Happy Birthday To My Baby Boy!

Seven years ago today, my wife Tiffany answered a furniture saleswoman’s question with a completely unexpected response. We were couch shopping and Tiff was very obviously pregnant. You never want to ask a woman when she’s due, because maybe she’s just overweight, but in looking at Tiff that day, that saleswoman was pretty certain she was expecting.

“So, when are you giving birth?” she asked.

“In about an hour,” Tiff told her. “We have a little bit of time before we have to be at the hospital.”

Now, she was not in labor. It was a scheduled c-section. But sure enough, we were on our way to the hospital and we needed a couch so we stopped off at a furniture store that was on the way. And less than two hours later, we welcomed little Jack, who turns 7 today, into the world. I’ll never forget that week. We were finishing up on an addition to our house (we had a floor dropped in to add a playroom) and the crew finished it the day after Jack was born.

I shuttled back and forth between the house and the hospital, painting everything while nobody was staying at home, and then moving (and re-moving) all the furniture upstairs because we had new carpet put in. At the same time, I was doing the best I could to regulate visitors at the hospital, because we made the mistake of allowing too many when Benjamin was born two years earlier.

There was a chair next to her bed that I slept in for the four nights of her stay, which wasn’t particularly comfortable, but it was a whole lot better than recovering from a c-section. On Saturday the 20th, we went home with little Jack, our precious newborn.

As you know if you’ve been here before, we had no idea we were holding a baby who had autism. We didn’t live in denial as he developed very slowly, though, and he’s been in intensive therapy for more than five years now. If there’s one thing I would stress to parents of slow-developing children, it’s that denial might do you some good, but it won’t help your child.

Last year, when I wrote a blog on his birthday, I was pretty upset. I could remember my sixth birthday and he was nowhere near where I was on that day. He was so far behind typical, calling me “Miss Anne” instead of “Daddy,” still in diapers and obviously headed towards a not-at-all-typical childhood.

This year, though, it’s different. He’s still in diapers. And his speech is limited. But he’s really made a lot of progress since last year. I think some of the biggest changes have come from this DAN protocol we have him on. His insides are clearly getting better and as a result, he’s been happier. Way fewer meltdowns and much more Happy Jack. He’s been more responsive in therapy and he’s doing a lot of little things better.

I was just talking to Tiff about this the other night, and I think the biggest improvement that I’m excited about is that he realizes he’s a part of the family and he wants to be with us. He has his own unusual ways of interacting with us, which is fine. One of the key components of autism is social awkwardness. But he interacts with us. We’re not just trees in his world like we used to be.

He likes to be with his brother and sister and he’s clingy with Tiff and I. I kid you not, two years ago, I wasn’t really sure that he understood we were his parents. We’ve always accepted him, but I’ve always had some doubt about his future. I’ve always held out hope that he’ll be able to mainstream, but I haven’t really had anything to make me truly believe that other than my faith that things will get better.

We know that he understands a lot of what we’re saying and we know the speech is going to come. And this might sound bad, but it’s a lot easier on us emotionally when we get feedback and reciprocation from him. So last year his birthday was upsetting for me, because I compared him to myself as a 6-year-old. But this year, I’m comparing 7-year-old Jack to 6-year-old Jack and I’m pretty excited. I’m really looking forward to 8-year-old Jack.

I’m glad he had a lot of fun at his party on Sunday. I’m glad he’s skipping school and going with Tiff to Disneyland. And really, while I’m glad he’s going to Disneyland with her, I’m also glad she’s going to Disneyland with him. I view the kids’ birthdays as a big day for her, because she gave birth to them after carrying them for nine months.

That’s why this morning, after I went by the gym, I stopped off to pick up some flowers for her. That’s something I always do and she wasn’t surprised. I’m glad they’re going to enjoy a special day together. They both deserve it.