If you have a child who is not progressing as they should or has behaviours that are peculiar or have recently had your child diagnosed as having Autism or Asperger's Syndrome you will be able to relate to many of the ups and downs my story will cover. The reason I feel compelled to tell my story is because while I was living through this...and continue to do so...I always felt very alone in my situation. No one understood what it was like or the challenges I faced as the mother of a child with severe Asperger's Syndrome. If telling my story makes one mother feel she is not alone or helps to raise awareness of what it is like to have a child with Asperger's Syndrome then I feel it is an important story to tell.

It will be a long story so I will break it up into chapters. My daughter is now 24 years old and the challenges, while different now, are still very much a part of my life and hers. If you are experiencing any of the similar problems please feel free to reach out, leave a comment or contact me.

While I don't consider my pregnancy to have been particularly difficult, it wasn't without it's moments. As with my first pregnancy (this was my second child), I did not gain weight in the first trimester of pregnancy. In fact I lost weight. But I did not consider this too alarming as I did lose a few pounds with my first pregnancy as well. I just contributed it to feeling queasy and eating a more balanced diet. When I lost another pound going into my fourth month the doctor seemed a bit concerned but I was eating well and was not feeling ill so he let it go another month. The next month I began to gain some weight and continued to gain monthly so it was fine. I only mention this because I do not know if anyone else has had similar situations.

You see as a mother you look for reasons why it happened. I mean it is your responsibility to bring a healthy baby into the world, right? The next incident was when I went into labor prematurely. I was hospitalized and the labor was stopped through the use of Ritidrin. After a week they decided it was safe to send me home as long as I continued to take the drug until the date that was scheduled for my Caesarian Section a month later. My first child was delivered by C-section as well.

That final month was hell. My baby was EXTREMELY active inutero. To the point where my ribs and pelvic bone always felt bruised from her hyperactivity. I was waiting with great anticipation for delivery day!

The day of delivery finally arrived. I was whisked off to the operating room, given the epideral and my baby was brought into the world. She howled lustily and was a beautiful rosey pink wonder with a shock of long dark hair and big eyes. She was beautiful. The doctor slipped away with her to do the usual things they do when a baby is first born. When he returned with her he told me that he was impressed. She scored the highest on the APGAR test of any baby he had seen. They never score a baby at a 10 but he said she was as close to a 10 as he had seen. So I sighed a sigh of relief. My baby was here and very healthy and hearty.

She was a marvel. By the second night she was almost sleeping through the night. I laid awake waiting for them to bring her to me in the middle of the night to feed but they never came. When I voiced my concern they said she was sleeping. That she had fed very well from me on the last feeding and that they were not going to wake her for feeding.

In those days mothers and babies stayed in the hospital for at least 3 days after giving birth. On the third day they usually gave a lesson on how to bathe your baby. Because this was my second child they were confident that I already knew how to give the baby a bath and chose my baby to use for the demonstration. To the nurse's amazement, Nicole stuck her butt up in the air and skooted across the bath table. The nurse said.."this is one strong baby. That is exactly why you should never leave a baby unattended."

Nicole continued to show advanced abilities. She held her head up almost from the very beginning. She was able to roll over and bare weight sooner than normal. She was climbing out of a play pen at 10 months old by doing a chin up and flipping out. These were all wonders, but there were also many "quirks".

Nicole did not particularly like to be cuddled. If she were tired she would not allow you to rock her to sleep. She wanted to be put into bed. She rarely napped during the day but since she was sleeping through the night I did not worry overly much as I rather enjoyed sleeping through the night as well!

Travelling with Nicole was a nightmare. Unlike most babies who fell asleep as soon as the car started, she would begin to scream when she got tired. And she would continue to sream and cry unconsolably the rest of the trip. This would not matter if it was a one hour drive or a 3 hour drive. It was HELL!

When Nicole got her first immunization she had a bit of a reaction to it. High fever and a sleepless night. The doctor determined she was sensitive to the Pertusis so they did not give that to her again. She also got very sick when she was 4 months old. She ran a very high fever and had a headache and stiff neck. The first reaction was to test her for menangitis. Thankfully the spinal tap came back fine. 4 days later the fever broke and she broke out in a rash and it was determined she had Infantile Rosiola (baby measles).

When she was 10 months old she was capable of walking, however, she couldn't walk because she refused to put the soles of her feet on the floor. Instead she stood with her toes curled and perched on the tops of her toes like a ballerina. It took us 6 months to get her to put her feet flat on the floor.

And then she was off and running.........(continued in Chapter 2)