In the fall of 2009 while on a break from college, I got the call I had been waiting for. There was some... a tiny bit... of movement on the 18 month waiting list and they were starting a new program that involves classes about ABA and then we were to get a CCC (basically, a therapist that works with parents). We (Jason, myself and Gramma) attended these classes so we understood how to talk to Ethan and understand what he was going through too.

So over the next months we started Speech therapy. And we spent time waiting of course. There is always waiting. We had our psychological assessment (about one year after that first night in the hotel) for Ethan and 6-8 weeks later we got back the results. I was more devastated then I thought I would be. Ethan was considered severely autistic and was 18 months behind in his development. It was such a hard pill to swallow. I thought that things were better than that. He had made some gains, the speech therapy was helping and he was doing a little better with eye contact. But it was where we were to start.

So at this time, I did some reflecting on our sons life. Ok, so now I know that he has autism, and thats ok, cause I can understand why he acts as he does. And that, although it may sound crazy, was comforting to me.

When I took a mental trip back in time, wow was I shocked, and even now looking back in albums I beat myself up a little cause the signs were there. I have an extremely vivid memory

So, I got the call and decided that we were going to do whatever it took to help our son. Now, I personally am not a person that believes in a cure for autism, but I do believe it is like Diabetes, you can live your life like you don't have it and it takes a lot of work but you will still always be a diabetic.

When I called my aunt back I asked what I needed to do next, because she kept telling me "early intervention is so important", she said to call the doctor and get him to refer him to someone that can diagnose autism. And her next piece of advice was so hard to listen to, "stay off the internet!, no googling it or doing research", that was the hardest thing for me to do. I think it was the best advice she could've given me because I didn't go to sites and freak myself out with what could happen or how severe autism could be. So I just had wait to get him to see someone and figure this out.

So I have been putting off starting to write this as I wasn't sure where to start. I think that the beginning is a suitable place to begin this blog.

In January 2008 my family took our first real over night vacation, my husband, myself and our 19 month old son set out to go to Niagara Falls. We had planned to do all the family fun stuff, go to Rainforest cafe to eat, the Butterfly conservatory, and Bird Kingdom. We did do all these things and had a very good time, the part of the trip that sparked this little thought, this little worry was our little boy decided that running back and forth along the edge of the bed in the hotel was the source of 30 minutes of fun. Now just running back and forth in a cooped up hotel doesn't seem like such a bad thing. But with his face an inch away from the bed, and us having a hard time distracting him from it, we looked at each other and thought that was kinda weird.

Neither of us really discussed it or said anything about it, but secretly we were both wondering what it was. We also noticed that he wasn't talking. He had had a normal amount of words for a child his age, then thinking back, around Christmas he got quiet. We were unsure of what was going on and thought maybe it was just a phase he would grow out of.

So this is a little old, I wrote it October 2009 but I still feel this way.

Having a child diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder, can be a scary and confusing time for any parent. There are so many questions and there doesn’t seem to be an answer to all of your questions. I myself was in the same position in September 2008, I didn’t know where to go to ask questions and I didn’t really know what questions to ask, all I knew was that I wanted to help my son get better.

My personal philosophy on autism is that it is a lot like having diabetes, it is something that you live with, there isn’t a time that you weren’t diabetic but it is manageable and you can sometime even live without symptoms. Autism is similar; there are some kids that will do excellent with treatment and others that may always appear autistic.

Greetings and welcome to Learning to have Hope.

The idea for this site actually started as a school assignment, I am a graphic design student in my final year at Fanshawe College, that required us create an event and organization. For mine I created Learning to have Hope a group of parents who connect with other parents and families and friends of children with Autism.

So with the advice of my loving husband and a friend, I decided to create this website because there are probably a lot of parents out there too nervous to join a "group" or go to a meeting, but everyone seems to have time to check Facebook, or email and this could be as simple as that.

So here we are, Learning to have Hope together, as families and friends, dealing with the ups and downs of life with Autism.

On this blog, I will be sharing my story.