How this all got started - The Boy

January 1998: I accepted a position as staff attorney for our local Friend of the Court office. There was this total geek computer guy there who was very impressed that I a) owned my own flatbed scanner, b) had wired a network at my last office, and c) had added a mouse to an XT computer (back in the day). One thing led to another and within a few months said geek was living in my house. Flash forward to May 1999, I became Mrs. Geek and neither of us worked at the FOC anymore.

We had been told before we got married that we would not likely be able to have kids, at least not without medical intervention. We were okay with that and planned our blissfully child-free existence. First anniversary, May 2000, we take a trip to the U.P. and do a whole lot of what people who have only been married a year and don't have any kids do. Within a few weeks, I knew something was different. I took a pregnancy test, just to rule that out. After all, I was on the pill and the doctors said I couldn't get pregnant anyway. When it was positive, I took another. A couple more trips to the drugstore and I had tried every "pee stick" they sell. Holy guacamole - I was gonna be a mom!

Husband took it quite well, shouting the news from the rooftops as soon as the doctor's office confirmed that those E.P.T. people know what they're talking about (and the First Response folks, and the store brand, . . .). And then I started puking. Many times a day. For 7 months. That's right, SEVEN MONTHS. I barfed from June 2000 to December 2000. I carried a Super Big Gulp cup wherever I went in case there was no other place to, um, you know. I was hospitalized several times for dehydration. Oh, and did I mention that I'm diabetic? Oh yeah, not just gestational, but full-blown 24/7/365 diabetes. Throwing up everything you eat wreaks havoc on the blood sugar, as if pregnancy alone wasn't doing that anyway. Joy. Fortunately, I found a wonderful high-risk OB practice. Husband-and-wife OBs board-certified in maternal-fetal medicine. They took great care of me, harassing me into faxing my blood sugars (taken 7 times per day) 3x per week so they could adjust my insulin accordingly.

By 37 weeks, I was ready for it to be over. I was scheduled for an induction at 38 weeks, 1 day. The induction did not go well. I developed a raging infection (probably started when my water was broken) and the baby kept having problems maintaining his heartbeat. After I had been pushing for 2 hours (19 hours after starting labor), the baby's heart would stop completely during every push or contraction. Time for a c-section!

They wheeled me to an O.R., whacked me open and pulled the baby out. Turned out that the cord was wrapped around his neck. Twice. So every push or contraction pulled it tighter and cut off oxygen to his brain. He was blue, limp as wet spaghetti, and had no heartbeat or respiration. That's an initial Apgar of 0, for those keeping score at home. They bagged him and did chest compressions and he finally pinked up and gave a weak little cry. Off to Neonatal Intensive Care he went! With his Daddy in tow, leaving me alone to cry and vomit as the docs sewed and stapled me back together. It was 5 in the morning, January 12, 2001.

16 hours elapsed before I saw my baby again. I had that raging infection and was really weak, so they wouldn't let me go to the NICU to see him. And NICU babies can't leave to visit mommy. One nice nurse took Polaroids and gave them to me, but it wasn't the same. David had his Daddy, which was good for him, but not so good for me. There was a bad snowstorm, so my family didn't come to be with me and I was so sick the hospital restricted visitors to family and clergy. It never occurred to Matthew to walk around the corner and down the hall to visit his wife. Seriously, I saw him ONCE in that 16-hr period. I finally threatened to pull out all the IV tubes and crawl to the NICU, so the nurses relented. They helped me into a wheelchair and hooked my IVs and PCA up for travel. When we got to the NICU, one of the nurses reamed my husband out for leaving me alone and scared all day. Yay nurse!

Short story long, David recovered but had some developmental delays. By 13 months, I suspected he was autistic. (He had begun speaking, then just stopped. Classic.) He didn't walk until 19 months and was absolutely fascinated with wheels, fans, or anything else that spins. He was in special ed by 17 months and "officially" diagnosed at 22 months.

Cut to today, he's a happy, healthy autistic 6 year old. He reads and writes well above his educational level. He just finished Early Childhood Special Education (preschool) and will be in sort-of kindergarten in the fall. He will be assigned to an autism classroom for K-2nd grade kids, but will spend part of the day in a regular education kindergarten room. We're hoping that eventually he will be able to be mainstreamed for at least half a day.