I never thought it would happen to me.  As a young girl, I pictured myself with a cute little family, living in a cute little house, on a cute little street in small-town USA.  As I sit here now, mother of 2 children, wife, owner of my cute little house on a cute little street, I am hit with the reality that something I never dreamed would happen to my family indeed did happen.  I sit here today as the mother of a child struggling with autism.  Yet I know I am not alone.  I'm starting this blog for two reasons: first, I seem to be able to work out my feelings better when I write about them, and second, if I'm going to go through this journey with my family, I hope to be an inspiration and a help to the other families of the 1 in 88 children now living with autism.  Our family is on the brink of embarking on a long journey of therapies, doctors' appointments, and tests-- and let's not forget all the bills that go along with them.  I'm planning to chronicle our journey here, sharing our successes and failures, our ups and downs, our good days and our bad days.  But before we get into that, let's start with a little backstory.
     My husband, Jared, and I met in late November 2008, at the church we were attending.  I had attended there for pretty much my entire life with the exception of a few years in my late teens.  My husband was from out-of-town, and came to visit his brother and sister-in-law who were both teachers at the Christian school started by the church.  I was fresh out of 2 failed relationships, one of which was ended by the other person and one of which was ended by me, and I really wasn't interested in another relationship at the time.  To make a long story short, he won me over--kinda quick actually.  We were engaged on Valentine's Day 2009 (yes, 2009- as in 2 months after we met), and we were married March 7 of that year (yes again- that's only 3 weeks later).  We had a small wedding officiated by my father-in-law, who incidentally I had only just met the night before at our rehearsal dinner.  We had the wedding reception at the Golden Corral.  It was fun, laid back, and nobody complained about the food.  Nor did anyone in the family have to cook anything or clean up after it.  As fast as this all transpired, everyday life seemed to keep the same pace.
     Our son I like to call our "honeymoon souvenir".  I'm sure you can figure out why.  Joshua was born in the early morning on Sunday, November 29, 2009.  He was perfect-- all 6 pounds, 12 ounces of him.  And talk about a good baby.  He was so calm, he didn't cry much, and would fall asleep by himself at 10 weeks old.  The first few months, he grew well and met all his milestones.  Then at 8 months old, he started getting sick, and I mean REALLY sick.  That will be my next story.