UNspecial LLC: So go back and listen to Becky's episodes. I definitely do. ⁓ But so our functional medicine doctor, she said that with Liam's yeast and bacterial markers that she's seeing, she said that he is basically drunk all the time. Whoa. So basically, the yeast and the bacteria, give off toxic byproducts. If a child is visually impaired and they need glasses, are you going to say, no, we're just going to accept you the way you are and we're going to love you the way you are? We're not going to give you glasses because us giving you glasses is fixing you and you're not broken. You're going to just give them glasses because that doesn't... Just because you're trying to help them doesn't mean there's something wrong or broken with them. them. All right, this isn't a feel good autism story. This is a survival story. Today on the Unspecialed podcast, I'm sitting down with at awesome underscore insights on Instagram, also known as Stephanie, ⁓ a mother who didn't wait for permission, didn't follow a script and refused to let a broken system define her child's future. Leo. If you've ever been told to accept less, trust the experts or stay in your lane, this episode is for you because we're done whispering, we're done apologizing, and we're done letting other people decide what our children are capable of. This is the Unspecialed Podcast. Let's get uncomfortable. Stephanie, thanks for being on. Of course. Thank you for inviting me on, honestly. Yeah. We've had this in the works for months. So I'm pumped we're here and we waited because you were. There was still so much more that I was trying to learn with the doctors that we were seeing. And I felt like once I had more information from them, I would have had a lot more to go off of to tell you. Yeah. Yeah. And so your son's name is Liam. How old is he? He's three and a half now. He's a little guy. I'm a four year old, so I'm just. picturing they're the same size. Is your four year old your oldest? ⁓ She's number three. Okay. I have nine, seven, four, and one. Thought you were literally just about to say nine kids. I was like, whoa. Okay, yeah, that's their ages. see. I do have a friend who has eight kids and they're all under 12. ⁓ my gosh, that sounds hard. she smokes me in the gym every morning. That's awesome though. Yeah, keeps her going. She has to be strong in order to chase all those kids around. I know. I don't know how she does it. I don't know how any of you do it. How are you doing today? You're alive and well? I'm doing good. ⁓ After Liam's diagnosis, I have also been diagnosed with a couple other things. Obsessive compulsive personality disorder. Different than OCD, I had never even heard of it. I thought that I had OCD my entire life. Then when I got the diagnosis, they said, no, you fit the criteria for OCPD instead. And then also I've been diagnosed with bipolar disorder as well, which my mom is bipolar. So I always thought like, ⁓ I have the bipolar gene or whatever. But now that I've been learning about methylation, I've now come to realize that my methylation is just imbalanced. Or at least that's what I believe. And so I'm trying to get my methylation back on track too. So did well. All right. We're going to go. going off script already. Forget it. We're just going to let it fly. What did you have some of that before Liam or did Liam like ⁓ accentuate those? ⁓ I mean, I've always been like I've always thought I had OCD because I had OCD tendencies. And ⁓ like I was very particular growing up, like to the point where if I didn't like my handwriting while I was writing our like our tests or when I was writing our essays and stuff, like back when I was younger, before we were typing up our essays and stuff, ⁓ it was like fifth grade. If I didn't like the way that my penmanship. looked while I was writing, I would rewrite my essays all over again. Like start from the beginning, rewrite it until I was satisfied with the way that my penmanship looked. And then I was like, okay, this is good enough to turn in that way. And I've always been so like OCD when it comes to checking things. Like not checking doorknobs or anything, but rereading my emails to make sure there's no typos or like never feeling like I've done enough. And it's something that I've always struggled with. But then I sought out a therapist and she said, oh no, you fit like OCPD. And so then when I looked up what that is, I literally, my mouth dropped and I was like, this is me. This is like so me. But I didn't even know that that condition even existed. then- I never heard of it. Yeah. It's a type of personality disorder instead of a like obsessive compulsive disorder. So it comes and goes? ⁓ No, it's just kind of like who I am. You're very driven by perfectionism and I've always been somebody who is like a perfectionist. And I think that also comes along with me not feeling like I've done enough. Like I'm always trying to tweak and perfect. when before I stopped working, I was working on designing websites and I would spend so much time on these websites because I was tweaking little things that didn't need to be tweaked, but I felt like it wasn't good enough. And so I was just kind of like trying to like fix it, fix it, fix it. And so I also think like I've always been trying to like fix myself. Like I went into psychology and ⁓ I graduated with a degree in psychology. I was going for my master's as well for marital and family therapy. ⁓ And so I kind of just feel like growing up, I've always been on a mission to figure out myself. as well and it was just kind of like where I led in a professional sense. But then I didn't finish my masters and I ended up moving to Louisiana and then now I'm not even using my degree for anything but I really do feel like everything I've learned through psychology and through school helps me so much more with Liam than it would in my like if I were to seek out ⁓ psychology as a profession. Oh, okay. Like, feel like I've been using so much of my degree learning about myself and learning about Liam. Yeah. And if anything, I feel like my education is so much more meaningful for me right now. I mean, from what I see, that's spot on. I can see your background in all that, especially with your 10-part series on why you don't think he regressed or why he wasn't. born with autism. Another thing that's weird too is like I took classes like adolescent development and stuff like that and I took exceptional children classes but it was more about like the legal stuff with ⁓ with special ed more of like IEPs and how to go about that and less about like the actual brain development of somebody who has like special needs. So that was kind of interesting because now I feel like I'm learning so much more about autism than I did when I was in school. Right. I mean, for sure for me too, even going through the credential program, I more on this podcast than anywhere. ⁓ I bet. Do you think, how long ago was that that you stopped pursuing psychology? I graduated from college in 2014. So, and then I was going for my master's in 2015. And then, and I only was going for one year. Luckily, well, not luckily, but coincidentally, when I stopped going for my master's, my school didn't even get accredited that year. So it was kind of like a blessing in disguise because my education wouldn't have really counted for anything if I weren't to use those credit hours for, you know. Right. I was going to the Chicago School of Professional Psychology at the time. And then one of those years during my master's degree, they didn't even get accredited. So I ended up stopping my master's program and I started working right away. And I worked for an iPhone app company for a little bit until I ended up meeting Will. Okay. Will's your husband. Yeah. And so he and I actually met online. We met on Facebook. Nice. Yeah. Perfect. I mean, I don't do We were long distance for a year and a half until I finally made the move down to Louisiana. And then that's how I ended up here. Okay. And so do you work now? No. So I was, so for the longest time after I moved here, I was working for a promotional products company doing like account management and stuff. And then when Liam was diagnosed, I stopped working there and I wanted to stay home with him because he was going to nine therapies a week ⁓ after his diagnosis. He was going for speech therapy, ABA therapy, and ⁓ occupational therapy just with early steps alone. And then he was also doing all three of those as well with the center. And so he was doing like some of those therapies a couple of times a week with and then doing early steps a couple of times a week. And so he was doing nine therapies a week and I wasn't able to really like balance being able to fulfill all of his therapy needs as well as like going to work at the same time. Cause my husband also works full time. So it was a lot. I felt like he, like Liam comes first and my husband was like, we can make it with just my income if you want to stop working so you can focus on him. But then I was like nervous about financials. And that's another thing with OCPD is you hoard money for future catastrophes. And so that is like one of the diagnostic criteria for OCPD is that you hoard money because you think you're going to run out of it. And so when I stopped working, that was like one of my things that started coming up. My anxiety of like, we're going to run out of money. Like, what do we do? Especially because there's so many expenses that come along with autism. And so then I started ⁓ designing websites because it was something that I had been doing for friends who were starting their own businesses. And so then I started actually trying to pursue that. But then it was so much to juggle with the websites because I was so trying to make them perfect because I was like, want these companies to like their websites and I want to make sure that I'm doing it exactly the way that they want it. And so I would spend so much time tweaking them and trying to make them perfect. It was driving me kind of crazy at the same time. And so I had gotten to a point where I was like, if I want to be intentional and like a hundred percent all in on Liam, have to like get my distractions gone. And so I stopped the website design just to focus on Liam. And then if we get, if we get to a point where he has like regained his skills and I feel like I can start working again, then I'll go back into that. Okay. ⁓ maybe we should talk. Mine, mine needs a little help. Yeah, I would love to do it. We'll talk. We'll talk. ⁓ Where we'll backtrack. But where is Liam now? He's three and a half. He's at school. Yeah. So he's going to the center here, which is like really good autism center here. And he is in a classroom from eight to 12. And he's with other children that are also kind of around the same cohort of needs that he is at. And he has like one-on-one help with the techs while he's not in his therapy sessions, like in the classroom and stuff. And then when he goes through his therapy sessions, they do, he has speech group therapy, and then he also has individual group therapy or individual speech therapy, and then also occupational and ABA. And they're kind of like, the techs that are in the classroom that are working one-on-one with him when he's not in his therapy sessions, they are utilizing ABA-type skills and methods to help teach him how to do certain things. Okay. And you like it? It's going well? I think it's going good. ⁓ Back when I said he was doing the nine therapies per week, He was doing that for like a year to a year and a half. And then he still this year scored at the milestone equivalence to a six to 15 month old baby. And that's when I was like, we have to do something else to support his body because clearly these therapies are like helping him, but they're not helping him to the point that he's really like regaining the skills that he lost. And his therapists are like great people. They work so hard, but it's his body that's working against him. And it's his body that's working against everything that the therapists are trying to help him achieve. You know, like if they're trying, one of the things that they're trying to do is trying to extend the time that he's sitting in a chair because he elopes. And so just getting him to sit in chair for like this amount of time and then like adding more longer intervals. But it's like, if his body is dysregulated, it's working against them. it's working against him trying to sit in the chair. Like he's going to want to keep wanting to get up and stuff. And so if anything, it's making him more conflicted because his body is making him want to get up. But then they're like, no, no, you got to sit down and everything. And so when you support the body during those therapy sessions, you can get so much more out of the therapy outcomes. And so when