My 11 year old son has some similar issues and also had a difficult birth and it was induced. The cord was wrapped around his neck, heart stopped beating at one point, doctor told my sister to turn off the video camera and said we had to get the baby out NOW but I couldn't feel the contractions at all and couldn't tell when I needed to push because they had given me an epidural. The clock kept ticking away as the doctor couldn't get the vacuum extraction thing to work and had to use forceps. I didn't have any problem with my blood pressure that I know of, but I was scared to death and my blood pressure has always gone up with anxiety and I have to take medication for it now. When the doctor saw that I was upset she told me I had to keep it together and push as hard as I could and she slapped an oxygen mask on me. I thought my son was going to die if I didn't push hard enough.
After his birth, I thought everything was okay except that he had colic for 3 1/2 months. At 12 months he tested 50% ahead in receptive/expressive language but 50% delayed in gross motor skills and he had low muscle tone. The muscles in his legs were so weak at 12 months that when we stood him up next to the couch, his legs quivered. I thought he might have CP because I knew a woman with CP whose legs did that when she stood for more than a few minutes. But a neurologist looked at my son for about 10 minutes and said he didn't have CP so he didn't get any kind of therapy and eventually walked on his own at 18 1/2 months. A year later he was reading and I didn't teach him to read. My husband told me that his adult son who is highly gifted also taught himself to read long before he was old enough to go to school. All of the other babies on both sides of the family walked early and were very coordinated. My son could read at about a 5th grade level when he started kindergarten at age 5, could memorize hundreds of words of script and songs for his musical theater class, could count change and could out the correct amount of change for vending machines, could identify words that were spelled out for him that he hadn't been taught, especially science vocabulary words because his favorite book to read at age 5 was a science encyclopedia, could tell time on some analog clocks and it took me a while to realize that he had trouble seeing the difference in lengths on the minute and hour hands on some clocks. He had trouble coloring in the lines and he said it was because it took too long and he hated coloring. He couldn't get OT or PT because he wasn't failing and we were told to homeschool.
My son had some phobias and flying insects near his face was one of them. He was always a sensitive kid. There were some stims when he was very excited when he was younger, but he pointed out that nervous tapping on the steering wheel while driving in city traffic, something I often do, could also be considered a stim. He also had occasional facial tics that would last for a few weeks and then disappear (usually when tired and under stress, like in the last few weeks of rehearsal for a play) but he seemed to be able to control it when it came time to perform. He went for over a year with no tics at all, but when we ran out of fish oil supplements I noticed a few tics again, probably not noticeable to anyone else. He is doing 5 hour long rehearsals again so it could just be fatigue causing it.
I had mixed feelings about having my son tested. I hated putting my son through it but insurance would not pay for any kind of therapy without a diagnosis on paper. I also wanted him to be able to get testing accommodations if he needs them. He is slow at anything that involves writing because of motor dyspraxia/dysgraphia and fatigue issues. We also had a problem with people not believing that he had any kind of disability and that he was really just lazy. It really caused a lot of anxiety when people thought we were lying about his disability. I had to really work on my problem with worrying about what other people think. My sensitive son felt bad because of the way it affected me and the fact that people didn't believe him. At least we have proof now.
The neuropsychologist told us that my son's difficult birth could have caused his issues, but she asked if I drank or took medication during the pregnancy. I don't drink but I had headaches throughout the pregnancy and took medication prescribed by the doctor. I always thought the difficult birth was the cause of my son's difficulties, especially since he had no problems with weak muscles when I was pregnant with him and there is no family history of his issues--except for the migraine headaches.
Testing was a little stressful, I didn't get all the answers I wanted, and I didn't agree with everything the neuropsychologist said (especially the part about it being too late for therapy) but I am glad we did it.
I should probably add that my son did not particularly like being stuck with more labels, but made the best of it with the sense of humor he uses to deal with anxiety. I am sure he prefers the much simpler labels that other kids use to describe him--smart and funny.
