Reporting from the Moon

     I've always loved the saying, "I love you to the moon and back". I had  no idea it came from the children's book "Guess how much I love you" by Sam McBratney until I was serving a LDS mission in the North East of England. At the end of each letter I wrote home I always finished it by writing, "I love you to the moon and back". At the time I really did feel like I was on the moon! You wouldn't think that one would feel that way in England, but I definitely felt like I "wasn't in Kansas anymore". I was thousands of miles away from home, my family, and the SUN! I grew up in the most beautiful place on earth, Saint George Utah. I think for most home is always beautiful, but I'm partial to mine. It has beautiful red rock everywhere so you're most likely to get red sand in your shoes than anything else. However, it is a desert and yes (you guessed it) it gets hotter than Hades here. As you can imagine it was a huge change for me to live in England. Don't get me wrong, it was BEAUTIFUL! Green, wet, humid, and very cold; the complete opposite of Saint George. I guess what I'm getting at is that I never thought I'd miss my home environment when getting ready to serve in England for a year and a half. My time in England were some of the best in my life, but it had to come to an end. In March of 2013 I came back to my home and family. It was like I had never left. My time in England seems like a dream looking back, but it was a time when I grew and changed for the better. My time in England certainly prepared me for my next phase of life. I like to call this phase Marshall.
     Marshall is my husband and the best thing to happen to me. We've been friends since we were 13 years old. Our story is a cute one, but I'll save that story for another day. We were married and shortly there after we got pregnant with our little boy Desmond. Having a child changes you and it changes your life completely! "I love you to the moon and back" never rang truer until the day Des got here. As life does, it has it's ups and downs. Our world turned a bit upside down the day I took Des in for his 15 month well check-up. Our doctor was asking me routine questions and then asked me how many words Des was saying. I kind of laughed a bit and explained that he was barley saying Mom and Dad, if even that. He asked me to explain what I meant. I said something like, "He'll gabber like babies do, do-do, da-da, ma-ma, na-na, but I don't feel like he's calling me Mom or Marshall Dad, I think he's still just babbling." He then asked me if I ever thought Des was deaf. The question kind of surprised me, because I had. I then voiced that I did sometimes because he never responds to his name. I then showed the doctor what I meant. Cute Des was just happily playing with some toys in the room when I said, "Des....Desmond....Dessy...Desmond." I then said, "See! That's weird right?!", thinking that his response would be, "Oh don't worry Taylor, that's completely normal for his age."
                                                                         I was wrong. Very wrong.
     The atmosphere in the room changed, shifted. This is when our doctor started to ask me more and more questions, "Did he pass his infant hearing exam?" "How does he do socially?" "How's his eye contact?" "How does he interact with others?" "When he plays with toys does he do anything odd with them?" I answered them the best I could, but I could feel the worry forming in my gut and quickly moving up to my eyes as I started to tear up. He then explained that we needed to rule out whether he was hearing like he should, and if that was the case we need to be open to the possibility that he might be Autistic.
                                                                                           Autistic.
     It hit me like a ton of bricks. Autistic?! No he can't be, could he? I always figured he was just more like me, I mean I didn't start talking until I was 3! Maybe he's just taking his time? Maybe he really is not hearing like he should? Are you sure he should be talking? This wasn't the end to all the questions and thoughts that still to this day tend to keep me up at night. Our story that we had envisioned for our life came to a close that day, and a new one was just beginning.
    These 4 months since that day have been full of doctor appointments, referrals, interventions, more appointments, and worry. We ruled out his hearing, started working with an Occupational Therapist, but by his 18 month Well Exam we were right where we were at 15 months with more questions, but still no answers. We were then referred to an Autism Specialist. My worries coming true. Things hadn't gotten better, and from what the testing showed, my 18-month-old's language skills were still at 9 months, cognitive skills were still at 12 months, social skills at 12 months. In the blink of an eye our life was changing and it was getting scarier. It was like all of our plans and dreams were gone and now we have to start something completely new. This is when this thought occurred to me:
                                                                                      I'm on the moon.
    This train of logic started to form from an article a friend had me read when we had first been told that Des might be Autistic. The article is called "Welcome to Holland". It's a beautiful article describing how life is when your child has special needs. What I'm about to say next will make a lot more sense if you read it! Here it is:

     I knew that starting soon we would no longer be on the "earth" we had planned for. I knew that now we were heading for the moon. I think everyone, at least once in their life, starts to picture what their life will be like; dreams, hopes, goals, desires, and you start making mental plans on how you make this life a reality. These thoughts especially form when you start your family. You start thinking about family vacations, teaching your son how to fish, hunt, how to throw a ball, how things will be when he starts to play sports, goes to school, all of it. We never thought that our reality would include Autism and it's landed us in a foreign land. We don't speak the language, we don't understand the customs, and the culture....it's so much different than home. The saying, "I love you to the moon and back" has completely changed for me. My love for Desmond has landed me on the moon and the plan was that this love would go back, but it hasn't. We're still on the moon and we might never come back.
     These thoughts lead us to where we are now. Today my little boy, my sweet Des became eligible to start Autism Spectrum Disorder therapy . My baby is Autistic. Which means we have landed on the moon and start our journey in this foreign land. With all this being said, I can't help but feel optimistic, hopeful, and grateful. I'm eternally grateful for my sweet Marshall and the opportunity to start this journey with my partner in crime, my best friend. I'm grateful for family and the support system we have here. I'm grateful to live in a time where my Des has access to all the help and interventions he needs to be successful. I'm hopeful for the future and our adventures on the moon. For all we know we might come back from the moon! The hope is with early intervention therapy and a lot of hard work that Des will be able to blossom, start talking, start interacting, and be all caught up by the time he starts school. However, I know that this might not be our reality. We might have to stay on the moon, and that's okay.
     I find so much peace in knowing that there is a God, I have a Savior, and He has a plan for me, Marshall, and Desmond. I know that He loves me and has given me Desmond for a very specific reason and will prepare a way for our life to be full of love, adventure, happiness, and joy. Just like I felt like I was on the moon when serving my mission in England, I soon with time felt at home and grew to love the home I had created in England. I know this will be the same entering the world of Autism.  For now, I love my sweet boy to the moon and will continue to use this blog as a way to report our findings, adventures, journey, and experiences here in this foreign land of Autism, or as I'll be calling it:
                                                                                               The Moon.