“Do you have any questions for me?” He asked me pointedly, almost as if I should have already known the answer. I sat in the makeshift play room with clinical white walls, a green couch and a few baby toys in the corner. My almost 16-month-old baby sat across from me, motionless, dark eyes staring off into nothingness. The pediatric neurologist sat next to him, staring at me, waiting for my response.

“Does he have Autism?” I asked the question while simultaneously holding my breath. I was hoping and praying the answer would be, ‘of course not, don’t be silly. You are an overprotective and neurotic first time Mom. He is fine.’ That is the answer I had desperately hoped to hear.

Every month since Dave was born I completed the ‘what your baby should be doing at this age’ checklist. Each month I would happily mark off all of his achievements. Each month he scored 100% and then slowly but surely his score became lower and lower until I no longer could ignore the facts. He wasn’t meeting his milestones, and I had to figure out why. I couldn’t wait for his one year well baby visit so I could talk to his pediatrician. And I was dismissed at that appointment. The doctor said he was fine and I was paranoid. The nurse laughed and said, “just wait until your second, you won’t even notice these delays.”

I sat for what seemed like an eternity, holding my breath and waiting for the answer. I wanted to be dismissed  like I had from our pediatrician, nurse, co-worker and other people I knew. But instead of that answer, I got an answer that would forever change my life. It was such a simple and seemingly non-emotional sentence. But it in actuality, it wasn’t.

“Yes he does,” he said.

And so our story begins.