lestyrox - have written down a few things I can remember - so much of it is a blur, especially from 4 and on - so many things went wrong so quickly, I can't even remember what prompted it. BTW - I apologise in advance for the HUGE post :-)

Our journey with autism. I have never written it down before so bear with me. I hope it doesn't come across overly negative, these are just some of the things that I can remember that made us wonder/worry

When I was pregnant with Xander I tried to do everything right. He was my second pregnancy after a miscarriage. I had horrible morning sickness and lost nearly 15 kg in the first 14 wks. I felt his first kicks at 14wks. By 17 wks you could feel his kicks on the outside. At 28wks I went and saw a movie and he nearly tore me apart. When travelling in my friends car with a big bass stereo I had to ask her to turn it off as any bass music would set him off. Later once he was born, he had these same reactions to loud music and noises.

Xander was born 4 wks early due to rapid onset pre-eclampsia and toxemia. Essentially I went in for a check-up and a few hours later I had a baby. My labour was fast. but I pushed for 2 hrs to finally hold me baby. He was perfect. He slept. And slept. they took him to special care overnight. I stayed up all night waiting for them to bring me my baby for his first feed but they never did. 4:30am nearly 12 hrs after his birth I went looking for him. We tried to feed, but he would latch on. He just slept beautifully. He developed jaundice and was passing ureatic crystals. They started feeding him formula by syringe and by tube for a few hrs before the paed took him off and got me breast feeding again. He had an underdeveloped such reflex and seemed to have no desire to feed. We bottle fed EBM every 1-2 hrs until I got him on nipple shields. He was on them until he was 9mths old

Xander showed very little interest in any toys. he was not interested in tv. The only thing that would occupy him was the balck and white credits or the "snow" or white noise in between channels. He didn't try and roll. But I was a new mum - 300km from my family and had never had any other kids. I thought you had to teach them these things. So when at 5mths he wasn't doing anything we started practicing. I would roll him over. We spent hours each day lying on the floor. He never actually got all the way over from back to front and only once or twice from front to back but I could tick that off the list. Yes he rolled! This was the same with all his other "milestones" as soon as the mothers from our mothers group started talking about what their babies were doing we would go home and practice. He loved the jolly jumper and we used to put on fast music and he would bounce incessently for as long as we would let him.

We started trying soilds at 6mth. Then 8mths. 9 mths we tried finger food. By 12 mths he was eating maybe one solid meal a day but still predominently BF. He was particular about textures of foods, wouldn't eat cake or broccolli - anything with a grainy texture. Xander crawled in an uneven way on one knee and the toe of the other foot. He was about 10-11mths before he started crawling and would rarely go very far. Xander took 2 steps at 14 mths but was 18mths before he actually walked anywhere. I was very good at convincing myself and others that he was developing at the right rate. In fact it was only after having Ari and seeing how she just did these things that I realised how different his babyhood was. She rolled because she wanted to be somewhere or do something. She sat up because she wanted to, she crawled because there was somewhere to go and investigate. In this way Xander was an easy baby as he was happy to stay put, rarely got into mischeif. All his toys and books were in mint condition - until Ari got to them

Xander never had any seperation anxiety. We used to tell ourselves that was because he was so well adjusted. He was a good boy, although demanding. He lived in the sling most of the time as he was easily frustrated and over stimulated. He would wander off at the park, never ever looking back to see if we were there.

By 2yrs of age he had developed obsessions. Wheels were a big one, locks were another. I actually made him a toy of padlocks and keys. He also was obsessed with bins and the garbage truck. he used to follow the truck and know it's route around the streets around our house. He would be devasted if the truck didn't come. He was also bothered if we moved things around in his room.

He toilet trained at 15mths within about 2wks. By 18mths he was dry day and night. He got extremely upset if he wet his pants. He rarely gave us much warning before he had to go to the toilet - we made a lot of road side pitstops :-)

At 2 we went to see the MCHN about his lack of language and his obsessions. We told her that our nephew had autism and that we were concerned. She told us not to be so paranoid. His language would come and the obsessions were normal. The next two years were wonderful. By three his language was blossoming. Many people couldn't understand him unless they knew him well but he was talking. He loved to talk about fact and things he saw but wouldn't communicate. He never told us he was hungry or cold. Something I didn't realise until I had DD.

