In The Beginning

In The Beginning there was a perfect baby.
His parents were pleased and proud of this living image of themselves that they had created.
They watched over him, nurtured, loved him to the best of their abilities.
Months passed and their fine young infant grew changing daily, acquiring new skills, crawling, then walking, smiling, talking, exploring his new world and his parents were happy.
Then one day it all stopped.
This bright wee lad with the face of a Greek God and angelic gold locks disappeared.
In his place was the same figure without the life force.
It was as if it had just switched off.
Content was he to spin items. Tires on matchbox cars literally for hours.
His parents were confused. Afraid. Denying.
His speech was gone. In it's place, monotone humming, screaming.
Gone was the little boy who would rub my nose with the palm of his hand as I rocked him to sleep at night. And return "I Love You" when I would whisper it into his neck as I breathed in his little boy scent and nestled him in my arms.
No more hugs and kisses.
Who was this new child and what had happened to our baby.
Multiple visits to the pediatrician did not bring answers.
"his speech will come" she would say.
To which I would reply "he had speech but now it has gone"
And she would dismiss us and tell us not to worry.
And we would return home and try to tell ourselves that our little boy was perfect and would be okay. Everything would be okay.
But, a little niggly voice at the back of my head kept whispering. Each day getting louder and more persistent "Autism, your baby has Autism"
The bottom dropped out of my world but, still I didn't want to believe it so we managed the symptoms the best we could and tried to ignore it. Who knows, maybe it would go away.
But it didn't.
Doctors appointments were kept and his vaccinations were kept up and it was around that time that the newspapers in Miami reported that 7 children had become Autistic after having vaccinations.
There was that word again.
When Nathan was taken to the doctors I asked what the corelation was between the vacinations and Autism and she replied that they were linking it to the Mercury in the vaccines.
Obviously I didn't want to have it done but she said it was impossible that the vaccines could be causing the Autism but to be on the safe side they had thrown out the batches that were linked.
So Nathan was immunised.
More and more each day, our little boy became more distant.
Our pediatrician put it down to the fact that one year and two days after Nathan was born, his brother John joined us.
John was born with the cord around his neck and I had to stop labour in order for the physician to remove it prior to delivery.
A large child at 9lbs 10oz John required a lot of care.
He suffered from reflux but ate an awful lot and for a while there he was breastfed on the hour.
He didn't lose the 6oz after birth, he just kept gaining.
It wasn't many months before we could see that he was almost as big as his brother.
Fourteen months later we had to accept the fact that the same affliction that Nathan had acquired, had happened to his brother.
The symptoms were similar but John's had a more erratic, destructive quality to it.
I am a Registered Nurse and my husband decided that he didn't want to work anymore so he stayed home with the children.
He said that he didn't trust his mother to do the job but, as I found out later, every day after I left for work she would arrive and just before I was due home at night she would leave.
Basically, he just didn't want to work.