he started, when he went into the ABA program, he scored at the six to 15 month old milestone. but he's been doing that program for a couple months now. And I just had one of my like parent teacher conferences. Actually, they call it not an IEP, but they call it an ITP, individualized treatment program for like their center. And they said that he actually, now that I've been like helping him support his body and stuff. he actually has achieved his short-term and long-term goals, which the long-term goals were goals that they thought he was going to be able to achieve by the end of like the school year and he's already tackling. Yeah. so I'm like, gosh. Right. Yeah. And we haven't even really got in the nitty gritty of the treatments so far right now. We're just trying to transition his diet and, and fill his vitamin deficiencies. Okay. ⁓ what would you say? I don't know. What's the biggest challenge you face with Liam? it like speech, behavior, along those lines? Behavior? No, because he's very well behaved. if we say... happy go lucky. Yeah, he goes with the flow. Like he's not very bad if he's not very resistant. He goes with the flow and he goes... Like we will have people that will babysit him if we have to do something like his relatives and stuff. and they're like, he's so well behaved. It's ridiculous. The speech is so hard to get that out. When he tries to talk, he tries so hard, but you see his, he will have like facial tics. Like if I say, can you say mama? You'll see his like eyes flutter and then he gets frustrated and turns away. ⁓ Or like if I say, like, can you say this? He'll be like. ⁓ You know, like he literally can't get his facial muscles to move the way that he wants them to in order to get the speech to come out. And so that's one of the things that we're trying to do with our doctor is mitochondrial healing because once your cells and mitochondria can produce enough ATP, it can start fueling the muscles more. Like right now, one of the... Accounts that I like to follow dr. Dana Johnson. She has a lot of information about apraxia on her YouTube channel and so the way that she explains apraxia that I really like is she says think of your brain like somebody who's like about to pick up a cell phone and think of like the rest of your body as like the person who's on the receiving end of the cell phone and your brain tries to make a call from one person to the other person and the signal gets lost on the way to the other person. And that's what praxia is like. It's like your brain sending a signal to either your mouth muscles or to your limbs and your, rest of your body, your mouth, your muscles, your limbs are not receiving the information that your brain is sending. So his brain knows what it wants to say and knows what it wants to do, but his body can't do it, even though he's trying to make those movements happen. Like he can't point, like if I say, you point? He goes like this, sometimes he goes like this with his thumb, sometimes, I don't know how he does this, sometimes he does this with his finger. And I'm like, that looks so much harder than just doing this. Yeah, he literally will go like this. It's just those little things we take for granted. Yeah. That like these guys try so hard but they can't get their body to do what they want it to do. Does he like swimming? He loves swimming. He loves anything in water. He loves taking a bath. ⁓ Swimming, obviously he has trouble moving his body, but just being submerged in water, almost calms him in a way that nothing else does. Well, I read in a book, I think it's, I don't remember which one, the reason I jump or something, but it was talking about... He loves swimming because that's the only time he could feel his body in space. It makes sense because a lot of children, especially the ones that don't really feel their body, they need that type of like pressure or that type of stimulation or like tactile stimulation to feel their body. And so like one of the things that Liam's speech therapist will Not the speech therapist in particular, but the director of the speech therapy department. She does this thing with Liam, like if we're trying to get him to talk, she puts a glove on her hand and she will just like move her fingers on his lips to stimulate the feelings of his lips to get his lips moving. And that like tactile stimulation is enough to get like the muscles working. That's crazy. but that's another reason why like letter boards when the children, like the nonverbal children are trying to poke the pencil through the letter board, they sometimes need a little bit of support on their arm to get them to feel their arm in space and have more accuracy. But then people are like, oh, no, no, no, you shouldn't be touching them. And it's like you have to in order to give them that input, that sensory input. All the haters are like, oh, you're prompting them. Like, no, you just don't understand apraxia. Yeah. Exactly. It's a sensory motor integration that is needed. And so in order for the motor, you need to provide that sensory, you know? Right. So then how... back to your... I'm really curious on how this plays out. The OCPD and ⁓ bipolar. Because life as a mom of a son with autism, obviously I don't live the life. but all the conversations I have in from the classroom, there is nothing predictable about that life. the controlling tendencies of who you are, how does that all play out? ⁓ It's interesting. I do feel like the OCD kind of fuels the bipolar sometimes. I would say my bipolar, I don't really have that many depressive episodes. I just get very manic of like, got to do this, got to do this, got to do this. ⁓ Or I get like bursts of inspiration and I can't get out of that like like that episode that mania until I get that inspiration like Tackled so for instance my like I made my first regression video of Liam while I was in a bipolar episode because I was like I feel like nobody understands like nobody understands like what the heck I like went through and I want to like nobody understood me and our experience either And so I just wanted people to realize like, is my experience and this is like why I'm doing what I'm doing. And that was another thing. ⁓ When I uploaded the video, like Liam's regression video didn't really get that much attention on Instagram, but on TikTok it blew up and it got like 2.2 million views. And I had so many people commenting on the video saying, why don't you think he was born with it? Why don't you think he was born with it? And that's what caused me to start my series because so many people were like, No, they were invalidating like that it's not that everyone's born with autism that has it blah blah blah. And then I had to feel like I had to explain to people why I didn't think that he was born with autism. And then that had me then I saw like something I was like, this is this explains that this is this is exactly and then I started creating what became like the Y series, which is ever growing. Yeah, it's frustrating for you. ⁓ that there's so many people that like don't believe you or don't understand your story. And this has always been my biggest thing with vaccine conversation is you can, whatever signs, all of it, believe what you want to believe. But there's one thing, which obviously I have my beliefs, but there's one thing I will never get past. And that is the testimonial of a parent. Yeah. And I don't understand. And it frustrates me for you guys that people just can't even just believe a parent. Is that like how do you just got to be? I it got to a point where like at first I started my Y series to explain to other people why. I felt this way almost as if I was trying to prove myself or prove our reality. But then I got to a point where I was like, why am I trying to convince these people that already have their minds make up? If anything, I want to like reach the people who can relate to me and who do relate to me because those are the people who will find value in our story and my content because they are looking for answers as well. know, and so I've I've kind of like given up on trying to speak to whoever. And I'm now only trying to reach the people who would resonate with my content. Because those are the people who need the content anyways. The other people who disagree with it, they don't need my content. And my content isn't going to provide any value to them. If anything, it's just going to piss them off. Right. I'm sure you get messages to hear. ⁓ Not so many direct messages, but comments. I've had people tell me I need to take a chemistry class and go back to college. Like, yeah. And I'm just like, okay. If anything, I've been learning about me specifically. Like, how can you tell me that what I've learned about myself is not right when you have no idea what I'm living? Yeah, I know. I don't understand that part. All right. Before we get into the early days of Liam, what's one word that describes motherhood before autism? Liam's your only child, correct? Mm-hmm. Okay. And I think, I think as of right now, he might stay our only child unless we are able to like recover him. And I would feel like I can give my attention to another child. But as of right now, I'm kind of worried about if I were to have another child, would I be able to be at all in for Liam and like focus on his recovery if I have to split my attention with another child or be distracted by another child because I'm going to have too much like to juggle. So, but- that a hard reality? Did you want, did you plan on having like multiple kids? I wanted to have at least a girl and a boy. But now I've gotten to a point where I don't know if I'd be able to handle two kids because he by himself is a lot, even though he's so good with the flow, there's still so much more that goes into him still. Even though he's well behaved, there's still so much more that goes into it than just trying to manage his behavior. know? Well, it's like everyone on the outside sees externally everything you deal with, like the therapy appointments, you know, taking care of Liam. But nobody knows what's going on inside your head. Yeah. And those thoughts and the research and waking up, they're always there, like the stress, the worry. And that's a big thing. ⁓ My wife that obviously I share a lot, she's fighting cancer and everybody sees like externally my life, but it's like you have no idea what goes on in there and the scenarios you play out and just daily even like to get to the next hour sometimes. It's like such a battle that you can't really explain, but yeah, I would say like in the past. One way to describe motherhood before autism for me was like, assumptive. Like I just assumed that everything was gonna play out the way that you have in your head. You assume that they're gonna reach these milestones and you assume that they're going to live out this life and that they're gonna have these opportunities and that you're gonna have these like future memories and moments with them. Like they're gonna have their own kids and they're gonna have a family and you're gonna be grandparent. Like you just have this like life that maybe the media tells you that you're gonna have. But then when you get the autism diagnosis, it's almost like it kind of crumbles because you don't know if any of those things that you got so excited about to experience one day will even happen. And like you also, I kind of felt like his milestone, ⁓ I felt like his milestones and his opportunities were like taken from him. Almost like through the like autism. And so that is why I'm working so hard to get him those opportunities back. But now, like being a parent, would say motherhood has changed to be more intentional instead of assumptive because before I would assume that all these things would happen and all these things would just come and play out. But now I'm so intentional of like trying to make sure that those. milestones get achieved or that he can get those opportunities and that those experiences will play out for him. Yeah, and I can see how the OCPD, it could, it can be used as a benefit. Honestly, when I first got diagnosed with OCPD and I told my dad, ⁓ because like growing up, I was like straight A student because I was so OCD about my homework. Yeah, and I'm like the type of person like I have to clean the house before I can relax like I have to would have to do my homework before I can relax and I would spend so much time on perfecting my homework because I wanted to get a good grade and ⁓ and so my when I told my dad like yeah I have OCPD and stuff and he's like but is that bad and I was like yeah like I'm crazy like I feel like I'm crazy like I'm going crazy in my head but look at where it led you like look at who look at all the things that it helped you achieve like I before I even met Will, I bought a house when I was 23 and