Our Story

Welcome to the wonderful world of Will! He is the most amazing little boy you'll ever meet. Will was born on August 30, 2004 at 12:28 pm. I had a completely normal pregnancy and delivery with Will, and there were no complications. He came home from the hospital and immediately began blessing our lives. For the first few months Will did everything all babies do. Then, around 6 months old he began being delayed in his motor skills. He wasn't rolling over or trying to sit up. He has low muscle tone. His doctor and I decided to take the "wait and see" approach since not all kids do everything right at the same time. At his 9 month well child check Will still wasn't sitting up. We decided to get early intervention services at that point. Will started with SoonerStart (Oklahoma's early intervention program) at 10 and a half months old. He was sitting up within a month, and we were thrilled! However, it was months before he made any more progress. He was also becoming delayed in his speech at this time. Will finally started "army" crawling at around 18 months and started crawling on his hands and knees at 21 months. He began pulling up at 26 months. All this time he was getting occupational, physical, and speech therapy at Children's' Medical Center in Tulsa, OK. Will would make a little progress, and then nothing for several months. It seemed like it was just long enough for me to get discouraged when he'd reach another milestone. Cate, Will's little sister, was born April 10, 2007. That really spurred Will's development. He started walking in May, at 33 months old. He still has a wide-based ataxic gate, but he can walk! Will said his first word in June. It is "juice!" So far it's his only word, but he's working on "look" right now. It's coming out as "ook" but he's trying. Will's developmental pediatrician, Dr. Edward Gustavson, diagnosed him with DAMP syndrome about 6-8 months ago. DAMP syndrome is a disorder that combines ADHD with developmental coordination disorder (DCD). Will also was autism, so this puts him into the severe DAMP category. He sill gets occupational and speech therapy and just started school at The Little Light House, a christian developmental center for children age 0-6 years with special needs. It is an amazing place filled with God's love. I hope you've enjoyed hearing our story and will want to get to know our family, and especially Will, more.