Happy Birthday, Abrian!: The Story of our 3rd Child

You see, before I ever had children, I always knew I’d have three. It felt almost pre-ordained. I have two older brothers, and I enjoyed having two confidantes—each of them different enough that we could relate to one another in unique ways. My husband also comes from a big family and is the oldest of four boys. So when we began to have children, and after we arose from the haze of exhaustion with our first, we began to discuss our plan for having more. Our sweet Elias was born three years and some change after Julian, and things were wonderful. The transition from one child to two was seamless and I don’t think either of us doubted eventually trying for a third.

After Julian’s diagnosis, things changed a bit though and our confidence slipped. Getting him to weekly occupational therapy appointments and, eventually, daily appointments three towns over was a challenge. Elias soon became mobile and was (and continues to be) a very curious child. It seemed he’d find his way into something new and dangerous every time we turned our heads. By the time his 1st birthday rolled around, Shaun and I had unanimously decided we were done.

Or so we thought.

I was just finally coming to terms with the idea that two was all we’d have when I realized I was “late.” It seemed fate had decided to step in and give us that third child after all.

Abrian Rafael was born in mid-November, a short 20 months after his older brother. Labor was short and sweet, and our third baby boy was 10 pounds of pure perfection. He has brought—and continues to bring—us SO much joy. He’s a mischievous little cutie, but he has had the most infectious smile since near-birth and it’s only growing harder and harder to resist his charm.

As Abrian got older, some familiar quirks began to emerge. It started with a one-handed flutter while watching my mom blow bubbles, but eventually made way for more: hand flapping any time he was excited, pointing/pushing with his thumb, a fixation with spinning objects, the inability to look to where I was pointing. He, unlike his older brothers, was also a late walker (15 months) and had zero words other than “dada” at 12 months. Elias was already receiving early intervention services for his speech delay at this point (a blog for another day) and we’d seen SO much success in such a short time. I knew exactly what I had to do.

Having previously initiated forms of early intervention (EI) two ways now—under three years of age and over three—I knew how considerably LESS complicated the process of receiving help was before age three. Here in California, we have something called “Early Start”, which is essentially the state’s EI program for infants and toddlers under three. If you’re at all concerned about your child’s development, you can reach out to your local regional center and request an evaluation. This was NOT something I knew about with Julian, and I plan to write an entire blog post dedicated to this process, but it’s relatively simple and there is nothing to lose.

Leading up to Abrian’s evaluation, I told myself I was prepared to hear whatever they had to tell us. The regional center doesn’t diagnose, but they do identify areas of “delay” to determine eligibility and to decide which services to offer if any. After spending a couple of hours with their SLP (speech-language pathologist) and child development specialist, we were told he was severely delayed in several domains and we should, particularly given our family history, seek out a medical evaluation for autism. As “prepared” as I was—I still wasn’t quite ready to hear autism tossed around again. It’s not a bad word and certainly isn’t one I look down upon or shy away from, but I, the vocal and proud parent of a child with autism, was still caught off guard.

Abrian’s intervention services started a couple of weeks later. We received weekly in-home “individualized instruction,” visited a speech pathologist for an hour once a week, and eventually added on in-home occupational therapy every Thursday afternoon. This was all while waiting for a spot in a local EI preschool (the same school our Elias attended and THRIVED in) to open up.

You’ll hear me sing the praises and preach the importance of early intervention on this blog. Why? Because acting EARLY can have considerable positive implications.

“The connections in a baby’s brain are most adaptable in the first three years of life. These connections, also called neural circuits, are the foundation for learning, behavior, and health. Over time, these connections become harder to change.” 1

With our oldest, fear made me complacent and nearly idle, so with our younger two boys I’ve learned to turn my concerns into fuel for taking action. I want to take a quick moment to say that EI doesn’t “fix” everything, and some kiddos may be more susceptible to intervention than others—but the extra guidance and education (for both the child and the guardian) surely don’t hurt. That’s also not to say that interventions won’t help if your child is over three, as Julian is living proof that the opposite of this is true! I just want to do my part in letting people know that (free or low cost) help is out there if you need it, and re-iterate my statement that I am happy to help guide anyone down this path should you need some assistance.

Anyhow, back to Abrian. With the aid of his therapists, we began to see considerable improvements with his speech and development. And since starting at the preschool in September, he’s had a total language explosion. We’ve still got some work ahead of us, but seeing his progress and actually being able to have some basic verbal communication with our son has been incredibly amazing and encouraging.

His official autism evaluation through the UC Davis Mind Institute took place a few weeks ago. Given Abrian’s young age (23 months at the time of his evaluation), I wanted a thorough evaluation by the folks who I believe are the leading experts in the field. I intend to blog about this process from start to finish as well, so I won’t be doing a deep-dive into the specifics right now. Essentially, however, we left a few hours after arriving with yet another autism diagnosis.

Once more, as prepared as I was for this outcome, it was still a bit of a gut-punch to hear those words again and with a different child—“your son has autism.” Let me be VERY clear here, as I know there has been a lot of backlash received by parents for describing the “grief” they felt upon their child receiving an autism diagnosis—I’m not in any way implying my son having autism makes him “less-than” or imperfect. In fact, I believe the exact opposite is true. I do think it’s important, however, to allow parents and guardians some space to accept that the life they may have prematurely carved out in their minds for their child (as parents do!) will be different, and often times much more challenging. Does that make the parent evil? Most certainly not. I think it’s unreasonable to imagine us NOT processing our own emotions—it is the very existence of that processing that personally enables me to be a better, more present, more patient and loving parent.

I believe our son is perfectly designed, autism and all. My hope for him as a parent is that he will find his voice and learn to fully communicate, that he’ll be able to navigate the sensory-overloaded world around him, and above all else? That he will be HAPPY.

Happy 2nd Birthday, Abrian! Mommy loves you endlessly and thanks you for completing our little family.