single. And my dad was just like, like you bought a house like when you were 23 years old and like you would have probably not been able to do all those things if it wasn't for like that drive that in you. And like, yeah, that's great and all, but like I'm literally going crazy. Or like I'm like sleep depriving myself because I'm so like. I would say the best way to describe my bipolar is like being on Adderall for a week straight and like the Adderall doesn't wear off. That is like me. Do you sleep? Yeah, I do sleep. I get like five hours of sleep. Okay, which is not good. I need to like work on that. But honestly, I think like once I'm in the routine of like figuring all this out with Liam, it's going to be so much easier for me to ⁓ like focus on myself too. And I honestly feel like so much of what I'm learning about Liam and his biology is also applying to me because like with the MTHFR gene that's linked with ⁓ like autism and ADHD and anxiety and bipolar and anorexia and cardiovascular health and ⁓ like certain cancers. I... feel like for me and for my son, have like similar genetics that are manifesting in different ways because of our difference in genetic combinations, but also our difference in environmental exposures and the timing of those environmental exposures and stuff. Yeah, that's wild. So you're kind of like figuring it out for yourself and for Liam. And I've heard this like combination many times with parents and kids. And even to the extent of some guests on the podcast have said that their kids saved their life because they started to heal alongside of it. was like a hundred percent. I wouldn't have never even like learned about MTHFR if it wasn't for Liam being diagnosed with autism. And it led me to learning about MTHFR. I wouldn't have even known it existed. And I tell so many people about MTHFR that had never heard about it. And it's so crazy too, because now we have people in our family. who are also pregnant, they're also getting tested and have the MTHFR gene. And then the person that they're like having a baby with also has MTHFR. And it makes me realize literally how common it is and how, I mean, it makes sense that like autism is going up. You know, our environmental, like with MTHFR being so common and our exposures to the environmental stressors and stuff goes up. Obviously if... I don't know how much you know about the total load theory, the bucket theory, but as you continue to add more more toxins to your bucket, your bucket's going to continue filling up. People with MTHFR don't have as many holes at the bottom of their bucket to drain all of those toxins. Your body holds toxins longer than normal people that can just detox regularly. Those toxins that you hold in are causing issues in the body. It's like the perfect storm that Dr. Tony described on the Experience Miracles podcast, which we'll probably talk about a little bit of that. Do you ever, you're bringing up a lot of questions in my mind. So obviously like the MTHFR and you've been able to educate some of your family, have you ever been in the MySpace of like, are you the one that has to educate them? Like what, you know, you know what saying? Cause I'm the only one who has the drive to do it. It's honestly part of my, like part of bipolar, like in general is you feel like you have to save everybody. Like you get that grandiose feeling of like your God complex. And I feel like I get that sometimes of like, gotta tell everybody about MTHFR. I gotta tell everybody about this. And I feel like that's also what fuels my content is like, have that, I get that God complex sometimes of like, I need to bring this information to people. who will find value because to think of how many lives it can save. It's so crazy, but at the same time, I know it helps people. Yeah. And by helping people, makes the day to day a little bit easier because you're making an impact. Did you have a denial phase when he was diagnosed where you like, no, no, no, no, There were a lot of times where I think it's a family member or a friend's natural reaction to make you feel better about like whatever situation you're in. So when we kept saying like, think Liam is having like, I think Liam might like have autism or he's showing signs or whatever. There were so many like people that would be like, don't worry, it's okay. Like just wait and see like, you know, you, you don't know, like you won't know yet. Cause like there were so many times where like we would say his name and he wouldn't like look at us and but he And it's just like, why is he not responding to his name? And then my uncle would be like, it's because you keep calling him Liam, but you also call him by his nicknames and he's getting confused with what his name really is. so people would talk us out of it. And I'm like, yeah, that makes sense. Like, let's stop calling him buddy all the time and let's call him Liam. And maybe that will stick and he'll like realize that's what his name is. And so people would rationalize certain things that would have been signs. And then it causes you to not. to just like brush it off and then you wait even further, but then he still doesn't respond to his name and then you're like, what's going on? Yeah, interesting. Yeah. Yeah, that's, yeah, yeah. I don't know. I mean, with my one-year-old, he's had an adventurous life. ⁓ He was nine weeks early, three pounds, nine weeks in the next year. And with my special ed background, I'm like hyper-vigilant on everything, the move he makes. You know the signs, whereas people who are first time parents that don't have any understanding of autism and don't have anybody in autism in their family, it's like you literally have, you don't know, you don't know. And so you're just like, is it, is it not? There was one time after his diagnosis that I was in denial where I was like, okay, maybe it's all just like in my head. Maybe it's just in other people's head. And I remember like Will was out of town. that weekend and it was just me and Liam at home and he was kind of he had his back to me and he was playing with his books because at that point like after his regression he kind of just like didn't really like show any interest in anybody so like he would do his own thing by himself and so I would be like Liam Liam and he'd just be like kind of not paying attention and then I like got like in front of his face and trying to like look in his eyes and I was like Liam if you can hear me I was like grab the book or like I was just trying, I gave him some type of direction like grab the book or look at me or like I said something like if you can hear me, if you are in there, please like grab the book. And he didn't. And I was like, like it was one of those things where I was like, God, if he is truly not autistic, please just have him grab the book to just give me a sign and show me the truth so that I can just stop driving myself crazy about this. But yeah, he never grabbed the book. And so I was just like, all right, I think it's time that I just like accept it. Accept it, man. That's hard. I'm, yeah, like my Jack, my little guy for like month four, five, six, seven, eight, everybody's like, oh yeah, yeah, you know, he's developing so nicely. But in my wife too, we're like, yeah, like he's not showing anything to somebody else. But what I see is somebody who is very stoic. And he'll look at you and smile, but behind his eyes, like he's not there. He's disengaged. And so this is like my biggest red flag. And then he not, you know, babbling too much. ⁓ but then once we got him into the PX doc, Dr. Stan, like it was within a week where he started his facial expressions started coming back and he started doing like self play, you know, he would like chase the ball and like kind of babble and you could tell he was having a good time. started responding to his name. And some people are like, ⁓ you know, he was just getting older and it's developmental. I don't believe that I 100 % believe in the neurologically focused adjustments that he was getting that opened those pathways for the nerves to start sending those signals. now the only thing I see is his speech is babbling probably a little slow. But then again, he is nine weeks early. So they say they don't fully catch up till two. But it's still in the back of my head. know? Yeah. That is something that I want to do for Liam is try to find a PX doctor. Because unfortunately, there's the closest one near where we're from right now is like two and a half hours away. But then like It's so weird. literally listened to your episode with Dr. Tony yesterday and he said that I think if I remember correctly, he's up by Crystal Lake, which is literally my like right by my hometown. ⁓ yeah. So if I just like go back home for like a couple months or whatever, or like a couple weeks and like see if we can get in. Yeah. Like, ⁓ Cause like I would just drive down the street to take him there if like, we would literally go see Dr. Tony if that's where he is. Cause like literally my aunt is right down the street. So it's so crazy how close I was like, I moved away from him. Like, why did I do that? Let me know when you want to do it. I'll set you up. Yeah. And it's so another thing that's so weird is last weekend we were at a wedding and I met a chiropractor there and he literally adjusted me at the wedding. Yes, he adjusted me like four, five times. And then ⁓ he, like after he would adjust me, he's like, can you like, your eyes more clear? Like, can you see better? And like, when I looked around the room, I was like, I do see better. Like it was almost like everything was so much more clear, literally just from cracking my neck that I was able to see the room better. Yeah, it's wild. Instantly. And it's like, I mean, there's a lot of people that knock on it, like, oh, you're gonna be addicted to it for the rest of your life. Once you start, you can't stop. Well, yeah, wouldn't you wanna straighten your nervous system for the rest of your life? if anything, it's a good addiction to have because it's benefiting your body. Right, right, this is craziness. I know we talked a little bit about forceps and birth interventions and the early days. What was going on in the early days with Liam? The birth story. Yeah. So I didn't have any issues with my pregnancy. Luckily, I like listened to a pregnancy podcast because you know, my OCD, was like, I have to learn everything. And so I was listening to all these podcasts and stuff while I was pregnant. And one of the podcasts was a man who worked for a prenatal company. He's a chemist and he's like, I specifically made the formula for our prenatals. He said, one thing that people don't know is that not a lot of people can metabolize folic acid, which isn't a lot of prenatal vitamins. So our prenatal has the metabolized form of folic acid in them and a lot more women can absorb them. And so when I heard that he didn't even say MTHFR in the podcast or anything. He just mentioned that. And I was like, hmm, maybe I should get these prenatals because this guy kind of sounds like he knows what he's talking about. So luckily I did take prenatals my entire pregnancy that had methylfolate. I wasn't taking folic acid, but of course I didn't know about folic acid being in food. So I was still eating like normal wheats and grains and all that that are fortified with folic acid, but at least I wasn't taking high dose prenatals with folic acid. And I was taking methylfolate. But ⁓ then yeah, when I was pregnant with Liam and we were doing the delivery, the our doctor said that he got a little bit too big for me and so he got stuck on my tailbone and we couldn't get him out so I I've always been like super super small like the most I when I gave birth to Liam I was a hundred and seventeen pounds and he was born almost at forty one weeks so he kind of like was cooking a little bit too long and so he got too big and so they had to pull him out with forceps and so like literally they got the forceps and they grabbed pull you out by your head. And obviously, like you've heard from- Are you, I don't even know. Are you seeing this? Or you're on anesthesia and you're out? No, I was awake. So they gave me the epidural. So this is another thing. They gave me the epidural and obviously like you can't feel anything from your waist down after you get the epidural. And so they're like making me push. couldn't even tell if I was pushing. was like, I think I can't tell if I'm just breathing really hard or if I'm like literally actually pushing. But there were times during my delivery that I had to intentionally prevent myself, prevent my eyes from rolling to the back of my head because that's how like drugged up I was. ⁓ Like I remember like I was giving birth and like there were times where like I had to like focus on not making my eyes roll to the back of my head because