My In-laws are celebrating their 60th Wedding Anniversary this week. My parents will be celebrating their 40th Anniversary in December. This seems to be the year of big anniversaries for our family. As I’ve been working to plan a party to include my In-laws’ friends, neighbors and our close family this weekend, I find myself thinking about marriage – and what makes it the kind that will last multiple decades – a lot lately. (And to be honest, the breaking news of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver’s split only compounded my ponderings on marriage this week.)
Like most couples raising a child with an Autism Spectrum Disorder, my husband and I have had some really tough times. I wouldn’t blame all of our problems on “Autism,” because we certainly had our issues long before Ethan was born. We both brought our own issues into the marriage and we’ve done our best to work through them. Additionally, when Ethan was still very small, I realized that my husband and I have very different – sometimes even conflicting – parenting styles and approaches. All those things considered though, the “D-word” rarely seriously came up prior to Ethan’s diagnosis.

Let me be frank, I’m a bit of a pack rat. I come from a long line of them – on both sides of my family. We keep stuff…especially stuff that someone in our family, sometime, might someday use. That being said, I have a lot of…well, stuff.
We moved into our current home nearly 5 years ago. While I’m embarrassed to admit this, we actually have some boxes that had not been opened since I packed them 5 years ago; that is until this past weekend. You see I’m preparing for a Garage Sale. Our neighborhood hosts one annually (and does the promoting and obtains necessary permits) and since this is the first year we haven’t had a direct conflict, I decided it was Time (with a capital “T.”)
Along with a bunch of junk that I unearthed this weekend (that I can’t believe I actually kept, much less packed into a moving box), I’ve unpacked, uncovered and started preparing lots of paraphernalia we used when Ethan was a baby and toddler. We kept just about every reusable baby item possible to save on expenses because we planned to have two – maybe three – children when all was said and done. And, if simply going down memory lane, remembering Ethan’s sweet and precious early years so vividly while sorting through these items wasn’t enough; when we purchased this home, I was expecting our second child. I have always loved babies (even as a little girl and teenager) and loved, loved, loved having a newborn. I was so thrilled that we were expecting again and had such dreams of the kind of older brother Ethan would be. But, I lost our second baby before we could move in.

Yesterday, one of AutismSpot’s own Featured Bloggers, Psychologist Dr. Robert Naseef, flew through DFW after spending the weekend leading a conference for parents in El Paso. AutismSpot’s visionary Kent Potter took this opportunity to turn Dr. Naseef’s layover into some on-camera time with Dr. Naseef. I was fortunate enough to participate.
Dr. Naseef not only works with families raising children with ASD in the Philidelphia area, he also has an adult son with Autism. I heard Dr. Naseef speak last summer when he hosted a Father’s Panel at the annual conference hosted by the Autism Society. Dr. Naseef is very knowledgeable and forthcoming about what life is like for our families and ways to handle stress and make life better.

We can not travel the autism journey alone. Some say it takes a village to raise a child. When it comes to raising a child with autism, it takes a small army. Our children are unique, different, special, and require a different set of tools that we often pick up along the way. As a community, we share from our bag of tricks and ideas. After a few years of being involved in the autism community, you quickly get past the awareness phase because you're dealing with much more immediate, bigger, and pressing matters.

On November 4th 2004 our lives were forever changed. It was our D-Day…Diagnosis Day.
Rashele and I were clueless as to what the world of autism would bring us. Some lessons were learned quickly, others we’re still learning. One thing that was apparent, our marriage would suffer. Like most couples, any time we had to ourselves fell to the wayside.
The stress of the constant shuttle of doctor and therapy appointments, denials by the insurance company, a quickly dwindling savings account took its toll. Pressure mounted and we many times took the troubles out on each other.

It's 8:00PM on November 3, 2008 and Sam (7 yrs old) was getting into bed when he asked for me to tell him a story about New York City. I proceeded to tell him about the Broadway Musical "Legally Blond" that we saw a few weeks ago. As I described the set, the theatre, the weather during our walk from Times Square, and finally the plot of the musical he asked, "How do we fall in love?"

Angie and I spent last week in New York City. This was a much needed break from the madness of start-up life and the daily adventures of a family living with autism. We have been married for twelve and a half years. A good portion of the first five years was spent traveling to some very fun places. When you have a child with autism, travel often just flies out the window like the rest of your "planned life." Depending on circumstances, everything you knew prior to autism may seem like it vanishes into thin air.

AutismSpot is celebrating it's one year anniversary this month and we are excited to share some really great news with you. We love AutismSpot as much as you do. We are so glad to be sharing in this community with you. Every day is a new adventure.