pregnant aspie

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I'm self-diagnosed too, and I come from a long line of undiagnosed people with "issues." We were probably the type that they were always talking about in the melodramas 80 or so years ago... Y'know, healthy happy and bright young man or woman's pending nuptials are doomed when he/she finds out that his/her father didn't in fact die but has been in the insane asylum for 20 years. Noble youth cancels wedding because he/she can never have a family for fear of passing on the disease.

I am either ADD or Aspie, or something very similar that has yet to be named, and also suffer from "spikes" which are sudden shocking thoughts that just pop into my head, not urges but upsetting images or ideas, which I finally identified when reading about OCD...

I have a daydreaming daughter who can't understand why she should have to do homework or why she shouldn't scream in her friends' faces or jump at them. I also a brilliant little son who can't sit still to save his life and who freaks out once he gets in trouble and tries to escape and works himself up into such a state of rage when things don't go his way that I wonder if he might hurt himself or others... but has great grades. And I have a smart, seemingly logical 2-year-old who is concerned when someone cries and frequently hugs and kisses people and loves to care for her baby dolls, and seems to be reasoning on a level that her siblings have scarcely reached. Of course, she has them to learn from, but still. They are all thoroughly delightful and as thoroughly exasperating.

I understand that my great-grandma was always having to leave jobs because of personality issues, saying something she shouldn't have, that sort of thing... and she was a cleaning lady, so I can only imagine what she must have done to get fired. My mom has Aspie traits. My dad had OCD traits and mom believes he was ADHD. I have 8 siblings who vary from neurotypical to diagnosed ADHD, and a couple of nephews have been diagnosed, one each, as ADHD and Aspie. Their mom was one of the NTs in my family, and their dad is NT.

What does it all mean? I have no idea. I think I had a point when I started. That's my trouble... am I Aspie because I went on too long or ADD because I lost track of my point...

Anyway, I think what I'm saying is that too many people think they can say one way or another, black-and-white, if you is or if you ain't. I think you may, like me, wonder if your kid has what you have or ends up seeming to have it because you raised her. She'll be born and you'll get to know her like you do with people, and unless she's doing something far beyond what 99% of people do, she'll be like other babies, crawling when she first crawls and walking when she first walks, whenever she figures it out, totally normal for her, and stimming like mad because babies do. They find an interesting sound or movement and off they go.

But to answer your question...

Yeah, it could happen.

There are spectrum-related issues on both sides of my family that manifest in different ways. My parents had me (not-diagnosed but possibly PDD-NOS) and my sister...who is rigidly NT.

but not all material on genes is coding, the rest is dependent on environmental triggers. Meaning, some things are a sure bet, like cystic fibrosis. If you inherit genes from both parents, you get it, EOD. ASD's are more likely to be dependent on genetic predisposition. I've heard from a psychologist that the stats with identical twins are in the 90th percentile that if one identical twin has autism, the other is 90% likely to be on the SPECTRUM, but it may not be at the same level of severity. So ASD's can't be a sure thing like cystic fibrosis. One may be genetically predisposed but it may take exposure to something in the environment to trigger it. (I recommend you read the great book Monkeyluv to get more info about this in layperson language). Also complicating this is that most experts in the field suspect multiple genes, which makes sense considering the huge variation in the spectrum.

Now, if one is genetically predisposed and is raised by parents with an ASD, then I guess the liklihood is increased that the ASD may be triggered. Myself, (suspected but not diagnosed) and my husband who I also suspect to at least have shadow symptoms have gone to great lengths to use extremely early intervention at home to give our son a boost toward being higher functioning if he is predisposed genetically. I work in the field so I have just always "treated" him from infancy. When I saw a symptom, I jumped on it. He had a speech delay so I started sign language. he was having trouble with transitioning and hyperfocus so we started first/then and using transition cues. We may end up doing a picture schedule as he hates changes in routine. He wasn't looking at people who held him so I jumped on that. Not to "change" him but to give him the alternate path to skills. That's the real goal of treatment, getting a person skills while using different pathways than a NT would use. But he isn't 2 yet. So whether he'll present as a person on the spectrum when he's older, I don't know.