From the second Joey came into this world he was loved by so many people. There was finally a boy in the family.

Joey got meningitis at 3 weeks of age and we thought we might lose him; he is a tough guy and pulled through with a moderate hearing loss.

Joey wears hearing aids and seemed to be doing great until this past Summer. Joey was attending the district 196 deaf and hard of hearing classes. Over the summer right before Joey turned 4 he started to regress; losing skills that he had, stopped making eye contact and became almost like a different child. I thought maybe because I was having another baby and that was his way of acting out; boy was I wrong.

I went in for conferences in June of 2009 with all of Joey's teachers sitting at a table; I was 6 months pregnant and by myself at the conference. Cory was at home with Joey and David.

The first words that came out of Joey's teachers mouth was " Carly we are really worried about Joey" I thought hhmmmm and wanted to start crying at that point but thought that I would wait until she told me why she was worried; deep down inside I knew what she was going to say. Yep! I was right she said "Carly we are worried that Joey might be autistic and would like your permission to do the appropriate testing. In between sobs I said of course. That was one day throughout this journey that I will never forget. The other day that I will never forget is July 29, 2009 when we had the meeting after all of the testing that took place over the summer and the autism diagnoses was confirmed.

I thought to myself this can't be so bad; there isn't anything that I can't handle. Boy was I wrong....