Checking in Again

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I know I haven't been on in a while. My DS got promoted to first grade, he really seems to like this school year better than last year already, I hope the trend continues.
I'm pregnant with child #2 now, just found out last week, we're very excited, a different father than my DS.
I'm pretty nervous now.
When I was pregnant with my DS, autism never crossed my mind. As I'm sure any first time parent here didn't think of it either. Now with this second one, it is constantly on my mind. Through my DS I have learned the joys of autism, the way his quirky little mind thinks, the great imagination he has, I don't care what anybody says, autistic kids have a great imagination, it just a little different (or we are).
My DS's father displayed many, many autistic traits, but I see a lot of those traits in varying people now, even if they're NT. I guess my trained mind just kinda looks for those things now. Call it a character flaw if you will.
Now I'm wondering, will this child have autism, how high is the chance, will s/he be high moderate, or low functioning? I guess it doesn't get any easier, because there are many uncertainties. And those questions are not any, that anyone can answer, not even the most brilliant minds of our time.
Regardless, s/he will be my baby, and I will love my baby with everything that is in me, whether or not s/he has autism or not. It's just been weighing heavily on my mind, and I know the parents on this forum will understand my thoughts better than anywhere else.

Good to see you, Adora, and congratulations!

You know, I spent my entire second pregnancy dreadfully worried that the baby would never be born and that, if she was, her life would be super short. I could not shake the feeling that something was wrong.

And today I have a healthy and relatively happy / normal ten year old.

I came to realize this: pregnancy and childbirth is a world of unknowns. Childhood is a world of unknowns. We've been around the block enough to know that it does not always go swimmingly. So after a first child where things seem to be going OK, even if not perfectly, even if there is a diagnosable condition, you realize the odds seem to be playing heavier against you the second time. And your subconscious integrates that into fear for the new child. That this time you will have to confront something you got off from the first time. In my case, it was an unsuccessful pregnancy. In your case it could be the fear of more severe ASD. I didn't worry about ASD because I did not know that my first child had it yet, but I did know that my mother had delivered a baby severely deformed that had died right after birth, and that it took her five pregnancies to have three children. So .... Perhaps we choose the experience closest to our knowledge to develop our fears around.

Or maybe my feelings at the time have nothing to do with yours at this time.

But you do know that what will be, will be, and no amount of information or study will change it. You are either going to fall into a statistical anomaly, or you aren't.

As you know from reading this forum, most families with some AS see the whole spectrum, NT to AS, in their kids. Odds are good for an AS trait or two in all your kids, but the odds are also still against having a child that is very low functioning. My daughter is considered NT, maybe a little ADD, maybe with a little mood disorder, very gifted intellectually, but overall totally within the range of "normal."

DW, I knew you'd understand <3 to you gal.
With my first child, we were scared of epiglottitis, as his father was almost killed by it when he was two. I didn't think of autism, cause well, that was one of those things that happen to other people's children, not mine.
But this child has a different father than my first child. I'm not worried about some disease like that.
I know there are genetic components to autism, and I'm hoping that maybe they were all on the ex's side, and not from me. Which is one of those things that only time will tell. If this child is also born with an ASD, I hope that I'm as lucky with it as my first son, and have an Aspie, or HFA (which is what my son was DX'ed). Most people say that they can't even tell that my son has autism, just that he is super sweet to everyone, and very lovable.