Our Son Was Born With Down Syndrome. This Is The Line I Wish We Weren't Told Repeatedly.

The author with his son John, who won three medals in the snowshoe events at the New York State Special Olympics Winter Games .Our youngest son, John, was born in the middle of the night in a community hospital. Moments after his birth, I held our newborn in my arms as I had his two older brothers, bent over him and wept with tears of joy. He was so tiny, yet immense, as if he contained the whole universe. Forget exhaustion; my wife and I floated on the joy our son’s birth gifted us.

No one said anything like that about his brothers. When I held his brothers in my arms, I believed anything was possible for them: They could grow up to play center field for the New York Yankees; they could go to the moon; everything was laid before them. Now, I was being told that John’s life would be different, would be worse ― that his life would be small.

John offers one example of how fulfilling life can be for a person with Down syndrome, though there are countless others. That first night in the hospital, we needed to hear it straight ― “John appears to have Down syndrome, which we will confirm with genetic testing” ― but more importantly, we needed to hear “Congratulations!” We needed to hear “What a joy!” We needed that doctor to say that you have just begun down a path that will bring you so much happiness.

Health care professionals need to know of the full life that a person with Down syndrome can lead and how to speak to parents of a newborn child with Down syndrome.Our medical schools and institutions should help health care professionals understand the reality of Down syndrome, not bad clichés from decades ago.

On John’s first day of life, the people who knew best were his brothers, Patrick and Jamie. Only 6 and 3 years old, they responded with excitement and giddy laughter. They elbowed each other to see who would get to hold John first. They were curious about Down syndrome, but the only thing that mattered to them was they had a new baby brother.

Source: News Formal (newsformal.com)

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