His academic ability was amazing. He could count, knew all the colours and shapes, puzzles, he was king. He loved to read, but often when he "pretended to read he would go from right to left or down to up. We thought he might have dyslexia. He would put himself to sleep at night by counting or sounding out words. He got very upset by the unusual spellings/sounds of some letters. But he never "played" with his toys. we often had to "teach" him a game, like buiding a tower, playing with cars etc. Often when we picked him up from daycare they would tell us he had a "sad" day. But we didn't know what that meant until later on. We discovered once I wasn't working and he was home with me that "sad" days were the days he had a break down - usually because soemthing unexpected happened or he was too overwhelmed. These brreak downs could go on for up to an hour. On the school holidays his kindy teacher asked us if we could pretend I was still going to work as he wouldn't settle at daycare if we got him there late or did things differently.

He rarely felt pain or cold or heat. So many time we were abused by doctors for letting him have tonsilites that was so bad but he wouldn't tell us his throat hurt. He had no concept of fear or danger. We took him to kindy gym and we used to have 3 people watching him on the tramp as he would run straight off the edge.

At 3 1/2 we had a discussion with his kindy teacher about pushing him forward into the prep program as he was in the first group of kids that were delayed a year as he was a december baby. This was probably the first time we realised there was a problem. She agreed his ability to retain facts was amazing. But he lacked social skills, he was emotionally immature. We struggled with this for so long. Our little boy was perfect. We was amazingly bright, yeah he was quirky but he was completely perfect. He excelled on the computer. Everyone thought he was amazingly bright unique gorgeous little boy. He never had tantrums like other kids did, shopping was a breeze - he never asked for anything or screamed or whinged for lollies at the counter. He would sit in the trolley talking, singing or playing with his train. Often he hung his head over the edge watching the wheels go round. We struggled as a lot of the typical parenting concepts didn't work. Reward charts didn't work, he rarely listened to our instructions. Time out was a waste of time, he loved it and often put himself there. he would sit and rock back and forth in the portacot making it bang against the wall. He didn't respond to changes in my facial expression or voice or the concept of consequences. But luckily maj of the time he was a good boy so this didn't pose all that much of a problem for us

We struggled when we went to Brisbane for holidays. He didn't eat with a knife and fork. he didn't eat much at all. He didn't like sweet things, couldn't lick an icecream. He "didn't do green things" His words were still dificult for most to understand. He talked incesently about his interest. The alphabet, Thomas whatever. He knew every Thomas train and could distinguish between all the blue ones - even those two twins Bill and Ben or whatever their names were. If we tried to do too much in a day or if things didn't go to plan he would have a huge breakdown. Sobbing, screaming breakdown. We told people he was just tried, it was a big change coming to Brisbane etc.

We moved to Townsville just before he turned 4. This is when the wheels fell off our wagon. He began having big meltdowns, kicking hitting, biting. He would scream whenever DH spoke to him and say "I don't like your voice". He watched videos repeatedly. We were at our wits end. He had no concept of personal space, he would often bump into people on purpose when we were shopping. He would "flap" his arms when he was stressed. And started repeating phrases from movies at odd times as part of converstaions. He would talk at people and we could rarely get a word in. Nothing was working with his behaviour. One time after he kicked me in the face, I smacked him. He laughed hysterically and told me to do it again. From that point he would kick and hit at me, trying to get me to hit him. When he started pre-prep we ran into more problems. He would spend up to an hour crying after something happened he wasn't prepared for. He was anxious and would panic about what was on his lunch each day. there were concerns about his pencil grip and fine motor skills. He drawings had little form and generally only used one colour. He enjoyed painting and painted mixed colours. He began acting out the scripts of cartoons or movies. He called it pretend mode. He didn't like playing with others as they didn't follow his script or his rules. By first term the teacher suggested we see someone. This was a relief to us as we were exhausted and didn't know what to do next.

That's about all I can do at the moment but if you want to know about our diagnosis I can post it another day