A Wonderful Birthday Gift

Today, on the front page of the New York Times was the most wonderful Birthday Gift.....a Celebration of life with Down syndrome with an article titled ~ Prenatal Test Puts Down Syndrome in Hard Focus.

Six years ago today, we welcomed into our world Miss Emma Sage.....born at home [unexpectly] in the bathtub, we were the first to confirm her diagnosis of Down syndrome....so to see this article on the front page on her birthday, to me was the greatest of Birthday Gifts celebrating her life.

We were exposed to the *new* testing the ACOG now recommends ~ Without our consent, the ultrasound technician was busy scanning her nuchal translucency at a 13 week [impromtu] ultra sound. It was this technician who tried to deliver the 'doom and gloom'. It was the same ultra sound technician that was 'shocked' when I showed up at her office at 38 weeks to check on my unborn child's postion [to rule out breech position] and at looking at my file her comment was "You are still pregnant? Didn't you have an amnio?".......which translated to me [by her tone and questioning] that I should still not be pregnant with a baby that she targeted so many weeks ago as having Down syndrome.

This was the only pressure I felt during my pregnancy........but that was because I had an amazing Midwife named, Peggy Bruno, who was feeling the pressure from the doctors in the group that she worked with at the time of my pregnancy with Emma Sage. She told me that she was pressured over and over again from the group to make sure she had it well documented that I refused the amnio, that I understood the risks that I might be carring a baby with Trisomy 21.....and that I KNEW what it meant to have a child with Down syndrome.....to know all the 'DOOM and GLOOM'.

Thank goodness I had Peggy Bruno as my midwife.....as she knew that I celebrated my pregnancy, that I celebrated my children [all of them] ....and that this little one to be was loved and honored and that we celebrated her existance....and that we did not need to know if she had Down syndrome or not, as she was part of our life already.