Her first stepping stones & our trip to Bolivia



(Bolivia)

     My daughter did everything on time: she walked, rolled over, sat up and etc.. Because of her delay in speech, I searched in Google "Early Intervention Services near my area". Early intervention program basically means: It provides support and services to families with children birth to age five, who have developmental delays and disabilities. Unfortunately, the person whom they send me was great at first with my daughter with her speech, but she created a habit of calling in sick and not coming for her sessions. My mistake was not being in top of her absences and I thought that by providing my daughter with this service (basically were doing us a favor), but in the contrary these are funded by the state and we are entitled to have them. I always asked her how my daughter was developing overall, but us parents trust specialists and think that if we hear the words "don't worry about your daughter, she will  be talking in no time"... we leave things as they are because we trust on their answers. Some other answers that I got because of her speech delay was: You come from a Hispanic background and she will eventually talk. I was aware of what autism meant, but did not know it would happen to me. My daughter had her regular pediatrician check-up and they never saw the signs. 

     Angelina was developing some words like "mom", "dad" and little some small words. We thought it would be good to travel to Bolivia and visit her great grandparents there when Angelina was 3 years old, she was a little fuzzy like most kids but okay in the airplane. We went sightseeing with her and of course hired a babysitter to be with us while we were going to everyplace around Bolivia. There was no sign in my eyes or other peoples eyes that she might have autism or anything else, my daughter enjoyed her trip to another country and we all had a great time there! 

     Then when we came back to Pennsylvania....things changed dramatically with my daughter all of a sudden. 





The joy of having a beautiful baby girl !

     I gave birth to my daughter which she was 7.5lbs and she was born in "Columbia Presbyterian Hospital" in New York City in 2005. This was my second child, but my first girl so I was excited about buying the new baby girl clothes and the works!

     I do have to admit that I had a rough pregnancy because I had anemia and my iron storage was very low. They were not able to give me iron infusions because of my pregnancy and I just had to wait until my baby was born. I had to see a high risk pregnancy doctor, but I had several tests done to make sure the baby was fine. Everything pointed out that my baby was absorbing all my vitamins and sucking out everything from me, but every medical test showed she had no medical conditions that had to alarm us at all.

     I was doing everything by the book, I took my prenatal vitamins and went to every doctor's visit on time. I did not smoke nor did I drink alcohol (of any kind) during my pregnancy; I was told to drink a glass a wine a month, but refused to drink anything that contained alcohol.

     I worked throughout my pregnancy in New York City and did lots of walking on the job. The best part of this pregnancy was that I did a lot of walking which made my labor much quicker. When it was time for me to give birth to my baby, it was the quickest delivery ever. When I mean quick, I literally gave birth so fast that my doctor could not make it on time and his partner had to be there. We decided to name my baby girl "Angelina Marie" and she was so precious and little. Her oxygen was good and she had to problems at all in the delivery room.

     Just having two kids was a turning point for me in the way that, I had to think where it would be better to live and have them grow-up. I family member told us one day to visit them in Easton, Pennsylvania during my pregnancy and I have to admit.. I fell in love with Pennsylvania and my older son loved it too. We moved to Forks Township (Easton) when Angelina was 3 months old. I loved the fact that everyone had children in our neighborhood and their friendliness as well.

     As a baby.. Angelina did not show no signs of Autism at all when she was little.