Our Family.

My boys were born in 2012 and 2013.

Their names are James and Evan and this is their story.

For about 5/6 years Stephen and I struggled to conceive. In 2010 we fell pregnant - but sadly two months later on Stephens birthday, I had a miscarriage. 

We were both pretty devastated, but like all things in life, you have to pick yourself up and carry on with life,

Life changed for us.

We moved 250km away from where we were staying, Stephen got a new job and then we found out we were pregnant again. Of course this time I was a nervous wreck! I had "morning sickness" aka "all-day-sickness" for 8 months of my pregnancy. James' estimated due date came and went - and almost a week later, James Peter Lawson made his appearance.

The labour was, er, fun. Around 22 hours - they had to break my water - and with pen in hand ready to sign the emergency Cesarean papers - James kinda just came out by himself - with umbilical cord around his neck! They clamped it - and cut it off and all was well with the world.

We had a bit of a rocky start - Low to no milk production - not letting me bottle feed and James' sugar dropping every time they checked it - I decided to have us discharged.

We mostly bottle fed him from that point on - with the little breast milk I could get out.

Fast forward 7 months to when we found out that we were expecting little Lawson number 2!

This pregnancy was way easier. I had a few scary falls during that time too. One being down the steps and hurting my big toe, and the other, more scary one, was in an open manhole - luckily my other leg stopped us - PLUS I was holding James. We were both (ok, all three of us were) fine - we both went to the doctor.

Evan Stephen Lawson was born a week early on 7th April 2013. His labour was a similar time to James' - but because the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck twice - he was purple when he arrived!

Fast forward another 1.5 years...

James wasn't talking by age 3 yet. He used to say things like "Ma" "Da" "Enna" - that was the extent of his vocab - but not only that - he was completely all over the show. Extremely difficult to go anywhere with him. We decided to take him to a local doctor to see what she thought - and this was the best decision we could have ever made.

She picked up on the Autism straight away - and I'm not going to lie - that was one of my most "devastating" moments ever. Why? Because of the unknown. Because of the "stigma" if you will, surrounding it. Because you have a certain "idea" of what your children are going to be like - and something so different makes you think you are missing out on the child he "could've" been.

Then you start thinking - maybe shes not right. Lets wait for the official psychiatrist diagnosis rather. Ok. Fine.

2 months passed - and the Doctor we had initially seen was so amazing that because we didn't have medical aid, she set up the entire thing with Tygerberg Hospital.

We went to see the psychiatrist there, who then set up a screening process whereby 3 psychiatrists, a paediatrician and a occupational therapist all assess him. They did many things he was unfamiliar with so I thought that bit of the testing was skewed, but we went with it none the less. We had to wait 2 weeks until we went back to get the results, and a long two weeks it was.

We went back with the thought that "he can't be" autistic. We were ill equipped for it, but I suppose who is really ready for something like that? We heard the psychiatrist say that because he scored 8 and not 7, that he was autistic.

I think it took a while to sink in.

I mean, to REALLY sink in.

Then came the months of research, trying everything under the sun to "help" him. I am grateful I stumbled onto some things and into some people along the way that have changed our lives forever.

There are a good few regrets that I will have to live with - things I wonder if we changed or did differently - would it have made his life easier.

More recently I have come to the realization that we haven't "lost" anything.

The child we "thought we would have" is something that actually never existed.

He is still our son.

He still loves us immensely (and for those that know him - he loves most people immensely too).

He still gives the greatest hugs.

He still loves his brother, Evan, a lot. The two of them are inseparable.

And He is now fully verbal.

Is it hard?

Yes. But not because of who is - rather because it feels like we need to change the worlds perception. Because sometimes we need to change our own perception of things too.

For those unfamiliar with autistic children - next time you go to the supermarket and see a child having a hard time - what if that child is autistic and can't help their behaviour? What if its caused by a sensory overload? I can't tell you how many times we have been given "the look" - some people have even said some very nasty things.

My point is - think before you react next time you're out.

As you can see I carry around a lot of...I'm not sure what to call it? Anger? Sadness? 

I'm not sure what it is, but the perception and acceptance of autistic kids and also adults needs to change.

We all owe it to ourselves - to our future generations.

To be better humans.

Anyway.

I have left out a lot of our journey - but this is my first blog post (which I am hoping will prove to be therapeutic) and I didn't want this to carry on too long. ☺☺☺