of the epidural. She's yeah, but but they were able to get him that get him out and everything and I never even suspected that forceps delivery could have contributed to his autism until I started like learning from doctor Tony and I was like oh my gosh and if he says it creates a perfect storm, the ear infections and you know everything I was like oh my gosh the your infections, I was like that is a big part of our story. How about the. the pregnancy, the nine months, was it stressful? Troubled? No, had like, had a really great pregnancy. I had no issues. actually, like I said, I was working for a promotional products company before Liam was born. And there were times where I was like nine months pregnant and I was like working, helping them pack orders in the warehouse. Like I had like, no, I was not tired. I was not nothing. Like I was. Probably was the methyl folate. Like I was like the best I've ever been in my life. Probably because I had methyl folate for the first time in my life and I have MTHFR so I've been eating it my whole life. But yeah, I finally, ⁓ I had like a smooth pregnancy, never had morning sickness or anything. ⁓ And then after Liam was born, he was like developing normal. Like there was never any question about anything. It's so funny too, because actually, like, I always like was scared about getting him vaccinated because of like the the rumors and stuff about vaccinations. so I always kind of like braced myself when he would get vaccinated. And there was one time when my aunt came and visited and she was developing normal. And I, I literally said to her, I was like, if anybody were to tell me that my child has autism, I wouldn't believe them. I was like, there's no way. And this was just a random conversation that we were having because of vaccines. But I said to her, was just like, there's no way that anybody could tell me that my child has autism because there's no signs or anything. And then it's so weird now because now we have, I think back to the fact that we had that conversation and I was like, how did we go from that to like where we are now? And then also because she's from Chicago, and she would come and visit every couple of months. When she came and visited them, like, however many months after that, she literally told me she's like, he's like a different baby. Because she said, like, she would tickle him and he would laugh, laugh, laugh. But then when she came to visit, she would tickle him and he would pull away and not laugh. And she's like, what's going on? Like, why isn't he like laughing at the same things that he would laugh at or like play around the same way that he did before? And so she and it. We didn't really notice the signs or like we didn't really see the difference because we saw him every day, but she was like, no, Stephanie, something is up. Like he's not the same baby. And that was what got me thinking like, then that was like, like that was like when that was after like the stimming had begun and everything. After, ⁓ Yeah. The stimming started and he started pulling away and not making eye contact. It literally. went from me being like the only thing he would notice in the room. Like I would like light up his world and he would be so obsessed with me and he'd be obsessed with our dog and he'd wanna like crawl around the house like looking for her. We would call out for her like, Callie, come here. And he would look around and he'd go, And like to see if she would come. And then like we would, I would set like let Callie outside in the backyard. And we would open up the window and we'd go to the window and we'd call for her to see if she'd come to the window. And he, and I'd say, Callie, where are you? And he'd be like, ah, and stuff like that out the window kind of trying to like mimic me and everything. And then now he doesn't even pay any attention to her. He, she's just like invisible to him. And also like when we would go visit my aunt up in Chicago, she has a pit bull and Liam would be in his little like Walker thing and he'd run around the entire house chasing their dog around. And now he just doesn't want anything to do with their dog. And so was like a complete 180 of like how emotional he was. And like, he just wanted all of this attention and affection to literally not even noticing when I would walk in the room. Like I would drop him off back when I was, I was on maternity leave for a little bit. And then I went back to work for the promotional products company before I like stopped working for good. And when I would go to work, I would drop him off at my mother-in-law's house. And he wouldn't really notice when I would leave. I'd be like, bye, Liam. Mom is leaving. And he wouldn't notice or even look at me when I was leaving the door. And then I'd come back after being gone all day. And he wouldn't notice me would come in. He would be playing. If I would come up in front of him and make eye contact, I'd be like, hi. And he still wouldn't really react. And then it's just like, what happened? know? What is felt like he forgot who I was. And all of that happened after like, basically I have his medical time. This is like, so this is like the extent of my like bipolar. I literally went through, ⁓ I like went through hit my, we have my chart. I don't know if you're familiar with that. We have my chart and I went through all of my messages with my doctor and all the timestamps. went through. all of his vaccinations and the timestamps. went through all of the summaries of the doctor visits because she put in the notes and stuff. And I also went through all of his antibiotics and when he was given those, I literally put together this entire timeline so I could see the patterns. And then I also would go through the videos and the pictures and stuff on my camera roll to see the timestamps of like... when I started recording him not looking at me or not responding so that I could see how does it align with this and ⁓ then also just off of memory and stuff too. Wow. Yeah. I don't know how anyone doesn't believe your story. Yeah, basically Leon had 35 vaccines by age two and at nine weeks he got eight vaccines in one day. And nine weeks? At nine weeks old, he had eight vaccines in one day. And then two months later, he had another seven in one day. And then two months after that, he got another eight. So he got 16. 23 in four months time. Is it 23? 8 plus 7 plus 8 means 16? Yeah. 24. Within six months. 23 within six months. And growing up, I got 12 and 18 years. Yes. I had 17 vaccines by age 30. And he received double the amount that I received in my entire life by the time he turned two. Think of how your brain is developing at that age your immune system is developing your brain is developing your organs are still maturing like there's just so many things that are so fragile and sensitive at that period of development your brain is literally going through like rapid growth periods and then we're like giving them all this stuff and and I Breastfed him for three weeks and then I couldn't do it anymore. It was so painful. Honestly that was like one of the most painful things I've ever had to go through. But ⁓ I was producing so much milk, but it was so painful. So I couldn't do it after three weeks and we switched him to formula. Which one? ⁓ We were doing emphomil. Corn syrup. Corn syrup, ⁓ yeah. has corn syrup, folic acid. They pushed that on us hardcore. We're like... Honestly, the reason why we chose that one is because that is what the hospital gave us to take home. And so we were like, well, we don't want to mix all these different formulas. We'll just keep him with one formula. And so it's like, that's what the hospital gave us and that's what they recommended. So why would we think that that wasn't what he should be getting? But also, do you remember that formula shortage? This was all happening during the formula shortage too. So. This was back when you go into the store and there's literally one can of like formula left on the shelf and all of them are cleared out. Cause Abbott had that like recall or something. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. And so there were times where we didn't even know if we were going to be able to find his formula. And then we've restarted our Costco membership just so that we could get his formula. So we had to like, you know, pay the whole like Costco membership fee just so that we could get the formula. Cause we couldn't find it anywhere else. And we didn't want to like, start switching his formula and risk him getting sick and everything. It's such a, thankfully, ⁓ Jack, he was like, he had reaction to like seven different formulas. And finally now he has goat milk. ⁓ yeah. That's good though. Because that's another thing in the formula is the cow proteins. And now they're realizing that the cow proteins are contributing to cerebral folate deficiency. Like that's one of the things that is triggering the auto antibodies in the brain and blocking the folate from getting into the brain. And so ⁓ that's another thing that's in the formula is the cow proteins contributing to cerebral folate deficiency and all the folic acid, which is not good for MTHFR people and all of like the syrups and the oils and all that. Right. Yeah. It's so bizarre. So then what? ⁓ He started to regress. so now that now it's 2026 and autism has talked more about more than anything and they rolled back the vaccine schedule and they're finally starting to like shed light on, maybe these are too many shots. But this is after the fact for you. Yeah. Does that make you angry, hopeful? Like, what does that do for you? yeah, it's kind of frustrating that we're like three years too late on that. But at the same time, like even though they're recommending, ⁓ the vaccines differently, are the pediatricians even like honoring that? I'm not sure. I'm not that I don't know. I will say though, our pediatrician that has, like, I don't agree with like the decisions that she made now, but She's like a really, really wonderful lady. She's super sweet, never rushed us. She's so gentle with Liam and you can tell that she really cares and has a big heart for the kids. But I truly just think that she doesn't know what she doesn't know. And she thought she was doing everything right. And she's just going along with what she's been taught is the right thing to do. And so, so yeah, it sucks because I wish that maybe these pediatricians knew. ⁓ more about biology because that's another thing I have. ⁓ One of my family members, it's also friends with a pediatrician and my family member said, would you feel comfortable giving a baby eight vaccines in one day? And the pediatrician was like, yeah, I'm all for the combination shots. Right. And then ⁓ also she said, okay, well, what about giving ⁓ vaccines to a baby who has an ear infection? And he said he didn't see anything wrong with that either. And I'm like, gosh, like do the like These are the things that I'm learning that you shouldn't do because the immune system is already compromised. So why are you going to give baby something that is going to be another hit to their immune system when their immune system is already fighting off an infection? Like with Liam, he had an ear infection and he got five vaccines that day and he had just finished. Like, so I feel like I'm jumping around. The thing is, I'll start from the beginning. That way it kind of all makes sense. But so from the get go, while I was pregnant with Liam, I have negative blood type. So I had to get the Rogam shot, which is a shot that they give to pregnant women with negative blood type, just in case their baby also has ⁓ like positive blood. Apparently women that have negative blood type, have antibodies in their blood that will go attack the baby if it detects different blood because it thinks that the baby is like a foreign object or a foreign entity. And so then it goes attacks the baby because it thinks that the baby is like not within the body or like not part of like the mom's body or whatever. And so I had to get the Rogam shot to prevent my antibodies for going to attack Liam if Liam had positive blood type, which he does. So that was like a message. Is that accurate? That's what happens? Or is that just like propaganda that takes the shot? I am assuming that is what happens. Okay. That's I was told is that if you have negative blood type, your blood will form antibodies and go attack the baby if the baby does not have negative blood type as well because it sees the baby as like a foreign entity. And so then of course now in retrospect, I've heard that that can contribute to neurodevelopment of the fetus. And another thing that's really weird. and this could just be literally coincidence, but when I got the rogamm shot, that was the one and only time I literally felt Liam spaz, like inside me. Yeah, he