Our Atypical Baby❤️

Our baby reached the typical development milestones, he even hit others earlier than expected, he kept his head up, sat, developed teeth, crawled, walked, mimicked and sang at the expected time. Everything was going accordingly for him, plus he even showed signs of intelligence for instance he would count to ten before he could speak. So I'd say everything developed perfectly up until he was 2 years old. 

After a while we noticed that his speech wasn't developing at all and his interests had changed, especially after he started attending day-care. So when I started giving it attention, I noticed that he didn't want to hold eye contact for longer than a minute, he wouldn't respond to his name, he fixated on one thing, and he enjoyed his own company most of the time, but I also noticed that he was selective with his behavior patterns, sometimes he would be very social so much so that he'd interact with other kids from day-care enough to form friendships. But other days he'd prefer to play alone in the school yard, at a distance.

After a while of waiting for his speech to develop, we decided to take him to see a specialist. So, after a brief assessing, the Pediatrician confirmed what we had been suspecting for a while, she told us that our boy had mild regressive ASD and ADHD. We were left with so many questions. 

The question we asked ourselves the most was what made him regress, we were told that there's no explanation of how one develops ASD but regression can be caused by either diet, abuse or simply the environment he's in. The therapist mentioned that our town has had a large number of ASD diagnostics recently so it must be something in the air 😅.  

We then started the journey of trying to remediate the situation as there is no known cure for ASD. He is currently 5 years old and the situation has changed but not as much as we expected. His speech hasn't properly developed yet, he is social, he is potty training, he has improved holding eye contact and he is almost as independent as a typical todler can be. We're very proud of his progress and plan to work even harder to try getting him a close to normal life experience.

Having a baby at 22 ❤️

I gave birth the age of 22 with no career, no degree, and no husband or present father of the child. I was staying with my parents totally dependent on them, and I was halfway through completing my degree. I don't want to mislead anyone I just want to share my personal experience. I don't want to discourage anyone who feels like they're ready to start a family I just want to share my personal experience so that one can consider.

Firstly, I met a lot of challenges when i was in my final trimester because 

1. I had to attend class in lecture halls, and it was really hard to concentrate on what the lecturer was saying because I was almost always tired, and my feet were swollen. 

2. I always found it hard to go to the clinic in the mornings because of obvious reasons. 

3. None of my clothes fit!!!!! 😭😭😭😭😭. But I got used to that life and I molded myself around that temporal life until I gave birth.

Secondly, I experienced a few challenges the week before, the week of and the week after childbirth. when I reached term, I was in my test week so I had to juggle writing my tests to qualify for exams and preparing for the arrival of my little one, I wasn't ready at all, but I could have done more to prepare for him. 

My friend Snazo was really helpful at that time, she and her boyfriend had bought me the first items I'd need for my baby, I was really grateful and scared at the same time because she made me realize that my boy is coming soon. I got through the birth and the first few weeks, with the help of my parents and family. But I had to go back to school. All I can say is  Yho! It was really hard to catch-up with my studies, tasks and schoolwork, I had missed a couple of tests and exams which meant that I had to add one more year to complete my degree.