Amazed at How Far He's Come

I meant to write about this sooner, but things have been kinda busy around here.

So, this past Saturday, our family was running errands and we went out to lunch at Five Guys Burgers and Fries while we were out. Kevin pointed out a mom at the next table over that was wearing an autism awareness t-shirt. It made me smile since when Brandon was younger, I kinda wanted to get one of those. Then a little bit later, we started to hear some shrieking coming from that table. I just laughed and told Kevin that now we knew which child it was that had autism. He mentioned that just prior to the child shrieking, he had been flapping his hands -- a common way that children with autism self-stimulate.

At that point, I realized just how noisy the restaurant actually was and was telling Kevin that it was probably too loud for the poor kid. That brought my thoughts back to when Brandon was two. We invited the extended family out to Red Robin for his birthday celebration. At that point in time, we didn't know he had autism. We were perplexed as to why he wouldn't sit down and eat. It wasn't just the normal bounciness of young children. He was pacing the table and making loud noises. We had never seen him acting so strange. Of course, hindsight is 20/20, so looking back I can understand what was going on since we learned that he had autism. The restaurant was way too noisy for him. There were too many people, too much noise, and the lights were too bright for my little guy. He was majorly overstimulated and couldn't sit to eat, he needed to pace to cope with the sensory overload.

Fast forward to this past Saturday. The noise was not bothering him at all. He was sitting in his chair, eating his food, and being silly with Edward. I was just so amazed and so grateful that we were able to learn what was causing his odd behavior and that we were able to get him the help he needed so he can function so well now.

He still has times where he gets overstimulated and he'll shut down a bit now, but he's learned how to cope with it much easier.

Last night, we attended the Utah Symphony/Utah Opera's concert for families with children with autism. It was wonderful. A bit noisier and bouncier than other concerts we have attended, but it was so great to see all the children with autism enjoying a concert that they might not otherwise be able to attend due to their disability. Brandon loved being able to bounce during the William Tell Overture (as did a lot of the other children). Utah Symphony/Utah Opera put this on for free every year. They said that this was the 10th year they've done it and it was the first time we've attended it. Next year it'll be in January if any of you were wondering about next year's.

I'm very grateful for Brandon. His autism brings a new point of view on the world and I'm lucky to have been chosen to be his mother by a loving Heavenly Father.

Little Ray of Hope

With it being so close to when I lost the twins, I was feeling pretty discouraged about the whole adoption stuff as well. At times it feels like it's not going anywhere.

The one expectant mother I was in contact with is leaning more towards parenting her baby instead of placing. I was also in contact with a different expectant mother through the same message board. She's expecting twin girls due in August and is pretty sure she's placing. However, she doesn't really respond to me when I message her to check how she's doing. So, she's either chosen another family and doesn't know how to tell me or she thinks I'm a psychopath. Either way, it'd be nice to get a response from her just telling me one way or another. Maybe she hasn't chosen a family yet and just doesn't want to really think about it. I don't know. I'm trying not to check on her too often since I don't want her to think I'm just trying to "steal" her babies or something.

Anyway, about the little ray of hope. I finally logged into my account to see how often my adoption profile has been view. The contact page is often not viewed. The last time I had logged in, it told me that it had been viewed 4 times and I knew at least one of those times had been me checking to make sure all the pages worked. This time when I logged in, it said that it had been viewed 9 times. That gives me a little bit of hope to know that expectant mothers who are considering placing for adoption are actually looking at our profile. I know that Heavenly Father's hand is in all of this, but it can get discouraging from time to time. I think the waiting is the hardest part. Prior to being approved for adoption, you at least have some control over how fast it'll be before being approved. The sooner you get everything done that you are supposed to, the sooner you'll be approved. The waiting, however, is just that, waiting and waiting and waiting. I hope that we are chosen soon.