My Square Peg- David's Story

by Candace Fallon
(Hamburg, New Jersey, USA)

I came from a family of all girls, so when I found out I was having a boy, a wave of "I don't know anything about a boy," came over me. Then came the pregnancy, I was able to feel where he was inside of me, before I was suppose to able to feel him. Then came the time where I was suppose to feel him. He would move all the time, you were actually able to see his knee or elbow move from the right to left. He would get the hiccups ALL the time, inside of me.

Finally, I was reaching the end of the pregnancy and coming closer to my due date, then my due date left and he still wasn't here. Finally, I was induced about 5 days after my due date came and left. There he was my buddy. There he was, the squirmer, hiccupper, harmless enough right? No.

He never slept my husband and I woke up every hour to hour and half. Rocking, shaking, patting, pleading, praying for our little baby to sleep. He would only breastfeed, rejecting the bottle fervently, so, exhausted I would be there with him. At that moment I thought, you can do this he is a newborn and it will get better. Only it didn't. He breastfeed until 2 yrs., only when he got so sick that he couldn't breathe when he breastfed did he take to a cup of water instead. Then it was a cup of milk every night to ease him to some sort of sleep....in our bed.

He hated shoes and socks removing them immediately at any time or any where. He only ate and still only eats certain foods, rejecting anything "too hot" to him "lukewarm" to you and I. He seemed to hate anything "too loud" he couldn't handle being around anything too bright. He would wake with the smallest of light. We lived in a cave because of the brightness. Don't even mention grocery stores, or malls. NIGHTMARE!! I knew there was something wrong.

Then came school, at first, he was a cute kid who was always hugging and then came the frustration and ultimately biting. The school then told me that he HAD to be autistic or have asperger's and I needed to get him evaluated immediately. As a "solution" they wanted to put him with the younger kids (age range from 18 mths to 2 yrs.) my son is 4. Needless to say, I immediately withdrew him from there and found a O.T. that diagnosed him with SPD, we are still in the evaluation process to see what exactly he has sensory issues with we haven't started full O.T. yet.

Since then I feel..I feel...I feel like all this time my son and I were separated by a brick wall, we adjusted his diet, (he has a casein allergy so, we eliminated dairy from his diet. It adjusted his behavior to a degree, but hey something was definitely better than nothing.) and the brick wall developed holes in its mortar where I can see him, hear him, some holes were big, some were small.

After this diagnosis, I feel like someone just handed me a sledge hammer and i'm just waiting for the word "Go." God Speed to all the other "square-pegs" and to all the Mommies and Daddies out there. We literally have a one in a million kid, thank god who wants "normality."