Ethan was born on March 15, 2003: six pounds, seven ounces, a lot of hair…a healthy and beautiful little boy!  Matt and I were completely blown away that we now had a son.  I remember how happy we were and how we were so excited to start raising a little boy. Everything in life seemed so much brighter now that Ethan was here!  I can remember like it was yesterday--the overwhelming sensation of feeling so blessed that God gave me the responsibility of raising such a beautiful little boy like Ethan.
           
In his infancy, Ethan played, ate, and acted like any other healthy child.  But when he was around fifteen months old, the changes we were seeing in his lack of responsiveness, his self-contained demeanor, lack of eye contact eye contact, and variety of emerging medical issues, we were worried...especially when other people began noticing.

At first, we thought he might have been hearing-impaired.  So we went to the Children’s Hospital in Milwaukee, where they determined his ears were in working order.  Then a doctor explained cases where water behind the ears could hinder responsiveness, so we had tubes inserted.  No change.  Shortly after, doctors recommended that Ethan have an MRI done.  Here we found something: more white matter was found than gray at the back of his brain.  We asked again and again what that meant, and for whatever reason, to this day haven’t received a straight answer.

We were then referred back to the Children’s Hospital in Milwaukee for a behavioral analysis, where it was determined that Ethan had a mild speech delay.  While this wasn’t the worst diagnosis in the world, it stung. 

Then the toe-walking and hand-flapping started.

The day Ethan was diagnosed I will never forget.  It was hot and sunny out at the UW Hospital in Madison.  We were anxious, nervous…a little anger mixed in because we hadn’t gotten any answers to that point that made sense.  Following the typical wait, we met with the doctor for nearly three hours, and somewhere in the middle I remember the feeling of completely dying inside.  The moment the doctor said “severe autism”, my heart felt like it stopped and everything around me was in slow motion.  I remember looking over at our happy little boy and thinking, "good-bye"…I think I was saying good bye to the son that I thought I was with everyday: the veil was lifted from my eyes and I suddenly realized my son was gone.  We were told in his diagnosis that Ethan would never talk or have friends, he would never learn simple daily living skills like toilet training or feeding himself normally.  The doctor said he may have to be institutionalized by the age of five because he would likely be too out of control…  Her parting words to us were "Let him go and get on with your life".

Matt and I left the hospital and drove for awhile without saying a word.  After awhile, we picked a spot to pull over, turned off the car and we both just cried.  I never in a million years would've guessed that autism was going to be a part of our life.  Why us?  What it something we did?

As a parent, it’s only natural to hope for the best for your child and it’s easy to be blinded by love to the signs of something wrong.  When an objective view points out something this seriously wrong, and realization sets in, the pain is intense enough to kill a person.  Luckily I'm married to an amazing man!  When we were done crying Matt turned to me and said, "Now we've cried about it…but crying won’t change anything.  Let’s work on making him better."  I remember saying, "You're right.  We’re not going to take this lying down."  We drove home that night, and I went online to begin my research.