, around, sideways, wherever that item may take him. He’ll get down on its level and like a yogi, move, bend, and twist his body to follow the flow of the item that is rolling. It’s impressive to watch. During his 12^th month, he also regressed significantly in social and communication skills for his age. He stopped making eye contact, with really anyone. He would respond to his name maybe 1x out of 10x of calling it. At this point he still was refusing most solids but would always eat an Eggo waffle and Whipped Greek Yogurt, Vanilla Cupcake flavor. He didn’t want to play with any of the other babies in the infant room at school, except for his best buddy, who I’ll call “T”.

Around the age of 14 months, I reached out to Kindering to have Desmond evaluated for his food issues, more than anything. I really was worried about the fact that he went from eating normal tasting baby purees in an assortment of flavors, to now, eating nothing but waffles and yogurt. We were also still bottle feeding him around 36oz a day. I worried that as he went into the next room at school with the toddlers (wherein he was already delayed starting due to his picky eating), he would starve, because no way would he be able to go all day without eating. After that evaluation, we put together an IFSP (Individual Family Service Plan) for Desmond – 1x a week, one hour of educational therapy and 1x a week, one hour of occupational therapy. I’ll go into further detail about this evaluation and therapies in another post, but I first want to outline how we got to where we are today.

At 16 months, I brought up the possibility of autism with Desmond’s Educational Therapist and Occupational Therapist. Had they noticed anything? Do you think it’s possible? Is this something we should be looking at this early? They both agreed that they had discussed red flags that they had seen in their sessions with Desmond, and thought it best to give him the M-CHAT (Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers). Desmond scored a 14 out of 20 on the M-CHAT putting him in the “At high risk for Autism” category. As such, it was recommended that we get Desmond into an autism evaluation immediately. Again, something I’ll go into in more detail in a later post, as it was a process in and of itself.

This brings us nearly to where we are today. Right before Desmond turned 17 months, we started the nearly month long process at the University of Washington, CHDD (The Center on Human Development and Disability). There were 4 appts, 8 total hours of evaluation with us, Desmond, and a Psychologist, along with a team working with the Psychologist for his final diagnosis. On Wednesday, March 22^nd, 2017, Adam and I headed to UW to meet with the Psychologist on diagnosis and next steps. At 9:33am specifically, we received the diagnosis that I already intuitively knew we were going to get: Desmond Fox was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (Severity 2).