Our Miracle

This morning my dear 16 mo. old son waved goodbye to his daddy, and said “byee” with the sweetest of grins. He climbed up beside me on the sofa and patted me affectionately. He pointed to the clock on the wall and told me all about it in babyese. When I said “clock”, he tried to imitate the word by making the “k” sound. He got down to play with his older sister and remained content for about 45 seconds which is the usual amount of time it takes him to announce he is hungry after the morning pleasantries are taken care of. I never thought I could be so thankful for what I always took for granted with my first three babies.

In early October I began to notice something was different about Elijah but I couldn’t put my finger on it. He didn’t seem to be advancing in the normal stages that I remembered my other children going through. I disregarded it at first, realizing all children have their unique time tables for development. The last two had been very advanced early on, so I assumed by comparison a “normal” developer would appear slow. He was also throwing fits like I had never seen before. Many times I could find no obvious trigger for these episodes of blind rage, which also seemed very unusual to me. “He just has a hotter temper than the others,” I thought.

By the first of November I realized he wasn’t talking anymore. He had started saying the first words a few months before, but now he seldom verbalized. The only word he would still say was his big brother’s name, Jesse. I came up with all sorts of reasons for this and thought it may just be that he didn’t find it necessary to speak because his needs were always tended to quickly and his big sister did all the jabbering.

The next thing I noticed was that he started forming attachments to fabrics with fuzzy textures. He would carry around a hat that was detached from his sisters winter coat, or a particular stuffed animal. There were a few things in the house that had the same fuzzy, fur-like feel, and I realized he would find one and carry it around a great deal of the time. It wasn’t an attachment to a favorite toy or blanket he had, but a sensory addiction seemed to be forming.

This is when I began to be more concerned. I had worked in a group home with handicapped children for nearly two years. Some of them were autistic, and I had this nagging fear I didn’t want to acknowledge. One day I got online and did some investigation. I watched some videos on a website designed to help parents identify autism in their own children. I saw Elijah was still interacting with us in a fairly normal way, so I decided to just keep an eye on him and not worry about it. I didn’t even want to think about it. I kept telling myself he’s going to snap out of it. It’s just a phase.

I don’t generally ever watch broadcast T.V. I don’t even know why the TV was on Friday morning three weeks ago. My best guess is a VCR tape I had put in for my daughter had ended, rewound, ejected and the VCR turned itself off. I had been ignoring the noise of whatever station was mumbling in the background when my older son (age 14), who had also become very concerned for his baby brother, walked into the room.

That morning the Montel talk show was just beginning and the subject of the day was autism. Jesse said, “Mom! You need to come and watch this.” I didn’t want to. I said, “He’s not autistic. I don’t want to watch that. I don’t have time right now.” Our house is fairly small so as I’m working, I could still hear a mother tell her story of her son who was the age of Elijah when she started noticing something was wrong. I found myself on the sofa, glued to the screen. She shared her concerns with her doctor who told her not to worry. He said children gain and lose language as they grow and that he was perfectly fine. If the doctor had been educated to recognize the warning signs, he would have referred her to the resources to have him screened and he would have received early intervention therapies which are amazingly effective. I listened as she described my own child in fairly accurate detail. She went on to tearfully explain that while he was receiving every available treatment, he did not speak (at the age of four), and expressed no affection or emotion, except for anger.

Jesse and I looked at each other in amazement, and I felt a wave of nausea overtake me. I looked at my son and said, “What child stops saying Mama? Why doesn’t he even say mama?” I realized he never wanted my husband to hold him. He would push away and want down. Was this also the beginning of losing emotional attachments? I also realized that while I didn’t see my child as having the full affects of autism, that what little he had left could quickly disappear if this was indeed the problem. He didn’t smile or laugh as much and the baby jabber was gone. I frantically started looking for local agencies online and had a list of phone numbers to start calling. My stomach was in knots the rest of the day and I was very distraught at the prospect of losing my son. I could handle the inability to speak, but the thought of a child who could not love me back was more than I could fathom.

When my husband returned home from work that evening, I poured out all my fears and presented to him the whole body of evidence. I am seldom ever panic or succumb to paranoia. I just don’t get worked up about anything unless it appears to be immediately life threatening. He could see what I was seeing and knew that we had to take it seriously. He hugged me as I was near tears and said, “We’ll pray.” I said, “Of course we will pray. That is the first thing we must do.”

That night I lifted my baby into the arms of God and put my trust in His perfect will. I asked that we be spared this trial, that I could handle any matter of learning disability, but to please not let him lose his personality and his ability to return our affections. I also expressed my faith in knowing no matter what we have to go through, that He had our best interest in mind and everything was for our good. My fears were released into tears and I slept.

The next morning I had to leave for most of the day and left the kids with my husband. This rarely ever happens. I don’t work outside the home and we rarely ever have separate activities on the weekends. But that morning I had taken a one-time cleaning job for some extra money. While I was away, my husband spent the day actively playing with the kids. I don’t have an explanation for what took place that day other than God healed my son. I’m not sure how, either through His direct intervention, or giving my husband the wisdom to know what Elijah needed, or both.

After I came home, my husband was excitedly telling me of the change he was seeing in Elijah since the day before. He said he realized he had not been interacting directly with Elijah. Not recently, and maybe not ever. What took place as they were on the floor playing was parental bonding between a father and son that neither of us realized had not ever taken place. Because Emily, our daughter, was only 12 months old when Elijah was conceived, my husband was very concerned that she would feel pushed aside when the new baby came. A newborn is very attached to its food source and dad focused his attention on his baby girl who needed him. Over time, this developed into a pattern. Mom took care of the baby, and when daddy was home, he entertained Emily. She always wanted him, hugged on him, and would be happy to sit for hours just holding his earlobe. Elijah was the mama’s boy so he just let him go and didn’t pursue him. He loved him and tried to connect sometimes but was put off when Elijah would seem to not want him. He didn’t realize he needed to break into his world and be his daddy regardless of his reactions.

That afternoon I came home to a smiling, playful, different child. I hardly dared to hope, but I could immediately tell something was different. He had a new light in his eyes I had never seen before. A few days later, after several new words, hearing “mama” again, tight hugs around the neck that would hardly let go (a new thing), playful games of pretend, abandoning his fuzzy friends, and running to daddy all smiles and giggles, I tossed my list of phone numbers. He has steadily blossomed and every day I am reassured.

I am still completely overwhelmed with the blessing we have been given. I don’t feel we deserved this miracle in any way and hesitate to even tell it, thinking of the thousands of parents who are going through what we have been spared. I can’t say my son had autism. He had no formal diagnosis. I can say however that he was in trouble and something was very wrong. I cannot say the cause and the cure for these disorders is simply parental bonding of the father. I know there are many possible factors, although the experts admit they really don’t know why it happens. Autism and other similar disorders have exploded into an epidemic. I know it has happened to many loving families.

As we reassessed our own parenting, we realized that both of us had become very preoccupied and allowed our busyness and fatigue to set our priorities. We have both made a commitment to directly interact with our children every day no matter how busy or how tired we are. Even though I am home all day every day with them, it is very easy for me to let my “to do” list run my entire life. This experience has been a memorable lesson in getting my own priorities in proper order. I stay home to be with them! That’s why I don’t have a job! How could I forget why I’m here?

I thank God every day for the miracle. I don’t understand His sovereign acts, but I am thankful that no matter what we face, He will never leave us or forsake us, and he works all things for our good. Thankfully, that’s not just a comforting idea I invented to get me through hard times. It’s a promise.

Advertisement