Our Baby Jack

This blog isn't usually going to have much "serious" stuff on here. This is a place for pictures of our family and any fun things we do, but I do have a more serious topic before I start updating with all the fun stuff. I went back and forth for a while about if I even wanted to write about this. In the end, I figured I probably should so family and friends could keep baby Jack in their prayers. We really haven't talked about with this with too many people and we don't always remember who we have told.

Since the time Jack was 9 months old (he is about 19 months now) we have had to do evaluations every few months at a place called First Words. It shares an office with FSU's Autism Project. Both are wonderful programs through FSU's college of medicine and are highly recommended by local pediatricians. He had some speech and developmental delays from early on and at around 9 months, we were referred there by his pediatrician. Nothing horrible, but just behind. That was a huge change for us, because Logan was the opposite. He was advanced at everything. It is amazing how two little boys, that are only 15 months apart, can be SO different.

Before an evaluation, I have to fill out pages of questions about how he communicates and socializes. Then at the actual appointment a clinician interacts with him and also watches him play. They have all kinds of things they are looking for. They video tape it all, so they can go back and watch it in detail before giving us a lengthy typed out response. He has not done so well at the evaluations. Our main concern was speech, but recently he started using more words. We were very hopeful at our last appointment that we were going to be done with the whole process. Unfortunately, they called me back later that week and said they want to start the process of screening him for Autism. He is showing some red flags that worry them. I could go in detail and tell you some of the weird things he does or some of the really normal things he does too. Some days me and James will just look at each other and say, this child has to have some sort of problem. Other days, he seems pretty normal... fussier than he should be, but normal. It's just all a little bit up in the air right now, we don't really know if we agree or not. We are just going to trust their opinion and start with the next round of appointments. If there is a problem, it is in our best interest to catch it as early as possible.

So that's where we are... this morning I started scheduling all of our different appointments for middle of September. Honestly, we aren't really worried. We are just more anxious and just want to know, so we can move on. We know he will be fine either way and we can deal with it. He is a healthy little boy and we are thankful for that. Hopefully this is all precautionary and everything turns out fine, but you really never know. We love our little Jack and know lots of other people that do too!