I have something to say about the stupidity that is going rampant in this country……
Above is the ultrasound photo of my oldest when I was 16 weeks pregnant with him, in 2006.
And that now young man is 19 years old. And he is autistic.
And he is brilliant. And he loves his family. And he loves his dog Trixie. And he loves video games.
And he happens to be in the honors college at his college. And his grades are stellar. He is majoring in philosophy, and because philosophy is so easy for him he is adding a second major, statistics, likely at the end of the semester.
He has his driver’s license. He has a strong circle of good guy friends who are very good to him.
He loves to play D&D. And, I think he likes school.
And, you know what, he doesn’t just love to look people in the eye. He will do so with me, but I’m pretty sure that’s because at a fairly young age I told him he should do so.
And his life really does pretty much revolve around video games- the next one coming out, the reviews, all of that. He’s pretty singularly focused.
And he’s got slight tactile issues that I won’t go into here.
And you know what else? I’m pretty unconcerned with why Porter is the way he is.
You know why?
Because he is literally one of the best men that I have ever met in my entire life. It utterly astounds me that I got so lucky as to be his mom.
And you know what else? I did not take Tylenol during my pregnancy with him. Except during literally the hour that he was born, because due to my spinal fusion I could not have an epidural.
But labor was fast, and I’m 99% sure that Tylenol never reached my bloodstream, and certainly not his.
The whole premise behind the Tylenol and autism thing is that it is yet another way to shame women, to make them question their choices about their bodies.
Tylenol did not cause my son’s autism. It offends me to even worry about why he has autism.
But for sure, nothing I did in my pregnancy caused him to be the way he is.
And even if it had, I’m damn proud to be his mom and if I went back and told that 26-year old version of myself that this beautiful baby she was staring at the ultrasound picture of, that that baby has autism, I’m damn sure she would be through the roof proud when I told her what else that baby is capable of. And that she gets to be the one he calls Mom.
