Fighting for Joseph (Part One: Before)

This is the first of three blog entries that will focus on my almost 9 year old son, Joseph, looking at our journey through his autism diagnosis and how God held our family in His hand as we fought for our son.

Joseph was born on November 2nd, 2000. We had tried to get pregnant for two years before conceiving him, and even though the pregnancy was full of complications, every difficult moment was erased when we held him in our arms for the first time.

Staring into his baby brown eyes, we couldn't help but envision his future. Toads in his pockets, football games, rough-housing with friends, all the way to asking for the keys to the car so he could take his date to the dance. The possibilities were endless and we couldn't wait to experience the ride.

Joseph developed normally. He wasn't born with autism, so he hit every milestone on time. He crawled at 10 months, walked at 13 months, and patted my leg with an affectionate, "Mama," at 14 months. He loved to play peek-a-boo, and anytime we pulled out a camera he became the star of the show. Every ounce of attention we gave him he sucked right in. Because he hardly ever cried, we nicknamed him our "angel baby".

Back then, autism was what Rain Man had. That's all I knew. Amazing toothpick counting and inflectionless words. I didn't need to know about it, because it wasn't ever going to happen to me. My children were Just Fine.

Just Fine ended on September 22nd, 2002.

In a way, my son died on that day. It took me another year to come to terms with the fact that the son I had known was gone. Toads in pockets and football game dreams turned into fantasies about what his voice would sound like and how it would feel if he told me he loved me.

But that's tomorrow's story.