Baby Steps

We have the best pediatrician. It took a few tries to find him, but it was worth it.

Our first pediatrician was the most prestigious in the clinic. It took months to schedule an appointment with her, and she came highly recommended from other families we had talked to. She was dead set on helping me learn to breast feed. I think that was the most stressful thing about those first few appointments. Miller just couldn't do it. It wasn't programmed into his set of skills. I still gave him breast milk, but I pumped it every few hours and fed him by bottle. The second one was OK, but she was quick to put Miller on medications that he really might not have needed. (ON A SIDE NOTE: In case you all were wondering, yes, Miller has received all his vaccines to date without any side effects. We DO NOT believe the vaccines caused Miller's autism. This is just the way he is and we have come to accept that.) Then, by accident, when scheduling one of Miller's checkups, I mentioned the wrong name to the secretary (both the doctors had very similar last names.) Imagine my shock when this new doctor came into the waiting room instead of the one I thought I had scheduled with. It must have been fate because this new doctor seemed to already know the ins and outs of Miller. He also was the only one who told me it was my choice on how to feed my little baby. When I told him that breast feeding was very stressful, he pointed me in the right direction of some really great organic soy formulas that we used until Miller was able to consume cow's milk. He was also the one who told me he thought something might be wrong with Miller. After we talked a little bit about the characteristics of autism, I knew why he had asked me specific questions. I knew what he was looking for and why. He was quick to write me a very thorough referral and hand me some pamphlets about autism. He also called me to check up on how I was handling things a few weeks later. He commended Terry and I for being awesome parents and taking the news of Miller's autism so well. He wanted to stay in touch and said that he would be keeping tabs on Kindering. What a great guy.

When I left the clinic, I was feeling so numb. I didn't want to believe that Miller had autism. No parent wants to hear what I heard. I went to the car, buckled Miller in, and looked at the first pamphlet. At the top it read "Helping Children With Special Needs" and I cried. How could this happen? My one and only child has "special needs"? I was devastated.

The next few days were rough. I did my best to research autism on the internet, but every time I tried to read something, I would start crying. I still didn't want to believe it, but I knew deep down in the pit of my stomach it was true. It was time for me to get Miller the help he needed and deserved. Terry and I needed help too. We were parenting by the seats of our pants. It worked well for us. When an issue arose, we addressed it. So, now, not only were we learning to raise a two year old, we were going to have to learn to raise a two year old with autism. We needed guidance and support.

The referral our pediatrician gave us was for Kindering. A sort of "full service" center for children with special needs and their parents. They were to handle the evaluation of Miller's needs and then set us up with the right therapists and classes. After the initial shock of having a child with special needs wore off, I called them and hit the first of what was to be many, brick walls. There was a 6 month waiting list, just for an evaluation! I put Miller's name on the list and we waited. After 2 weeks, we got a call. They had a cancellation and wanted to know if we would like the appointment. So, a week later, Miller, Terry and I found ourselves at the building where we would soon come to find comfort, knowledge and most importantly, hope.

Miller's evaluation took about two hours. There were 4 different therapists scoring him in various categories. He was graded based on a scale of -5 to +5, with -5 being the lowest score and +5 being the highest. According to the state of Washington, the average two year old should score a 0 to +1.5. I'm not going to put all of Miller's scores here, but when averaged out, he scored -3.5. He was behind in his communication skills, social skills, and cognitive skills. This we knew already. But now, we had something to back it up, so Miller could start build the skills he needed to be a healthy, happy boy! Terry and I left the evaluation feeling happy for the first time in weeks. We no longer felt like we were doing this all on our own. Within 24 hours we had a social worker who had set up appointments for us to meet our therapists, and within 3 days, we had out first session.

The evaluation was needed to determine Miller's eligibility for services from Kindering. And also, to help get us the Washington state aid we needed to support his therapies and classes. I know a lot of people will give me guff for signing up with the state. Yes, they know who we are now. Yes, they know Miller has special needs. I'm OK with that. Did you know it costs about $15,000 for just one year of class? That's a 80 minute class, once a week. Now add in the 3 different therapists at $148 an hour, with one session for each therapist once a week...that's about $23,000 a year. So all together now that's $38,000, oh boy! Our insurance will cover only a small chunk of this, but with the state's aid and very generous private funding for Kindering, Miller can now receive the help he needs.