My name is Christina Young, and I’m a mother of three children under the age of five, two of which are autistic twin-boys. As a photographer for over a decade, I’ve worked to capture other people’s stories through moments in time, enhanced with editing to create timeless portraits of emotional significance. When our twins were born in 2015, I took a maternity leave for three months, but returned to the lens as much as I could during their first year and a half as part of our family. Once pregnant with our daughter, however, my love of photography had to be put on hold.
Three months into our second pregnancy, we learned that our twins were autistic. We slowly understood the signs of their very different ends of the spectrum, and learn the scope of what the boys would need. Bringing a third child into a family with twin toddlers is a handful in itself, but the diagnosis and new set of expectations on our lives threw us for a complete surprise.
Once our daughter was born, we were knee deep in understanding everything the twins would need, from IEPs, to ABA Therapy, to all the work to be done at home, that we began to lose sight of why we thought we could be good parents in the first place. After the first year of being a family of five, we finally start to find our groove, and get the perspective we needed to be happy, present and respectful parents. But looking back at that mess of a year, and all the struggle we went through, we can really trace it down to one feeling - that we were alone in what we were going through, and no one could possibly understand.
This is far from the truth. The incredible autism community is mighty and growing every day. I decided to document our story on instagram and this blog, in the hope I could help other parents who may be in that first year, grasping at straws, and desperate for perspective. I hope to be a resource and lifeline to others if they need someone to talk to. Thank you for taking the time to read about our journey, and please leave any feedback or questions you have!