always do some moves, but when I got the rogamm shot, I literally felt him spaz like that, like inside me. I was like, that's weird. Like he jolted, yes, like right away. And I said that to somebody and they're like, it's probably because you tensed up as soon as you got the shot and it caused him to react, but I don't know. Obviously, it would be way too, instantaneous to really like to assume that there probably was an effect. I just think that's just so weird that he like did a twist and turn and jolt inside me. How pregnant were you? How far along? ⁓ I don't remember. For the shot. Okay. Definitely a bit. I was far enough along to feel him inside me. All right. And then I also got the T DAP. Yeah, the T DAP shot while I was pregnant as well, which is three. Tetanus diphtheria. and pretest. I think that they recommend that for all pregnant women so because that was another thing when I I was kind of like weary about getting it but every time I had gone into my like guy any appointment after that Mike. My doctor kept saying did you get your shot yet did you get your shot you can't give birth and see you get that shot like she would keep saying that I'm like okay like and then so. So basically I feel like I had to get that shot right. But it's like one of those things, I don't know if it's like, if it's really like up to you to get it, but it like was being pressed on me. So I thought it was one of those things. Like I have to do this before I give birth, but they don't tell you if it's like mandatory or not, or if it's just a recommendation. They just say like, you're due for this. then they checking out. And if you don't do it, then they can't help you. Oh, I'm sure that they can. I mean, I don't know. don't, I didn't go find someone else. Yeah, I doubt that probably is what it is, but I didn't even like think anything of it. was like, okay, I'll go get vaccinated. But they did also recommend the COVID shot and that one I was like, no, I'm not doing that one just because I just feel like, I don't know, I just felt like that one's kind of iffy. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. But so I got the Rogam shot. I got the Tdap shot. And then Liam was born. He got Hep B and vitamin K and his circumcision. Like day one. Yes, all day one. Well, technically Liam was born at like 5 p.m. and so he didn't have those things until the next morning. Okay, okay. But then, okay, so yeah Liam had high bilirubin, which is like when your your skin is like yellow you got jaundice and everything and so I used to ask them like what it got to the point where his bilirubin was going up a couple days after he was born. And our doctor was like, I want you to like bring him in so we can monitor him, ⁓ put him like near the windows. But if he does it, if his bilirubin doesn't go back down, we're going to have to do like therapy on him. And so I was asking, was like, what is causing this? Like, what is this? What is causing this to happen? And she was like, ⁓ it's the toxins in your breast milk. ⁓ And I, and I was like, ⁓ really? And she was like, yeah, the toxins in your breast milk. He's having hard time with his liver detoxing the toxins out of your breast milk and it's causing him to have bilirubin. Or it's the toxins that was just injected into him. That's I was just like. But like in obviously in retrospect I think back now and I'm like was I being gaslit? I don't know because I'm like what about the fact like. it the mom. Because part of me is like isn't. your breast milk, especially when it's colostrum, isn't that the best thing that you can give your baby? But now you're telling me that my breast milk has toxins and that's what's causing me is bilirubin. So I don't know, it's kind of weird. But I will say, I do have a friend that just had a baby and her baby did not get hep B but also had bilirubin. So I don't know. Okay. Everyone's different. I was gonna say what about vitamin K? But I don't, can't remember if she had a boy or girl, but ⁓ So this is on top of the birth interventions. Yeah, on top of being pulled out with four steps. to learn more about that, go back and listen to Dr. Tony and I's podcast. I listened to it yesterday. Yeah, and of his son who came out fast and then his vagus nerve. Crazy story. My jaw was on the floor. Yeah, I know. I was losing it. And I heard it like, I didn't hear the full story, but I knew there was something like that going into it, but I just couldn't even fathom it. And then knowing Dr. Tony, you know, just jumping in there and doing four, you're doing adjustments before the umbilical cord was cut away. This was legendary. That's crazy. But they say like the baby's bones are so much more like flexible and stuff, like at that age. Right. Which is like, it's funny too though. you know, they come out and they're like, watch their head. Be so careful. But then when they're pulling him out, they're like, oh. I mean, obviously, I don't know if that's really how they pull him out. But I think it is. But Dr. Tony said you don't want to see a video of that. And it's not a pretty sight. I'm still trying to hear how they got Jack out. Oh, he just fell. He's crying. Oh, I can't find the records. They won't get back to me. But I'm going to find out. Yeah, we'll see. Was he born in C-section? Yeah. Emergency C-section. He was the perfect storm child minus ⁓ vaccines. When did you start getting him adjusted? ⁓ that was until he was probably nine months. Okay. Yeah. I wish it was sooner. just, I found out about all that from the podcast. A friend referred me to a PX doc. and then Dr. Hafer's episode. And she went through the whole neuro-chiro stuff and the whole episode I'm like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh. I need to get the whole family in there. And so that's how it all started for me. Crazy. Gosh, I was gonna say something and I totally. ⁓ I was going to say just yesterday, somebody told like recommended a PX doctor because like literally that's why I started listening to your podcast with Dr. yesterday is because somebody in my comments said you should look into PX doctors. It's the only thing. It's the only thing that actually like made a difference. And ⁓ the only regret that I have with them is that we didn't start sooner. And I was just like, yeah, I know. It's not too late, though. I mean, it's helping me. Yeah, I can feel like for as an adult, you know, I feel I just feel more like base. Yeah, more grounded. I feel like I probably need that too. Yeah. All right. So he had the happy vitamin K. Yeah. Yeah. Because I do feel like a lot of these decisions that I made led up to or like played a role in his neurodevelopment, especially like me agreeing to the vaccines, which it wasn't like these are They never said like, are the vaccines that we're going to give him today. It was just like, these are the vaccines he's due for. ⁓ and so we're going to have him get these and I'm like, okay. But I was never like, well, which, which one are they or how many? never like ask those questions, but I wish I did. But I would have never thought that they would be giving more than three at a time. Right. Cause you had a post, or maybe it was in your series about, ⁓ how he got eight and one. And then I read some of the comments and some people are like, how could you do that blah, blah, blah? You're like, shut up. Yeah, people are just like, how could you let that happen? And I'm like, I feel like I'm not even the one who should know. Like, I feel like these doctors are the ones that should know better. We're just the parents that are talent, like these doctors are telling us, but now I've come to realize that we have to be our own doctors. Yeah, longer the days where you can actually take it at face value. You can't. I just think of if we didn't have the internet, like we wouldn't be have any other means of like learning this stuff unless we go out to the library and find books about it. But there's only so many books you can find that are related to your specific experiences, especially your combination of experiences. Right. So what would you say or All right, so we're at four months now. Keep going. So after the baby Brezza, ⁓ yeah, I put in the notes it was only mixing one fourth of the recommended serving per feeding. ⁓ So then so then two months, which is he was like nine weeks old at this point. He got the eight vaccines in one. He got Hep B, rotavirus, pneumonia, DTaP. and polio and then DTAP is three so you Hep B, rotavirus, And then you have D. Hep B, Rodevirus, Pneumonia, DTaP, Hib and Polio. Yeah. Because yeah, the DTaP, Hib and Polio is the five in one. It's called the Pentacel. So that's five. And then he got pneumonia, Rodevirus and Hep B along with the Pentacel. And so that was eight in one visit. we, and then, ⁓ look, two weeks later, Liam went to the doctor for viral symptoms. He had 103 fever, coughing, congestion. We tested him for flu, COVID and RSV and he was negative for all. So they were like, yeah, he just has some viral infection. Send him home, give him Tylenol. And of course he got sick two weeks after his vaccine. So it's like you shot the immune system and then he got sick after. Which is said it's normal. then a month later... He went back to his four month checkup and he got seven more shots. He got rotavirus pneumonia and then the pentacel again. yeah, pentacel is five and then yeah, rotavirus and pneumonia. So that was seven. And then two months later he got eight again. And then a month later we took him to a dermatologist because he got eczema. So like the perfect storm is beginning, know? The skin issues. so yeah, we took him to our, we took him to like a specialist, like a dermatologist and she gave him prescription steroid cream. 2024 right now? This is 2023. 2023, okay. So it's still like, COVID is still pretty heavy. Yeah. I mean, I guess we're through COVID craze by then. I mean, pediatrician offices are still told like, if there was ever even more of a rush to get all the shots, was right in this time. if anything, they're like, ⁓ COVID, like, we got to make sure everyone's getting vaccinated. But ⁓ yeah, so we had the skin issues and our dermatologist gave us prescription ⁓ steroid cream to put on his cheeks. And then we got a month later, we contacted the doctor because he started like itching at his privates and like pulling at his privates a lot. And we didn't, I didn't know why. And so I thought maybe he has like some type of like ⁓ infection or like some, but there was no visual symptom. You couldn't see anything there. Like if you were looking at, there was nothing, no visual symptoms that there was any irritation just based on his behavior. He was like constantly pulling at his diaper. And so we brought him in and instead of addressing the fact that he was pulling out his diaper, she noticed that he had a double ear infection. And so she said, let's give him amoxicillin. So he had amoxicillin for 10 days. ⁓ Also, I don't know why we did this, but I also have written down that we did a blood test. And it says that the blood test showed abnormalities. Not sure what that means about abnormalities, but his blood test showed abnormalities. when he had the double ear infection, he was pulling at his diaper and he got the amoxicillin for 10 days. that, the ear infection went away and so was good. Like the amoxicillin worked. And then fast forward at his 12 month checkup, this is where it all began, HEPA, chickenpox and MMR, which is three. So he got five that day. And I've been hearing now, don't give MMR with hep A. I don't know why. ⁓ That's just like a thing that I'm hearing now. Like, don't give those two together. Well, he got them together. And he also got chicken pox on top of it. And then also they had him do a lead test where they pricked his finger to test for test his blood for lead. They said that if they did the lead test before the vaccines, would have offset the results. So they had us do the lead test first upstairs, like in whatever department. Then they had us come back down and get his vaccines after. ⁓ So then. So all the regressions started after the 12th month, but up until that point, he already had like. He was already getting, I think that there was things happening in the background of like his biology that had happened like previously that were kind of. like Dr. Tony says, creating the perfect storm in Tyler's body and the behavior didn't manifest until he got those five vaccines. But so after he got those five vaccines at his one year checkup, I messaged Dr. this is like one of my messages. I noticed six days after that checkup, I said, what is the recommended Tylenol dosage for Liam? And she like told me whatever. that was my sign of Clearly he was having some type of reaction and he needed Tylenol. My dog is like wanting to go outside real fast, hold on. ⁓ you're good. All