My 18 months old son has been evaluated at early intervention for developmental delays, SPD and autism.
He's the only son and only child in both families.
We are so scared. We feel devastated. All we want is to have pour son healthy and normal. We want him to grow normal and develop normally.

He has some sort of speech problem. He just speaks few words (but in his Mom's day out most the kids his age don't speak much.
He will start speech therapy next month.

He likes to move, to spin, to walk in circles, to jump. He's very active. But he also sits to play quietly and watch his favorite DVD's from baby Einstein.

he's affectionate. He hugs me and his father. He smiles, laughts. He makes eye contact and attends by his name.

He is a picky eater. There are some smoth textures he doesn't like, for example macaroni (pasta). He doesn't like fruits, but orange juice. He eats meat, chicken, sweet potato, mashed potatoes, rice and beans, lentils, oat meal, yogurt, milk, baby prunes puree, GF crackers, GF graham crackers-style. Since I have celiac disease, he just eats gluten-free because of the risk of developing that disease.

He doesn't scribe, nor stack cubes or rings. Although I play with him everyday stacking cubes and rings, he doesn't care. And he gets mad if I make his hand do it. The same with crayons. He likes to play with them, but never ever draw a line in the paper.

he's still in the sippy cup. No cups yet. maybe because I didn't work enough with it. I am always thinking about the mess i will have to clean afterwards. Maybe it's my fault.

i never took him to walk on the sand or grass. I'm sort of germ phobic. Maybe because I got a lot larva migrans from cats and dogs pooping on the street (I lived in Brazil most of my life).

When he was 9 months he felt from the bed and I was worried and took him to make a CT scan of his head. There were no signs of trauma, but we found out that his left side of the brain is a little smaller than the right and the left ventricule is larger than the right (to compensate said the neuro surgeon). The neuro pediatrician said the only thing she found was a hyperreflexia in his right lower limb. The OT said he wasn't delayed but he needed exercises for coordination, fine motor and cause and effect. He had a posture to sit that was wrong and could cause him to have a shorter leg.

i was doing the exercises and playing all this with him. I was correcting his way to sit down everyday. He finally gave up the position when he started to walk at 12 months.

He is clumsy to walk and he falls a lot. His coordination is not good. Sometimes I think he doesn't understand the space and the proximity of things.

It was hard to make him hold his bottle to drink milk. But the transition to sip cup was great in 1 day.

Well, I don't know so many things. His father know less than me. We feel lost and hopeless.

All we wanted is to have our son healthy.

The coordinator at EI said to me today that if he doesn't have autism, we should do genetic tests. Genetic tests in my son?

We started the paperwork to see a private developmental pediatrician. We don't have the money, but my brother said he will pay for this medical bills.
We don't have insurance yet. Maybe in February.

Why life needs to be so challenging? Why my son?
We feel broke.
Please, help us.