A little late to the game-Intro

I just wanted to Intro since I am new to this board. My name is Tammura and I am mom to 2 beautiful children. I have a son, Gabriel who is 11 and a daughter, Kaylee who is 8 weeks old. I just recently joined TB when I was pregnant with my DD and mainly stuck to the November2013 board. I finally ventured out and came across this one! My son Gabriel was diagnosed with Autism about 2 years ago. It was a very long journey for us. We went to many different places, saw many professionals, all who ruled Autism out for Gabriel. 

Here is his back story: He was born in 2002 at 5lb9oz. He dropped the normal amount of weight before we left the hospital and everything checked out okay. When we went to his 1 week weight check, he had dropped down to 4lb9oz. The pedi didn't seem overly concerned so we tried different methods to get him to gain weight for about a month. Nothing worked. Everything seemed normal, he was peeing and pooping regularly so the Dr wasn't concerned. One weekend i noticed that he was not his normal self. His breathing had become labored and his skin felt "funny", almost like play dough. I took him to the ER where blood work was done and he was diagnosed with Renal (Kidney) Failure. To make an already long story short, we did dialysis for a year before he was finally big enough (12lbs at a year old!) to receive a transplant. He got one of his mommies kidney and I LOVE this story because I feel like I gave him life twice in a way. He was in and out of the hospital for 3 years for various things and we basically lived there. When he was about 4, we noticed differences in his development compared to his cousin, who was born 5 months after him. We brought this up with his kidney docs and his pedi but it was all blown off because he was basically hospitalized and confined to the bed for the first 3 years of his life. We went with it, we were young, first time parents and believed everything we heard, I mean, they were the Dr's. Well now I know that isn't always the case and nobody knows your child like you do. Finally after many years, we decided that answer wasn't good enough and started our quest to find out what was going on. Gabriel is very social, makes wonderful eye contact and is extremely loving, especially towards me so Autism was constantly ruled out. We ended up at Stanford Hospital's developmental center where we officially received the ASD rx. It was bittersweet, we knew it all along but it was still difficult, nonetheless. 

That was 2 years ago, when Gabe was 9. I can't help but feel that we failed our little Gabe in a way. If we had this diagnoses when he was 4-5, maybe we could have done more to help him. We essentially lost 5 years where we could have been helping him deal with many of the things that he now struggles with; mainly understanding his emotions and communication. Now is is 11 and we have are trucking along, doing our best in conjunction with the development center and his school to help him cope with his feelings. Its tough and there are days I just want to lock myself in a room and cry but then there are days where I look at him and think that I would not have him any other way. 

Sorry for the long post, I look forward to getting to know you ladies and hearing about your children.