right. Man. So basically, yeah, six days after he got those five vaccines, messaged Dr. about Tylenol. And so she gave me the Tylenol dosage, which now I'm learning you shouldn't give Tylenol because it depletes the glutathione and he has MTHFR. So he already has a harder time replenishing his glutathione levels, which is needed for detox. So. Two, so yeah, I asked about Tylenol dosage and she told me and then ⁓ a month later I messaged her and I said, ⁓ I'm noticing that Liam is pulling at his ears and he's like running back and forth, shaking his head. So one of the things that I just started noticing in him that like he never did before is he would start running back and forth like in the room, like one side of the room to the other side, back and forth, like literally he would do it for like 20 minutes straight if we didn't stop. And it was like the whole time like running back and forth like vocal stimming which I would call it his he's humming he's humming and I didn't know like what why he was doing it or like what the reason for it was obviously now that I've learned I know what stimming is but in the moment though You You were just like, ⁓ he's just... We would just try to get to calm down. We'd be like, come on, come sit down, calm down, let's sit down. And he just did not want to sit still. He just couldn't. He was just constantly going, eee. And so then I'm like, why is he doing this? And so that's when I contacted the doctor and I'm just like, we're having like, he's showing these weird symptoms and he's humming. So we brought him in the next day. And I said, you know, he's been running back and forth. And when he would run back and forth and hand flap, he would do this with his eyes closed. So he would run back and forth and he would do it with his eyes. Sorry. So he would run back and forth and he'd do it with his eyes closed. And I would get nervous that he's going to like run into something because he just, I was like nervous that he was going to hurt himself. And so. our doctors, we brought him in and she did like a checkup on him and she said, ⁓ yeah, he has a double ear infection again. And she said that those behaviors were because of his ear infection. And so she said, we'll put him on amoxicillin again for 10 days. ⁓ basically we put him on amoxicillin for 10 days. and he was still running back and forth and doing the same behaviors. And so I said, maybe his ear infection didn't go away or like, is this happening again? So I contacted her again and I said, hey, we finished the prescription, but he's still doing the same behaviors. And I said, I noticed that we do have a wellness visit coming up this week. Should we hold off and come like when our next appointment is or should we come in now? And it was like three days in advance or whatever. And she said, if he doesn't have an ear infection, just wait another three days and come in when your wellness visit is scheduled. And so I said, okay. And so we brought him in for his wellness visit. She checked and she said, he does still have ear infection. And so she said, we'll give him another round of antibiotics. And this time she said, instead of doing Moxacillin, we'll do Omnicef, cause it's a little bit stronger. And I said, okay, cool. And so she also said, He is due for his vaccines and so we're gonna give him some more vaccines and so she gave him. five more. Five more. Five more vaccines. Even though, even though they know this, it's an ear infection. Yeah. So like he had, like he has an ear infection still and she said, okay, we'll give him five more vaccines. Start taking the new antibiotics tonight, even though we just finished a round of 10 antibiotics, like a couple of days prior. So then, um, we did the 10 days of the second round of antibiotics and his ear infection still didn't clear and he was still doing the same behaviors. And so I brought him in a third time and I said, he's still doing the same thing, blah, blah, blah. So then she said, let's send him to the ENT and we'll have his ears checked. so we sent him to the ENT and... He also was having fever at this time too. Looking at my notes, it says that he had a one-on-one fever on and off throughout the week. So his fever was coming and going and coming and going and coming and going. And so basically we had him evaluated. The doctor said, yeah, if he's not responding to these antibiotics, then we should put tubes in. So then they put him under anesthesia to put the tubes in. And then ⁓ When he got the tubes out, he was still doing the stimming behaviors. And I remember, and we also did a hearing test and he passed the hearing test. So then I remember that day the doctor said, the ENT specialist said, okay, well he passed his hearing test after the tubes. The tubes are great. ⁓ Unfortunately, we know that the tubes or the ears are not the reason for his behaviors now because the tubes are and the ears are like good and he's still doing the same behaviors. So then. Um, so then he still had an ear infection. Well, hold on. Let me see. He had the tubes put in November 1st. He passed his hearing test November 10th. And then a month later we went back for another ear infection. And he had, he was RSV positive too, looking at this. So yeah, in December, had the RSV shot. I don't think he had RSV shot. No, but he did have RSV. ⁓ wait, no, he was RSV negative. But yeah, so this was his first time having RSV. says Liam was RSV positive with a double ear infection. So then they put him on Augmentin, which is even stronger than Omniceph and Amoxicillin, according to my research for another 10 days. And unfortunately our doctor was like busy and so after that those antibiotics were done, he still had a double ear infection because he was pulling at his ears and had the fever. And so we couldn't see our normal pediatrician because she was so booked up. And so we had to see another pediatrician in her practice. That pediatrician, it says he had fever, congestion, coughing, ear pain, still double ear infection. And then she prescribed him Omni-Seph for another 10 days. So one, two, three. Sorry. So yeah, he had five rounds of antibiotics. The first one was February, 2023. And the last one was December, 2023. So he had five rounds of antibiotics within like 11 months. Like, and I don't know how much you know about like antibiotics, but they wipe out your gut bacteria. And when you don't have good gut bacteria to fight off. any bad gut bacteria or yeast or mold or whatever that comes in your gut, then they start to overgrow and they start to colonize in your gut and it starts to create a whole bunch of neurological symptoms because they're releasing like toxic metabolites into the bloodstream, which is then creating immune responses. so we got, we we got, we got interventions. Yeah. We got four sets. Infections, vaccines, antibiotics. And anesthesia three times. after the tubes got put in. So after the last round of antibiotics, which was the fifth round of antibiotics that same year, he then ⁓ two weeks later gets the Hep A shot. Every time he starts to recover, we're like, bam, let's give him one more thing. So then he got hep A shot two weeks after his last round of antibiotics. And then that is when I got that video of him in the bathtub where I was like, Liam, Liam. Looking at the timestamp, that is around this time. ⁓ Then, yeah, Liam was diagnosed with moderate to severe autism two months after that. Two months. And then after that, he ended up having a cyst started growing in his eye socket. So, and with him being autistic and eloping and stimming and everything, when we had the MRI, they were like, I don't think he's going to be able to sit still in the MRI. And we really need to do like one and done to make sure we get it right. because I don't know, MRIs have radiation or something, I'm not sure. But so they said, we only want to do it with time. Contrast. Yeah, something like that. And so they said we should put him under anesthesia to do this MRI. So we put him under anesthesia, did the MRI, got the scans of his cyst. Then they had to put him under anesthesia again to remove the cyst. They said it was attached to the bone. So they had to shave off some of his bone to make sure they got the entire cyst out. Basically we and then that's like all and also like throughout all of that we were oh he also had rosiola after his dermoid cyst that was the last one of my kids had that yeah really did they get the measles like rash after yeah they got a yeah it was like they get high high fever like like Liam had like I think he had like 103.5 and Will was out of town that day or that weekend. So I was just by with him by myself. And then when Will got back is when the rash comes out after the fever goes away. They come out with rash. We thought he had the measles and we took him and they were like, it's what first they diagnosed it with Christmas tree rash at Children's Hospital. And then we took him to a pediatrician, not our pediatrician, but one that was within her practice. Because like I said, our pediatrician. is like so popular. She's so booked up. She's on the news in our hometown. Oh wow. the feature is on the news and she has like a title in our hometown. She's like the big deal. Yeah, so she was very booked up and so then we saw somebody else in her practice and they said, no, no, no, he has Roseola. Throughout all of that whole medical timeline, every time he had ear infections or vaccines or whatever, we were told to give him Tylenol. So he was getting Tylenol throughout all of that. Also after he started having allergies, and so we were giving him Zyrtec every single day, which now I've been learning deplete some of your B vitamins. ⁓ And so. just so many things that like happened that were like all these hits to his body over and over and over right when he was about to recover, we just went in with another shot or like another ear infection or another antibiotic and he's never able to get back to baseline. So would you say the system cheated you for sure? I feel like people don't realize how much medical intervention actually contributes to neurodevelopment. At least that's what I've been learning. yeah, now that I've been doing all the research and we have, we all the testing now too. What are the tests? What are all those? So we did an organic acids test, which tells you things like metabolism, ⁓ mitochondrial health. ⁓ your vitamin markers, neurotransmitter markers, detoxification markers and gut like bacteria and yeast markers. So of course, with all the antibiotic use, I assumed that his gut probably had some issues, which now that we did the testing, we, he does have Clostridia overgrowth, which Clostridia, ⁓ that affects the body's ability to convert. dopamine into norepinephrine, it affects the dopamine synthesis. And so when your body can't convert dopamine into norepinephrine, you get high dopamine levels. And so we also did neurotransmitter test. So looking at his neurotransmitters, now that we see the overgrowth of cholesterol, which is a bacteria, ⁓ his dopamine levels. The normal healthy range is between 200 and 700 and Liam's is at 870. So he's like out in this red range. And so like looking like reading the commentary that the person who analyzed his report says is that it is. Elevated dopamine is associated with increased worry distrust. Oh wait, sorry. Elevated dopamine is associated, yeah, with increased worry distrust of others, decreased ability to interact socially and is often found in patients with attention deficits and hyperactivity disorders. And I was like, that is pretty, that pretty much sums up Liam. And then also, So his, basically his dopamine is definitely showing ADHD, which his behaviors are showing ADHD. And I believe that has to do with the clostridium. And then also he has three different ⁓ elevated yeast markers. So get this. Okay, so with these like elevated markers, first we saw functional medicine doctor, and then now we're seeing a naturopath. Yeah, are they telling you what tests to do or you're just figuring it out? I'm figuring it out, but what I've been learning, they're like confirming, we need to do this test and stuff. So I agree with the things that they were recommending that we do. so, and just real quick for a parent, if, you don't want to find what tests to do, just find a biomed practitioner. Yeah. Yeah, because they'll be able to figure out based on like the behaviors, based on your child's like medical timeline, like I have with Liam's, they'll be able to tell you what tests would probably be most beneficial. Because they know what the root causes are and what to look for. There was a great biomed practitioner recently on the show, Becky. So go back and listen to Becky's episodes. I definitely do. ⁓ But so our functional medicine doctor, said that with Liam's yeast and bacterial markers that she's