Our Story

From the moment of his birth, Joaquin was always special. Just one look at that first photo they took of him at the hospital, and you could immediately tell that this was no ordinary baby. A baby who hated any kind of physical restraint (car seat, stroller, baby sling, etc) and at four months of age used every inch of his body and drop of energy to crawl, and oh! the frustration during the two months that went by before he was finally able to do it. A baby who ignored children and refused to ever let us teach him anything. He was independent; he was determined; he was passionate and focused; he was Don Joaquin!... But he was also sweet and affectionate. Joaquin had a deep connection with both of us and his evident challenge accepting other people was easy to confuse with the strangers anxiety that experts consider normal for children of his age.

He smiled, crawled, walked, signed, and said his first words at a typical age. He demanded our constant attention and never wanted to be left alone. This was clearly a social child, except he rejected anybody different from his parents, even the mothers and children in the playgroup we had been attending for over a year. So we asked... Nothing else in his behavior or development seemed to signal it, but could he have autistic tendencies?... Some sort of social disorder?... His pediatrician didn't think so; not the first or second time I asked, and I was relieved. And when Joaquin turned two, I noticed a sudden new independence...

He would entertain himself for 30 minutes and then seek my company. He started playing by himself, and did not really want to play our games or read our books anymore. Always on the go but still demanding of attention, Joaquin was difficult to play with. He would play with cars and trains, but not in a typical way... He'd spend a lot of time on the floor, inspecting tiny vehicles very close to his eyes. Joaquin looked like a curious inventor concentrated on deep observation of events not apparent to ordinary people. And he'd jump and circle the room while making car sounds. I thought he was pretending to drive. He learned and loved numbers from a very early age, and when he'd sign numbers with his fingers and bring them close to his eyes, I didn't think anything wrong from it. He was connected to us; was loving and affectionate; wanted our company; gave us what felt like normal eye contact; had language skills we believed typical for a toddler who was being raised bilingual... It would've been so easy to miss...

But a series of coincidences brought me to observe him really closely one night. For the first time I suspended my fear to consider something atypical could be happening to my baby. I looked at him with an open mind and realized that his behavior was a little bit odd. I was aware of little ways how Joaquin was different from his peers, but hey, what was the big deal if he didn't blow kisses or played with other children yet?... Except, that night I saw him slap himself. He had never done that before. So I decided it was time to really understand the autism spectrum. Maybe he was a little autistic.

Not a little. My research that night proved without much room for doubt that Joaquin, at two and a half years old, was autistic. His behavior raised almost every single red flag pointing to the spectrum. Many times earlier I had tried to find answers for his social challenges without success, and this was the first time that the whole picture was coming together.

Without a doubt, I can say that the next day was the worse of my life. We poked him and called him and tested him to confirm our suspicions. Everything Joaquin did was not adorable anymore; it was autistic. Everything he said was autism. Every sound and jump... It was all autism slapping my face. What had looked to us like toddler play was in fact a complex circuit of repetitive behaviors that filled his day and excluded most of the world outside him... Worse of all: He excluded us. That's why he didn't respond consistently when we called his name, or why he was completely unresponsive to our requests. I thought that was his personality; instead it was autism.

I realized that over the last several weeks, he had stopped using words he knew and replaced them with crying and screaming. But he wouldn't point. He didn't always look at us when asking for things. No longer did he share his excitement with us. The change had been so gradual it had been easy to miss, and we didn't have any other children to compare his behavior and realize that it wasn't typical. The apparent tolerance Joaquin had recently developed for playgroup and music class was just due to the fact that he had devised a way to go away; to not be there with us. We were losing him. Watching him stim at the kitchen table —the same image I had seen every morning for several weeks— was now totally different. I was looking at my own precious child like he was a tiny insane person, and I thought that the pain on my heart was going to break me in two pieces.

It was perhaps a miracle — and to me, a clear sign that a beautiful journey was on the works for me — but that same night I found the Son-Rise Program®. I spent almost all night watching the testimonials of parents currently doing the program... The strength, comfort, confidence and peace of those women... I so wanted to be them. And even more powerful than the testimonials and incredible stories of recovery, were the many webinars I watched explaining the principles of the program and its genesis. It all made so much sense. If felt right. It felt good. It felt loving and perfect, and empowering. It allowed me to accept my child and love him as he was and still have hope for his future, and I couldn't wait for the next day to start applying Son-Rise principles on my little one.

And that next day, the miracles started happening. And they haven't stopped yet. It's all in motion. It's as if my baby was falling down a hole and I hadn't noticed, but the minute I did I was able to catch him, stop the fall, and day by day pull him out a little.

My journey with Son-Rise started in April, 2010; just one day after diagnosing Joaquin, and a full month before a professional confirmed it. It has changed Joaquin, and it has changed me. It is so much wider than autism. It has touched my core as a mother and as a person. And while my child is starting to open up and participate more in the world outside of him, I realize that "cure" is an offensive word for those adults who are proud of their autism. It is not my intention to make a social butterfly out of my son (God knows I'm not one either), or deprive him from his unique and beautiful capacity to see the world from a different perspective. To me, this process is simply about clearing the obstacles on his way. I want him to grow up to be an independent man with the capacity to pursue his dreams and interests, make meaningful relationships, express and understand his feelings, and be able to develop his passion, talent, gift... His mark on this life. I want him to reach his full potential and be happy; as happy as he currently is.