Arabella's Autism Journey - Help her future!

As the parents of Arabella, we would like to start off by saying that deciding to create this go-fund me has been one of the harder decisions we’ve had to make as parents, not only are we embarrassed that we cannot support our daughter with all of the resources she needs, we are ashamed to ask for help.

January 29th, 2019 is the day. We are welcomed by our baby girl - beautiful, tiny, healthy, everything we ever asked for as new parents. Arabella was a happy baby, lots of emotion, and a brighter-than life attitude.

Around the age of 1, we discovered she wasn’t meeting all of her milestones. Some she surpassed greatly, but simple things like reacting to her name, speaking, and staying attentive were standing out as delayed. A few months later we discovered she may have water in her ears, and that may be the reason for the delayed speech, and reacting to us talking to her. We scheduled surgery, and she had tubes placed in her ears. Months went by and things got better, her speech improved, and we were so astonished by the cognitive and motor improvements that we thought we cracked the code.

Fast forward to the age of two, where things began to get a little more difficult. Arabella started daycare, and we were informed that she may be on the autism scale based on her traits. We investigated through our family doctor, and it was decided that Arabella is a level 2 on the autism spectrum.

Though days were challenging, we continued to strive on for the best programs, and anything we could do to help her.

As Arabella had her tubes checked, we realised that her hearing was improving, and that it was more of an attention span disorder, than a physical impairment. As she continued to grow, things continued to become challenging for her, she had hard times communicating with others, and harder times expressing her emotions. We decided to look into therapys that could help bella. We discovered that, an occupational therapist, as well as a behavioural therapist could assist Arabella

with the strategies she needed to continue to grow. Unfortunately these therapys run from $60 an hour, upwards to $150 an hour or single session.

We continued to look for others that had the same story as us, and fortunately we found the bethesda learning centre. Arabella was reffered by our doctor, accepted and enrolled immediately for the “entry to school” program, which is for kids on the spectrum that attend for 4 hours a day. Luckily they worked there magic, and Arabella was enrolled for 6 hours, twice a week.

The work bethesda does, magical. They exceeded every expectation and Arabella loved it. We also made friends with the 7-8 other parents/children, and it made everything alot more understandable and comforting.

Fast forward again, its september and Arabella is finally ready for her first year of JK. Over the first month she had some adjusting to do, we encountered new problems as she was in a class full of 30 students, and two teachers, instead of a class of 8 students, with 4-5 teachers.

Throughout the year we’ve worked with the school, assigning her an EA and making sure shes succeeding every way we can. Everyone tells you how hard parenting is, but nobody talks about how hard parenting a child on the spectrum is, there is no handbook, and every child is different.

Some of the problems we’re encountering are; potty training. We’ve read every book, talked to anyone we know, and over 5 years we cant seem to make it work quite yet. The expense of having to pay for diapers for the past five years has been stressful, including the other necessities that Arabella uses during the day. For example she struggles displaying emotion, and she throws her ipads due to meltdowns.. weve been through 5, and her ipad is one of the items we use to communicate and regulate her emotions.

Not only are the programs and services we need expensive, our Canadian Government covers up how hard it is to get funding for

Children with autism. We applied 3 years ago for funding, which equates to $20,000 a year, only until a certain age, with no backpay, and we are still waiting..

This is so unfair and unfortunate to kids that needs these programs and this funding to put them in camps, and extra curricular activities that can improve there quality of life. We have been accepted for special services at home, which is around $4,000 of funding a year, which can only be applied to certain things, such as a respite worker to babysit, expenses for toys etc. Like everything else, there are loopholes, and you must pay out of pocket to get reimbursed, which really isnt funding at all, as if you dont have the funds yourself, you cannot access the benefits.

We are at a total loss, her school can only have an OT come once every 25 days, as she has 25 other schools to attend. We don't understand how this is ever going to help her. The system our daughter and our family has to navigate through is completely broken, and all we want for our little one is to be able to live the fullest life she can.

We are asking anyone that would like to , and are able to; to donate to help Arabella

get the outside therapy and benefits she needs, as the region seems to have no time line or access to funding for our child. Any funds we receive will be applied towards out of home therapy for Arabella.

funds will be allocated towards a new ipad, ABA classes, and behaviour towards school therapy.