 Life
with Jordan
by Barbara Byrd, Special Needs Journey guest columnist
My son Jordan was born at home just as his older sister had been.
No, it wasn't a matter of not being able to get to the hospital in
time. I actually planned it that way. Perhaps it was the tour of the
maternity ward at the hospital when I was seven months pregnant with
my daughter. Tormented moans and panicked screams pierced the air,
leaving me horrified and grateful that I was not in labor and could
leave that less-than-tranquil environment on my own steam.
I had been receiving pre-natal care from a doctor who was open to
the idea of home births and worked with a midwife in his practice,
and that little hospital field trip and some residue from my pseudo
hippie youth convinced me that a mellow birthing experience at home
was the way to go.
Having a child at home without a lot of medical intervention gives
you the opportunity to look your baby over minutes after giving birth,
and as soon as I held my son, I had a sense of foreboding that all
was not well with him. He was a month early but weighed in at a respectable
six pounds one ounce. He was also slightly jaundiced, not at all unusual
for a premature baby, but it went beyond that. He didn't nurse as
readily as his older sister had and seemed more lethargic and slightly
troubled somehow.
In the next several weeks, Jordan did get the hang of nursing and
started to lose that slightly yellow cast. He also began to fill out
and rapidly turned into a beautiful baby boy. I began to think that
the slight feeling of apprehension was the result of his early birth
and nothing more, but the next few years would convince me that mothers
really do have a sixth sense about their offspring.
As an infant and toddler, Jordan did everything on time as far as
motor development went. His speech development seemed to lag behind,
but his older sister had been such a precocious and verbal child,
that she was a hard act to follow, and I tried not to compare the
two. The more disturbing thing is how Jordan would wander off from
my sight almost as soon as he learned to walk. He just didn't seem
to have any separation anxiety and had to be watched vigilantly on
any public outing. By the time Jordan was 19 months old, my third
child was born, and it was common for Jordan to disappear seemingly
in the blink of an eye while I was nursing her. A visit to the park
would usually necessitate a full scale search for my wandering toddler
with my five year old and me frantically calling his name. He once
disappeared from a Chuck E Cheese that had a kind of doggy door at
the front of the restaurant that I was totally unaware of. One minute
he was in the ride with his sister, the next minute a woman was carrying
him in her arms and bringing him to me. She had recently been in the
restaurant and recognized me as the mother of the escaped child whom
she noticed walking across the parking lot outside. Though Jordan
didn't withdraw from me, he didn't appear to be fully bonded with
me either. It was not until his early teens that he would be diagnosed
with Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism.
Being out in public with Jordan was stressful in other ways too. He
would have fierce tantrums seemingly without provocation and exhibit
really bizarre behavior such as rolling on the floor and sometimes
making odd sounds and gestures. I was often the object of accusing
stares, and the clear message was that I must be at fault for failing
to control this unruly child who was disturbing their environment
momentarily and turning my world upside down on a daily basis.
Even at church I couldn't get a break. I would take Jordan by the
hand to the children's ministry and inevitably a children's worker
would also take him by the hand shortly afterwards to deliver him
back to me in the sanctuary.autism.
1 | 2
.
|
