Our second daughter Courtney in August of 2006 at age 8Jennifer and I had our first daughter Audrey very early in our marriage. Just a little over a year after that, I quit my high-paying engineering job and we went to seminary. After I graduated from seminary, we spent two years as missionaries in Prague, Czech Republic, and Tuzla, Bosnia. During all those years, our financial resources were VERY limited. Because of that, we decided to postpone having a second child until we felt that we could adequately support him or her.
Toward the end of our time in Tuzla, we decided it was time to begin trying for a second child. Very soon afterward, we were blessed to find out that Jennifer was expecting. Six months later, we finished our 2-year missionary term and returned home. Three months after that, Courtney was born on September 4, 1998. We were excited and blessed to have another beautiful and perfectly healthy daughter.
The following January, when Courtney was only four months old, we returned to Bosnia to begin what we thought would be a four-year missionary term. Courtney was a very healthy child, seemingly normal in all respects. She had no obvious defects, and she developed physically very well. She was walking on her own at the age of only ten months. Her height and weight were far above the fiftieth percentile for her age, and she had a great appetite. She was rarely ever ill. Jennifer and I were both impressed by and thankful for her development, which seemed to be a good deal above average.
Cognitively, Courtney also seemed to develop normally, at least at first. She began making sounds and babbling at about the same time most babies do. However, her babbling never seemed to progress into actual speech. She could say a few words, like “Apple,” “One,” and “Two,” but her vocabulary did not grow like that of other children her age. We didn’t give this much notice; we just thought she was a little behind in her speech development. “After all,” Jennifer would reasonably say, “I didn’t start speaking in complete sentences until I was about three.” And we had read stories of children not starting to speak until much later than even age three.
We mainly figured that Courtney was linguistically confused. We felt this way because we only spoke English in our home, while our nanny/housekeeper, who spent several hours a day with Courtney, only spoke Serbian. This theory of ours seemed to be confirmed by the fact that Courtney began to use a few Serbian words with her limited English vocabulary. When we eventually decided to resign our positions, return to the U. S., and convert to Orthodoxy, Courtney was about thirty months old but couldn’t even say thirty words. We figured that once she was hearing only English spoken, her vocabulary would explode, and she would catch up to other kids her age.
During this time, we began to notice not only that Courtney’s speech was delayed (as was her progress toward being potty-trained), but she also began to exhibit some unusual behaviors. Often, she would stare into space for long periods of time, and some of these times, she would break into uncontrollable laughter for no apparent reason. She also began taking both toys and decorative items and lining them up by size or by some other organizational criteria. Once when we were on vacation at my parents’ house, my sister Lisa observed Courtney fall into one of her fits of laughter. She urged us to get Courtney checked out. I just laughed at the suggestion, and Jennifer saw no need. After all, how could there be anything wrong with a child who was so physically perfect? And she WAS just two years old! We just needed to give her time, or so we thought…
By the time we had been back in the States for three months or so, the expected explosion in Courtney’s speaking ability had not happened. She still could only say a handful of words, despite being nearly three years old. And the strange behaviors not only continued, but they multiplied. Finally, Jennifer and I called in a group called Early Childhood Development, a Texas government organization that tests young children for developmental disorders.
After spending only a couple of hours with Courtney, they recommended that we take her to an Autism specialist at Texas Children’s Hospital here in Houston. When we did so, the specialist confirmed what we had been fearing for quite some time: Courtney had Autism.
More tomorrow or Friday…
Toward the end of our time in Tuzla, we decided it was time to begin trying for a second child. Very soon afterward, we were blessed to find out that Jennifer was expecting. Six months later, we finished our 2-year missionary term and returned home. Three months after that, Courtney was born on September 4, 1998. We were excited and blessed to have another beautiful and perfectly healthy daughter.
The following January, when Courtney was only four months old, we returned to Bosnia to begin what we thought would be a four-year missionary term. Courtney was a very healthy child, seemingly normal in all respects. She had no obvious defects, and she developed physically very well. She was walking on her own at the age of only ten months. Her height and weight were far above the fiftieth percentile for her age, and she had a great appetite. She was rarely ever ill. Jennifer and I were both impressed by and thankful for her development, which seemed to be a good deal above average.
Cognitively, Courtney also seemed to develop normally, at least at first. She began making sounds and babbling at about the same time most babies do. However, her babbling never seemed to progress into actual speech. She could say a few words, like “Apple,” “One,” and “Two,” but her vocabulary did not grow like that of other children her age. We didn’t give this much notice; we just thought she was a little behind in her speech development. “After all,” Jennifer would reasonably say, “I didn’t start speaking in complete sentences until I was about three.” And we had read stories of children not starting to speak until much later than even age three.
We mainly figured that Courtney was linguistically confused. We felt this way because we only spoke English in our home, while our nanny/housekeeper, who spent several hours a day with Courtney, only spoke Serbian. This theory of ours seemed to be confirmed by the fact that Courtney began to use a few Serbian words with her limited English vocabulary. When we eventually decided to resign our positions, return to the U. S., and convert to Orthodoxy, Courtney was about thirty months old but couldn’t even say thirty words. We figured that once she was hearing only English spoken, her vocabulary would explode, and she would catch up to other kids her age.
During this time, we began to notice not only that Courtney’s speech was delayed (as was her progress toward being potty-trained), but she also began to exhibit some unusual behaviors. Often, she would stare into space for long periods of time, and some of these times, she would break into uncontrollable laughter for no apparent reason. She also began taking both toys and decorative items and lining them up by size or by some other organizational criteria. Once when we were on vacation at my parents’ house, my sister Lisa observed Courtney fall into one of her fits of laughter. She urged us to get Courtney checked out. I just laughed at the suggestion, and Jennifer saw no need. After all, how could there be anything wrong with a child who was so physically perfect? And she WAS just two years old! We just needed to give her time, or so we thought…
By the time we had been back in the States for three months or so, the expected explosion in Courtney’s speaking ability had not happened. She still could only say a handful of words, despite being nearly three years old. And the strange behaviors not only continued, but they multiplied. Finally, Jennifer and I called in a group called Early Childhood Development, a Texas government organization that tests young children for developmental disorders.
After spending only a couple of hours with Courtney, they recommended that we take her to an Autism specialist at Texas Children’s Hospital here in Houston. When we did so, the specialist confirmed what we had been fearing for quite some time: Courtney had Autism.
More tomorrow or Friday…
3 comments:
I really look forward to hearing more of your story.
Father Bless!
I look forward to reading part II.
Thank you for sharing this first part of the story.
I appreciate you sharing this story with us and look forward to the next installment.
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