seeing, she said that he is basically drunk all the time. basically the yeast and the bacteria, give off toxic byproducts. I'm so happy. I know, right? And I think that's why like all these like kids who have like overgrowth of yeast in their gut are giggling at nothing because they're like, but so basically she said because of the elevated markers of like yeast and bacteria in his gut and because they release alcohol into the bloodstream, she said with these like with these markers, if he blew a breathalyzer, he would probably pack like blow over the legal limit to drive. Yeah. And I'm like, really? I did not know that was a thing. For a three and a half year old. Yeah, he's like drunk. And so she was just like, that's why like a lot of kids are like, they appear to have like giddy behaviors and tipsy and like, he has horrible balance. He's always kind of like falling over and stuff. And it's because all of these gut and these are releasing alcohol into his bloodstream. Wow. Yeah. But like nobody would know that that's what's happening just by looking at his behaviors alone. Like it's not until you do these tests that you realize like what's actually driving the behaviors. Well, and that's the misconception of autism is diagnosed on behaviors. Yeah. And then it's just that it's just genetic. It's just like this isn't genetic. No. What? So what? Where do you go from here? You have that information now and he gets on a bunch of ⁓ So another thing that we are, so we've been working with our functional medicine doctor here locally, but then we're also seeing Dr. Sonia Doherty and she's from Canada and she's with Natural Care Clinic and I have her ⁓ on a lot of my videos. And so she has a really great video about fecal loading and this is something that we just tested Liam for last week. So we took him to have a bowel X-ray done and even before we took him to have the bowel X-ray, he, ⁓ He passed stool before we left. And so you would think like, okay, he just like he pooped and so he's good. ⁓ But ⁓ when they did the stool x-ray, the results showed that he has a prominent amount of stool built up in his colon still. And so when I was talking to Dr. Sanya, she said, yeah, we want to check him for fecal loading because a lot of kids are constipated and they don't even know or like that the parents don't even know, especially because they're nonverbal and they can't explain it or anything. And so I said to her, was like, ⁓ well, Liam's probably not constipated because he goes every day. And she goes, his stool is very, very soft and like kind of diarrhea. And she goes, diarrhea is one of the worst types of constipation. Like people don't even know that diarrhea is a type of constipation. so we did this fecal loading test to see, and he does have leftover like stool backed up in his. colon. And so she said a these kids, it's impacting like their immune response, it's impacting their speech development. A lot of the microbes will like live in there. So basically what she says, fecal loading is you think of like the intestinal wall like this, and the intestinal wall is coated with like mucus. And as the stool passes, it starts to coat the inside of the intestinal wall. and as it starts to coat more and more and more, you kind of get like a smaller... Kind of like your heart, your arteries and your heart, if you start getting fat in your arteries and the arteries start to get smaller and smaller. And so basically we're gonna have to, I think what she wants to do, which I don't talk to her until Friday, but I think we're gonna do a bowel flush and the bowel flush should help get all of the old stool out of the colon. And she said... it's calcified stool, so it's like hard and bark-like, and it's like stuck in there. it's stuck so heavily stuck in the mucus that it won't come out with just normal. Like a cold and clumps. Yeah. So we're to have to do like actual treatment to get rid of this. so this is something that a lot of, I'd never even heard any doctors talk about this until her. And so I think maybe this is a big piece of the puzzle that not a lot of parents know about is like, loading. And so she has a video on YouTube about fecal loading that maybe a lot of parents would find informational. But she says a lot of the yeast and the microbes are living in that biofilm, like in all of that. And so she said when you flush out the old stool, a lot of those microbes and yeast get flushed out with it. And that's a good way to get rid of them too, as along with supporting the gut ecosystem. I think Liam has leaky gut, so we're trying to help heal the gut lining as well. and all that. So you're, I mean, it's exhausting. How do you, how do you keep going? You just got to figure it out. You got to do it. Yeah. It's, um, it's my OCPD that keeps me going. Cause I care so much. Not only do you have, um, all the, the testing and the, you know, medical stuff you're doing, you have them in therapy, you have them in school. Um, what does he do when he gets home? cruise around? He, yeah, he'll run around. We have a sensory room basically and so it has a bunch of things for him to climb on. He loves to climb and crash onto things and yeah, he's very active. He likes to run around outside. ⁓ He loves his tablet. He likes to sing and he likes to read. He's obsessed with books. Like literally, he's obsessed with books. And that was one of the things he was showing signs of hyperlexia back when he was, he had just turned two and I was like, what does this word start with? What does this word start with? And he would pull the letters of the alphabet, like, and tell me like what that word started with. ⁓ And so he was like showing signs of like being very interested in letters and numbers from the get go. And so he's just always gravitated to books. That's awesome. Is he go to school every day? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So what's the day in the life look like for you? I basically wake up, I make Liam's vitamin milk. Basically we do organic almond milk. and I put all of his vitamins in there. So a lot of the testing that we did showed us what Liam's vitamin deficiencies are. So his vitamin deficiencies, now that we know what those are, I, have targeted supplementation for his vitamin deficiencies. And I mix it in with his milk and I send him off to school and his therapist know to make sure that he drinks it while he's there and drink it in the morning. I'm usually doing my thing, my appointments, my errands, whatever, cleaning and taking care of my stuff. And then I pick him up and usually we come home and we go for a walk. I always try to get a walk in every day. And then ⁓ he goes down for a nap and then we wake up and we play and I'm usually trying to cook for him. He's got a big appetite, but he also still only likes his like safe foods. But so we're trying to transition the safe foods and everything ⁓ into more acceptable, like diet related, you know, all those things that will help with the gut. Cause honestly, basically what Dr. Sonia has is doing is we're cutting out gluten and dairy, but also all grains. And I don't. I don't really hear many doctors talk about that. kind of just focus on like gluten and dairy only. But Dr. Sanya says that the grains convert to sugar in the body and then that feeds all the gut microbes. And so you want to starve the gut microbes by stopping all the sugar that you're feeding them. And so you have to the carbs out of the diet because the carbs are sugar once they are in the body. yeah, we're cutting out all of the grains as well. And so that has been a whole transition. You know, there's so many similarities to cancer. Yeah. And that's, I went to an autism conference back in April, autism health. There's another one coming up this April. I'll send you a link. You should go. it's here in San Diego, but I went to learn about autism and then I was just walking around all the therapies and talking to all the scientists. And I'm like, what would you do for cancer? Like, it's, like all the same. You need to support the body and you figure out where you're depleted in and then you need to supplement it and yada yada, like red light, hyperbaric chamber, all the therapies that a lot of autism parents use is all the same. And what's crazy about it is you're just reminding your body to do what it's meant to do. Yeah. Honestly. Okay. Have you ever heard of Jake Ducey? No. Okay. So back during COVID, I was very into like ⁓ learning about how to think of things more positively, change your mindset to be more like positively focused. And so one of the things that he talks about in his YouTube videos is like, ⁓ disease is just dis ease in the body. Like the opposite of being at ease is being at in dis ease. And he says like, literally that is just what disease is in the body. And so I've I like I've kind of like relearned what autism is and I kind of take that framework now of like autism, obviously like people say it's not a disease or whatever, but it is a disability and it is dis-ease happening in the body that you can treat and you can like, know, support the body to help regain all of the lost skill. Not all of them, hopefully all of them, but sometimes there's just some that you might not be able to perfect. But like recovery is possible and it just makes me think about is if you, if you tackle the things that are causing dis-ease in the body, you can help get rid of disease in the body, you know? I mean, it's in the definition, autism spectrum disorder. know, it's disorder. why is that so offensive? Because there's one, there's one camp of autism. mostly the low support needs, that is offensive to even say you want to heal or support somebody's body to help them have less symptoms of autism. Right. ⁓ Yeah, I agree with you on that is like, just because I'm trying to support my son doesn't mean that I have anything that it doesn't have anything to do with you. I'm not like I'm not supporting my son because of what that means for you. I'm just trying to help him because I love him and because I want like I want the best for him and I want to give him the best quality of life and like I said in my other video not too long ago is like if a child is visually impaired and they need glasses are you going to say no we're just going to accept you the way you are and we're going to love you the way you are we're not going to give you glasses because us giving you glasses is fixing you and you're not broken you're going to just give them glasses because that doesn't Just because you're trying to help them doesn't mean there's something wrong or broken with them. You can support them and love them and accept them at the same time. Both can coexist. Isn't that just being a parent? Yeah, exactly. You're going to do whatever you can to help your child no matter what that means for anybody else. It doesn't mean anything for anybody else. It's just your child and what you want for them. Like I said, I'm doing I'm doing this to try to help Liam regain all of the lost opportunities I feel like he lost from him. All of these medical interventions that happen and all of the ⁓ things from the environment that also played a role that I didn't even talk about on the medical intervention because they weren't related to his timeline, but there were things from the environment, I'm sure, like pesticides and flame retardants. And my husband is a car painter, so he's constantly blowing car f- paint fumes and stuff, you has like that aerator or whatever, but still like those are toxins and those didn't even play a role in this, but still those do play a role. Oh, and going back to this geoengineering, another thing that's really weird about this. So I sent this to two different AI platforms. said, this is like my son's timeline. I removed anything that had any relation to like autism or anything. I took him out. He was showing head shaking and stimming. I didn't want that to influence what AI would say, but I put in just the timestamps and the vaccinations and the antibiotics and the anesthesia and all of that. And I said, given this medical timeline, what would you assume that this child would eventually be diagnosed with? And I made sure that I downloaded new chat bots that I had never spoken to because I didn't want any previous conversations to influence. then like multiple chat box said, suspect or I suspect that this child would be diagnosed with eczema, skin issues, GI issues, digestive issues, and ⁓ autism spectrum disorder or like, or Asperger's, like some type of neurodevelopmental disorder, and apraxia. Wow. And I was like, my gosh, like just from this, not even talking about the environmental like pesticides and flame retardants and none of that. This is just the medical intervention that I sent them. And all of the AI bots assumed that this child would eventually be diagnosed with