Zach's story a little bit at a time.

A Summary of Sorts

We welcomed Zachary into our family on December 22, 1995.  Our third child, he was the spitting image of my dad, down to his lack of hair :) .  All of our children were baldies, but Zach had a chubby little man face.  He had a bit of wispy blond fuzz and blue eyes like his siblings and his daddy.  He was a 7lb 9 oz bundle of boy and a welcome addition to our family.
    We were living in Amherst Township at the time, in the mobile home park. Chris was in school and Monica, just shy of 2, was my little helper.  We lived a pretty simple life and Zach seemed to develop normally.  He smiled and crawled and walked and made eye contact.  He wasn't what I ever thought of as an unusually cranky or unhappy child.  I always thought we were pretty blessed not to have a great deal of sibling rivalry going on.  But as he neared his first birthday Zach didn't really talk.  It was a big deal when he said the word "banana" for the first time.  Pete wrote it on the calendar. 
     When Zach turned one, we invited our parents over to celebrate in our little mobile home.  It was a simple celebration shared with loved ones.  Pete's mom had passed away a little over a year before, having never met Zachary.  Little did we know that my mom would leave this earthy world just 4 days after Zach's birthday, which also happened to be the day after Christmas and the day before my 26th birthday.  
     It was a rough year emotionally.  I had grown very close to my mom when I married and moved out of the house.  We shared Sunday dinners and talked on the phone daily.  In fact, we were talking on the phone when she died.  
     I will always wonder if my radar was down due to my grief and if I would have noticed things sooner if I wasn't going through my own emotional pain.  I don't think life as the parent of a disabled child is ever free of wonder and guilt of some kind or other.  As it was, Zachary began to miss milestones between his first birthday and his second.  He still had a beautiful (and sometimes mischievous) smile.  He liked to be held and cuddled but he began to act as if he couldn't hear us.  He didn't turn at the sound of his name.  He was not gaining vocabulary.  He didn't call us by name.  
     I spoke to our family doctor about it and he said, "Oh, he's FINE.  I see the way he looks at you."  But he ordered a hearing test anyway (you have to love that about a D.O. - I know I do!), to rule out anything physical causing his delays.
    At that precise juncture our insurance changed.  We were forced to change doctors before a hearing test could be performed and it was like starting from square one.  We were already getting the feeling that some family members thought we weren't looking into Zachary's (by then obvious) delays.  It was hard to feel judged as a parent, a life calling I take very seriously. We were following a path on which trusted medical professionals were leading us even as they protested our concerns.  "Oh, the older kids are just talking FOR him" our new doctor said.  But I knew there was something wrong.  To be fair, in 1995 autism had not yet reached the epic proportions it has reached today and I am sure many doctors had never even seen a case.  In my opinion and from my interaction with families affected by autism (which are still only MY personal experiences) it seems that the mid 90s were when the autism onslaught really began... or things at least began to snowball.
   When we finally were able to convince the new doctor to order a hearing test it came back within normal range.  On to the next step... but what was the next step?