Saving Isaiah

My oldest son, Alexander Ybarra, wrote this essay for school. He chose to write about his little brother Isaiah.

Author: Alex Ybarra                                        Date: May 26, 2014

Title:   Isaiah

I always wanted a little brother. I was excited when my parents became foster parents. One day, Miss Martha our caseworker, called us. She told us that they had a little baby that needed a home. It was hard for my mother to take care of babies because she was sick and could not carry them. I promised I would carry him. I wanted him so Miss Martha brought him to us. I made a welcome sign and hung it up for him. I hugged him. He was very small and couldn’t stop drooling. I patted his head and he wanted to go with me. He was cute. Miss Martha said everyone called him “Chachi”.

The doctor said that my little brother was slow. He said that Isaiah would not learn to walk until he was much older. He also told us that he would not learn to talk on time and have problems with social things. He said my brother might have lots of other problems later. “Early brain damage is usually generalized rather than specific, with increased specificity of abnormalities revealed as development progresses.” (CDC)  When my mom said that my little brother’s biological mom had done stupid things while pregnant with my little brother, I was very angry.  I was angrier when I later found out that 10 percent of women used alcohol when they were pregnant. (Wattendorf and Muenke 2005).

My little brother looked scared for the first week with us.  My mom carried him in one of those baby backpack things, but Isaiah would reach for me. I got him to laugh and soon he looked like he felt at home. I made it my personal mission to teach him to walk and talk and grow up like a normal kid. I think I decided that Isaiah was my own child. I even told my friends that Isaiah was mine. They believed me.

I started with walking because he had already learned to crawl. When I was watching him crawl, I noticed he did something that resembled the moon walk. I showed my mom. When she saw it, she got excited and laughed. Isaiah got excited and started to clap. He clapped all the time. So, three months later, I noticed he would crawl to the wall and use it to stand up. I used this to teach him to walk. I called him to come to me. He would go to the nearest wall and he would stand up and try to run to me. He took 3 steps and fell. He would try to crawl to me, but I would tell him no. He did this again and again. One day he tried to crawl to me and I loudly said no to him. He really wanted to be with me so he finally walked.

Now that I had gotten walking out of the way it was time to work on talking. Every once and a while, I would ask him to say some words like candy, dog, and other small words but they would always come out as gurgled sounds. This meant he wanted to talk and was trying but couldn’t, so I began sounding words out with him. My little brother’s first word was Alex ironically. Well, he couldn’t say my name so he just said the word Ali. Then my mother read us a book about someone named “Alibaba”.  Isaiah called me “Alibaba” after that.  My mother and Isaiah still call me “Alibaba” sometimes. 

As Isaiah has grown older, we have learned that kids with FAS sometimes have heart problems and seizures. (Nguyen 2008). Isaiah has both of these problems. I also found out that his asthma could also be because of the FAS. (FAS 2014). He also can get angry easily. It is hard when he accuses my mom and me of things we haven’t done. I sometimes forget that he just doesn’t get it. When I mess up, I mostly know I have done something wrong. Kids with FAS do not understand right from wrong most of the time.

The list below shows some of the problems my brother has already had. 

Attention deficit disorders - ADD/ADHD

Mild to severe vision problems

Higher than normal to dangerously high pain tolerance

Dental abnormalities

Behavioral problems

Extreme impulsiveness

Asthma

Poor judgment

Complex seizure disorder

Developmental speech and language disorder

Developmental delay

Sleep disorder

Autistic traits

Night terrors

Heart defects

Central auditory processing disorder

Reactive outbursts
Learning disabilities

It is kind of ridiculous that doctors have told us he has all these problems, but he is on the honor roll. I will keep my promise to Isaiah and keep helping him to do better than the doctor said he could.