autism. It's almost like the system knows what it's doing. And I wanted to also just make sure that it wasn't just this one AI chat box that would be biased. Like I literally got the same response from multiple different AI platforms. I wish that I knew because maybe if some of this stuff wouldn't have happened, it wouldn't have led. Like I really feel like a lot of neurodevelopmental disorders are not direct causes. They're indirect results of things that happened, you know. Well, you're crushing it. Liam's lucky to have you as his bomb. And for all the listeners, like, I mean, you're hearing Stephanie's story and just like know that there's hope and there's tons of stuff you can do. You just got to do your research. Maybe not as much as Stephanie. Yeah, you'll drive yourself crazy. That's why I made my platform so you can go and learn all these little things. You don't have to go on a wild peace chase. Do you have 15 more minutes? Yeah. Okay. We're going to close it with three questions. I'm going to ask him right now, but don't answer them. And then I'm going to ask the million dollar question. ⁓ Biggest myth about autism, most dangerous piece of advice parents are given. And one sentence every autism mom needs to hear. But before we get to that, the million dollar question, which you could probably go for hours on. Why do you believe Liam wasn't born with autism? You want me to answer that first or the other ones first and then do the million dollar? Answer that one first. Okay. Yeah, this, I literally could go on out. I believe that Liam is... I see your video. I mean, I have your videos up, but go for it. ⁓ So basically, I believe that Liam wasn't born with autism because... through the research I've been doing, I've been learning that autism, yes, genetics play a role, but they're not the only answer and they're not the only explanation. And like, there's no autism gene. It's not like you have this gene that means you have autism. Like even having fragile X, which is like one of the most strongest genes associated with autism doesn't guarantee that you'll, you're going to have autism. You know, there's people who have fragile X that don't have autism. So. I've been learning that, yes, they play a role, but they're not the sole answer. And so then that led me to learning what else can play a role. And I think it's also important not to say what caused the autism, but like, it's so important to say what contributed to the autism because it really is a synergistic mix of different sources that are all happening at once or happening at like high exposures in combination with one another. during critical periods of development, like global development. Like you have your immune system developing and your brain developing and your gut developing, your microbiome developing, your sensory integration developing, which is your sensory motor integration developing, because that plays a big role in apraxia and how your body takes in sensory information, sends it to the brain, and the brain comes back out with like motor, purposeful motor interactions in response to those sensory. ⁓ stimuli and stuff. so learning that I've now learned that we have the MTHFR gene and the GSTP1 gene. And so how those play a role MTHFR affects your ability to methylate, which is like so important for development, but also for so many other things that are needed for the body. And methylfolate is one of the most important vitamins that you could need for your body. And then also we have, ⁓ low glutathione. And we also have like low glutathione production. so ⁓ basically Liam has trouble methylated and he has trouble detoxing. And on top of the detoxification, we also have the GSTP one variant, ⁓ which is not something that I hear many people talk about. I don't know how common it is, but for GSTP one, your body. your enzymes are not as efficient in binding glutathione to carcinogens and heavy metals. So even if you have adequate levels of glutathione, your enzymes then still have trouble binding to it anyways. So like, feel like that's a double whammy on Liam's part. And with the MTHFR, he has double MTHFR gene mutations. So he doesn't just have one bad copy, he has two bad copies. Yeah, so he has double MTHFR and then he has the GSTP1. I don't know if he has double GSTP1 or just one bad copy, but I have two bad copies. So we know that he has at least one bad copy because I only had bad copies to give. And that's how we knew that Liam had MTHFR before we had him genetically tested because my husband has two bad copies of MTHFR. meaning he only had bad copies to give. So you get two copies from, you get one copy from mom, one copy from dad. If mom only has bad copies to give, your copy from mom is only going to be bad because that's all she had. And then same with dad. If your dad also has only two bad copies of MTHFR, you only get a bad copy from dad. You now have two bad copies. For me, I have one good and one bad. So unfortunately I gave him my bad copy. Oh, because we have double MTHFR. So he got one bad from Will because that's all Will had to give. I had one good and one bad. Why couldn't he get the good? I know, But, um, so those obviously play a role in methylation and detoxification. And when your body can't detoxify, it holds everything in and it. sets off immune activation and sympathetic dominance and all that. And ⁓ obviously with all of the antibiotic use and the gut microbes and stuff, those are affecting the gut brain connection. And that's really important for ⁓ development and nervous system regulation and all of that. ⁓ And then like I said, like the forceps that put them in sympathetic dominance. You know, his nervous system was dysregulated and like got stuck that way. Cell danger response. That's another one too that I feel like played a role because literally with all of those hits back to back to back to back, the antibiotics were giving off cell danger response. The infections were giving off cell danger response. The vaccines were giving off cell danger response. Any heavy metals that were found in his baby formula. would have been giving off cell danger. There's so many things that were contributing to cell danger response as well. If you get stuck in cell danger response, it's hard to get out because your mitochondria are now weakened. Do you know much about it? No, I just started looking into it and I was talking with a family un-doctor. ⁓ yes. A little ⁓ ways back. And I'm trying to, I'm going to have her on to learn more about it, but it looks super intriguing. And again, I hear a lot of that with cancer. Yeah. Yeah. So one of the things that Dr. Sanya talks about with cell danger response is ⁓ how it contributes to downstream mitochondrial weakness. So when the cell membranes get damaged, the cells get into a protective mode and they start signaling to the other cells that there's danger nearby. so they all get. protective and they stop like communicating with one another and like doing their like their duties. And so they they don't produce an as much ATP which is cellular fuel that is needed to send signals to the rest of the body to move the muscles purposefully. And so that's part of the reason why a lot of kids stop giving eye contact because you have the finest fine motor skills in your eyes in your hands and in your mouth. Those are like the finest fine motor skills. And so when cell danger response gets turned on and the start, the cells start prioritizing cellular fuel for survival and not for development, certain things that require more ATP because they're more fine motor skills, those start to dwindle. And so you get like the eyes, like they don't make eye contact and speech goes because you all the fine motor skills in your mouth. And that's where like they have their nonverbal. One of the things that Dr. Sanya says is the more severe the motor planning, the more severe the presentation of autism. And it goes along with praxia. Like they know everything that they want to do, but they can't get their bodies to do it. brain or their, not their brain, but their cells are not producing enough ATP to fuel the muscles needed for like carrying out purposeful movements. Interesting. And it's the same thing as like if ⁓ adult, it goes into cell danger response, they stop ⁓ prioritizing, they stop prioritizing cellular fuel for reproduction. And a lot of people lose their libido and they don't realize that that is like, basically your cells are prioritizing cellular, cellular fuel for survival and not for reproduction. And you lose your libido because it's not a priority for your body at the moment. You know, there's more. things that require cellular fuel that's more important to your body at the time. The human body is just wild. Right. And it's like people just think like, ⁓ it's just normal. Like it's like, ⁓ it's my diet or I just don't get enough sleep or me and my partner. And I've been incident like they like right off like reasons why their libido is gone. really like your body is communicating something. Yeah, it's giving you signs and a lot of it is written off to us. Right. Real quick, I know Liam has some crazy solid AAC skills. I think that's what I, ⁓ the first time I saw your page is you had all those visual icons up and then he was reading a book on his AAC. like, holy smokes, this guy's a wizard. ⁓ I made his picture board when I was in the middle of a bipolar episode. I was like, yeah, this mom is tiled. You see how my bipolar manifests into productivity? That is where my bipolar gets fueled is through productivity. But also I completely customized and changed his entire AAC device when I was in the middle of a bipolar episode too because... It comes like fully like as a default. then I started, I kept thinking like, this isn't like, this doesn't make sense to me. It's not going to make sense to him. Any like relative that is also trying to ⁓ help him with his AAC device. Is it going to understand it? And so I started to change his AAC device in a way that I would understand it in the way that I thought other people would understand it. And so that took like weeks to do, but I was like in a bipolar episode. I was determined to get that AAC device done and configured. It worked. worked. Yeah. ⁓ okay. So I think for all the listeners, if you've made it this far, ⁓ this is your space. I don't care how long we talk. But I think you've made a pretty good case that ⁓ Liam was not born with autism. Hold on one second. My dog wants to come back. Yeah. Yeah, so. And what's the saying genetics loads the gun but environment pulls the trigger? Mm-hmm. Which I totally agree with that. Totally. mean, your story is that. And have you heard ⁓ Dr. Chris Palmer from Harvard talk about, this one is my why part 10, I think. But he talks about how people who have genetic susceptibility sometimes can't take as many hits to their immune system as everybody else. And so when you get that final hit that like tips the balance, that's when you start to see regression happen. And I love the fact that like a professional, especially somebody who is as prestigious as Harvard is starting to acknowledge the fact that, yeah, this can happen in people who are sensitive. But we're not testing these babies to see if they're sensitive yet. before we give them the vaccines. And so how do you know if that baby is sensitive or not? You know, like you don't know what that baby's genetics are. We just give hep B on the first day and there was no testing to see if that child, what is that child's assessment for the hep B if they were just born? Like what testing did you do to make sure that that B can take that? Yeah. Exactly. It's a system meant to treat symptoms and not. But that baby doesn't even have any symptoms. right. Or we can go a step further. It's creating the symptoms. Mm-hmm. To treat the symptoms. Yeah. But we get it. get into that Dr. Stan Holmes episode, which is when does that come out? A couple of it's out. It's out. It's out right now. No, it's not because this is going to drop in like six weeks, but his is going to drop in like three weeks. So when people hear this, his already dropped. Okay, cool. Yeah. So hopefully if they listen to that and then listen to mine, it'll make more sense. It'll all link together. Okay, cool. Perfect. What were those last three questions? I can just breeze through them. Yeah. There it is. Mic drop. was it. I recommend any parent to look up the Welcome to Holland poem and read it. And that was given to us when Liam was diagnosed with autism and Definitely made me cry the first time I read it, it's such an important message for parents to learn and to live by. Yeah, yeah. I'll link that one too. Okay, yeah. There it is, our special podcast, Stephanie Rapp, awesome underscore insights. Thanks for being on, it was a blast. Thank you for having me, it was so fun. Yeah.