I had hope....for that I was ever so grateful!

                     This was the day I was waiting for..... the first day of therapy for David....He was 14 months old. I was so excited to get started. His first session was with his Occupational Therapist. I remember being so nervous too. At this point whenever I would feed David....actually as soon as we put him in his high chair....all he would do is scream! Scream and gag. Scream and gag. Scream and gag. The pattern never ended. I tried so many things. I would prepare his food ahead of time. I would play music. I would sing. I would act silly to get him to smile. Sometimes those things would work to stop him from screaming but about 90% of the time he would still cry. I could not figure out for the life of me why he seemed so frustrated and upset at mealtime. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t eat. He would eat whenever I put the spoon in his mouth between cries and he would even want the food. He would lean forward and ask for it. So, it wasn’t that he wasn’t interested at all. He didn’t act at all like he didn’t like the food. Once it was put in his mount most of the time he would just gag part of it. As an example of his reaction to texture in food I remember at his first birthday party we gave him a cupcake. He just looked at it and cried. He gagged when we attempted to put some icing on his tongue and he stiffened up and cried and cried when he had icing on his hands. He hated it!

        I remember feeling so inadequate as a mom and thought for sure the therapist would be so hard on me. I know it seems silly but at this point I thought I didn’t even know how to do anything.....I thought I was doing something wrong. Then she came and it was like someone threw me a life preserver. I had built up so much frustration and sadness and I just felt so tired and overwhelmed. I asked the Lord for a therapist that would not only help David but also would help me in this journey. When she came she made me feel completely opposite of all that I believed myself to be at the time. She and I always talk about this first session with David. She had her hands full! All he did was cry and scream in his high chair. He wouldn’t play with the food at all and if I tried to put his hands in it he would just go into a full-fledged fit! He hated anything in his hands. He turned his head....but again still ate. I don’t think that there was a moment in this session that was peaceful. David just cried the whole entire time! It was nuts!

           I remember sitting there with her and she was the first one that listened to me when I told her my fears of him possibly having autism. In the midst of a crying child and trying to get through a therapy session it felt so comforting to be able to finally be able to cry and pour out my heart to another mom who was not only a therapist but also was walking the same journey with her child. She was not just giving me her professional opinion she was giving me comfort through telling me that all my thoughts and feelings were normal and okay. I felt like I made a friend. She understood! It was okay to allow myself to have moments of feeling overwhelmed. It was okay to grieve. She is a believer and she took the time to let me know she would be praying for me and David. I was so grateful to the Lord for giving David such a wonderful therapist that I knew would do her best in working with him on his delays. I also appreciated the fact that even though autism was a possibility she was taking a cautious view so that a conclusion would not be made too quickly. I was in full agreement! I knew we were on the same page and that was comforting as well. So, we continued.

         We decided to tackle the eating issue by going back to the basics. We just gave him one food at a time to see what he would tolerate. We stayed with breakfast cereal in the morning because at the point that was the one meal he seemed to tolerate the most and was the least emotional. He also hardly gagged on it. For lunch we started with carrots and bananas. All the foods were pureed. We did attempt foods with texture but at that point he was not close to being ready for them. We noticed right off that he was very sensitive to smell as well. Something that was the tiny bit different even to the color of the food would make him react so negatively. We were on a long journey...longer than I could have anticipated. But, the journey had started and we were taking one step, one moment and one day at a time.  I had hope....for that I was ever so grateful!
 

 *************This is an example of what would do at mealtime.  This was his first birthday party.