Home Videos- June 2008 thru December 2008

I'm not sure what triggered it, but I felt an urge yesterday to pull out our home videos from these months. For those who have been following this blog for some time or are a close friend or family member, you know that I have struggled with this for almost 2 years now. We know this is the timeframe when Brycen went from a talking, making eye contact, enjoying interaction, appropriate play toddler to a 2 year old boy that somehow, someway fell inside of himself and could no longer do these things. I refrained from watching these home videos out of fear of so many things. I don't care what anyone says, NONE of this is easy!

So for whatever reason, I all of a sudden asked Mike where the videos were and found this one (Mike labeled them by months) to pop in. While we have not been the best about taking home videos lately of the kids, the time that Brycen regressed was right after Aubree was born and when that camera was pretty much permanently on to catch every first of her life. Blessing in disguise??? Maybe yes, maybe no. We watched the videos from the month before Aubree was born when Brycen was almost 2, until Christmas when Brycen was almost 2 1/2.

Thinking back, we were never able to pinpoint when all of these things started disappearing and when the different types of behavior began. Now that we have watched the video from these months, it is very clear when and how it played out.

Brycen's 2nd birthday, July 2008- no signs of Autism

• June, July and August 2008 seemed very typical; Brycen was babbling and saying many words and phrases (Goody, I see, Right there, baby, thank you, please, home run, etc), he responded immediately to his name when called, would look right into the camera, played with toys correctly, interacted, was pointing and gesturing, and followed directions with no problems.


• September 2008 is when we noticed he was not responding as much to his name during the videos, and also noticed not as much babbling/talking while the camera was on.


• October/November 2008 was when we noticed he did not like certain textures, was starting to shuffle his toys around on the floor, was not making eye contact with the camera, and there was pretty much no babbling heard.


• December 2008 all of the above but we also noticed his lack of attention with his Christmas gifts, not seeming aware of his surroundings, grunting, etc. When comparing the part of the video where he opened his birthday gifts in July 2008 when he ripped into them, was excited, had no problem with paying attention long enough to open multiple gifts and cards...and then at Christmas you don't see the twinkle in his eyes and he would try to open one side of a gift and then give up and drop it down until we tried it again with him.

Christmas 2008- has fully regressed

Now that you (and we) have realized the timeline of the videos, I want to point out that it was October/November 2008 when the doctor noticed some of these things not at his check up, but at Aubree's 4 month check up and referred us to AEA for further evaluation. Brycen began home services for speech delays in November 2008 and the word "Autism" was never mentioned to us for many months. It was not until April 2009 when we realized it was not delays and there were so many more behavioral tendencies that presented themselves. June 2009 was when he was tentatively diagnosed by a Nurse Practioner, and in August 2009 when he received his official dx from University of Iowa Clinics. Therefore, our son was considered neurotypical up to August 2008, regressed over September-December 2008, and finally received his diagnosis almost 1 year after his first signs of Autism.

I also want to mention that Brycen had not received any vaccinations since his 18 month well-child visit, so it was well over 6 months between his last vaccine and his first signs of regression. I have had many people ask me about this question, and I know for a fact that vaccines did not trigger my son's Autism. I am not going to get into my thoughts about vaccines and Autism, or the recent debates across the world about this, but want to make it clear that I do not believe this had anything to do with Brycen's dx. That doesn't mean that another person doesn't have a different story about their child.

All in all, I feel a sense of relief about the decision to watch these. It was scary...I had tears in my eyes multiple times...and Ifelt guilt for not seeing it as it was happening. But I can't change any of it now so I'm not going to dwell on that. What I am going to think about is how lucky we are to have made those videos and even if we never get closure/answer on why or how this happened to our baby boy, we know that we were given the chance to love and care for a very special little boy! We were chosen to learn how to accept others despite differences, to simplify our life, and to not take any of our children's development for granted...we were chosen to give Brycen the best life possible despite the circumstances...and I thank all of you that has been there for us through these struggles and supported us to get to this point of acceptance and moving on in life. Thank you!