I know it isn't stress, as I was pg with him when I left exh and went to the refuge, and dp has been around since he was a baby, only 6 months old. She has all the dates - she could have worked that out for herself! Plus dd is old enough to remember a lot more, she should be the one who is stressed. I used to think it was his personality, as a baby he was incredibly laid back. It's since I had the twins that I thought it has to be something more, out of four children he is so totally different from the other three.
I've always considered the possibility that it was me smoking and drinking, but there aren't any links afaik between autism and that, and she definately identified a lot of autistic traits. So although it doesn't change the fact that I do feel bad about what I did, it probably isnt the cause of his problems. I kind of wish I hadn't told them about it now, as it seems to be that they are think smoking and drinking - bingo!
The refuge, mmm, long time ago now. Funny actually it was really on my mind the other day, can't remember what it was, but something really jolted me there and brought the memories really vividly back. I did the marry young, repent at lesiure thing. I met my exh at a holiday camp that I worked at after dropping out of uni, supposed to be a temporary job, rethink my lifeplan type thing. My parents were v disspointed abt the whole uni thing and I wasn't very welcome back home. I lived on site at the camp, then moved in with this guy I hardly knew. A year later I was pg with dd, semi planned. He became violent once I was pg. I was under pressure to marry for the sake of the unborn baby, so ended up married to him. I had dd, and things slowly got worse. He wouldn't let me go on the pill and I ended up pg with ds. I eventually left him when I was abt 20 weeks pg. I was worried for ds sake, as I was risking him getting hurt. Plus dd was starting to notice things going on. I went up the council, pleaded homelessness and got put into a refuge. I got all my stuff out while exh was at work, and never went back.
The refuge was a horrible place. There was other woman coming and going. One woman was there throughout my stay, a heavy alcoholic, with 3 children, one with sn. I ended up caring for her kids a lot while she was out drinking or laid up with hangovers. More women came and went, once with OCD, another who smoked pot like cigarettes. I was the doormat who became the live in nanny! I can remember taking ten kids to the park, only one of which was my own, and one was blind and another had aspergers. Hard to believe isn't it?! 
The little boy who was blind needed daily injections, and I had to get his bloody mother out of the pub to give it to him.
As you can imagine, it was incredibly stressful, and so I drank too mcuh, smoked too much. Managed two 3l bottles of lambrini one night. I was seriously mentally ill by this point, luckily I did have friends looking out for me through an organisation called Home start. I was desperate to get out before I had ds, and I got a flat two weeks before he was born, and things went up from there. 
At this rate I gonna have one hell of a life story! The experience def made me stronger though, I had to fight back from nothing. When I got my flat it was my whole new start, £500 and an empty flat, and a new baby due in two weeks. That was interesting! 
Plus I still had exh to deal with for a few more years.
Now u got my life story, you regret asking don't u? 