Sofia's Story - Part Three, The Assessment

Yesterday morning we bundled up Sofia and went out for her assessment.  I was so nervous I felt like I could puke at any moment.  That was when I realized that I knew something was wrong, even through the veil of hope and denial I had created.


We were there for quite a while, the doctor observed her, interacted with her, and interviewed us.  Kevin was amazing, he made sure we didn't leave out any details.  Through the whole process I became more and more nervous.  I noticed things were worse than I had thought - the entire time we were there Sofia made eye contact with me ONCE.  Even when she wanted to be picked up, she'd crawl over and lift her arms...  but never look me in the eye.  Still I held on to my hopes that she was delayed because of all the work I was doing with Josie.

Then I found out that she should be pointing and making her wants and needs clear to us.  That was definitely not happening, I'm forever guessing what she wants.  The doctor brought up a lot of points that I had never realized or thought about, things I was just used to.

We talked about our concerns being valid, how any one of our concerns would not be cause for alarm, but all of them together were certainly a little alarming.

Then came those words that I just heard a couple months ago...

"I think it would be prudent to diagnose her today with Autism."

Here we go again.

Read Part One here.
Read Part Two here.