One question I often receive is, “how did you know Mason was autistic?” I usually go on to list off a plethora of tendencies or red flags that we picked up on at a very young age. That’s what makes autism difficult to diagnose—there isn’t blood work or a body scan that they can do (at this point) that gives you an affirmative yes or no answer. Autism has no “look”. Once parents have their suspicions, a long and tedious process of evaluations and tests often ensues. For us, we started at 18 months with hearing tests—maybe he wasn’t speaking because he couldn’t hear correctly. Nope, he could hear just fine. Cross that off the list and move on to the next evaluation. Fast forward through 6 months of early intervention, speech evaluations, occupational therapy evaluations, developmental pediatricians and we finally had our answer at 2.5 years old. I used to wonder how kids went undiagnosed but now that we’ve been through it all, I can totally see how a child goes 9+ years without a diagnosis. The journey can be long, expensive and downright exhausting for the entire family. We are incredibly blessed to have the resources to make Mason’s journey as successful as possible. Over the next few years, my goal is to find a way to guide and assist families who are trying to navigate those early years and don’t know where to start.

Mason was just about to turn 1 year old in this photo. He was an arm flapping, sleep fighting, wild child who we just assumed was a high needs baby at this point. If I knew then what I know now, I’d snuggle that baby so tight and embrace him like I do today. Parenting is hard. Special needs parenting is harder. We’re taking this life one day at a time and thanking our lucky stars that this little baby is now 4.5 years old and still as fierce and thriving as ever! #masonandme #autismacceptance