The chasm widens

I have been doing a lot of thinking about the baby. She is delayed in a few areas. And such small things she would have to do to catch up! All she needs to do RIGHT NOW is say two words with meaning and she would fall right in line with her peers. It sounds so easy. And yet, she can't. And I really don't see that changing any time soon. She is able to lift her shirt to look for her bellybutton, but she can't look at me when she's asked "where's mama?" And with every passing day, I fear the chasm between her abilities and her peers' abilities widens.

Then there's Buzzy. The list of things he needs to be able to do to catch up with his peers is a lot longer. And while the chasm isn't as big as it was at one time, it's still there. And some days it's unfathomable how he will - we will - cross it.

Buzzy saw the geneticist on Friday. They took his height and his weight and his head circumference. They worked up a family tree with genetic history of extended family on it. Then we talked about how much testing would cost. (Answer: if we had NO insurance, it would be great and FREE. Because have insurance, we will pay more than the $1500 per test, to help pay for those without. And we're getting two different tests.) The we met the doctor. We liked him. He was very personable and knowledgeable about autism. He was familiar with a few studies that I had just read about the day before. We both liked him. He examined Buzzy's hands and looked him over, but didn't take any formal measurements. We again talked about testing, and decided to go with an autism panel test (a series of metabolic and other biochemical tests) and the CGH (microarray).

We finally got around to getting his blood taken for these tests yesterday. He also had to give a urine sample, and he did great on the potty and gave a nice big sample. The biochemical tests will have results in 7-10 days. The microarray will yield results in 3 weeks. Tick tock.

We are still waiting on the urine test results.

We have finally gotten more speech for Buzzy. Now every Monday and Tuesday, I will drop him off at Skill Sprout and he will have 2 hours of ABA and one hour of speech therapy. It will be a pain to drive there and drop him off, but it will be good for him to have a different environment and get more therapy. I still need to inform his former speech therapist, since I suspect my services coordinator failed to do so. (In other words, he had speech from her this week after I was told she had been released.) The rest of the week will have the same schedule.

It's been warmer here, so we have been able to get outside more often, so that's good.

That's all I've got. Still desperately looking forward to the summer and to more answers.