Day 2:  31 for 21...Down syndrome Awareness Month! 

I’ve been thinking a lot about Bradley’s first few days as I keep this idea of Down syndrome awareness on my mind, seeping into my brain as I try to think what I should say, what would be helpful to me; to someone else.  I decided to just think about those first days…

He arrived 23 minutes past midnight, barely missing the magical 8^th day of January – that told us he was something special something different.  The girls both had 8’s running through their lives…Bradley was going to have one more – turns out of everything.  He was beautiful and tiny and so overwhelming because he was a boy and I had only raised girls so I knew I was already out of my league and scared to death.  I was exhausted.  I carried Bradley through my Melanoma and subsequent surgeries and managed to not deliver him early, then through amniotic fluid weirdly disappearing from around him…and then finally – I’d had to have help to get him to grace the world with his presence.  To say that his arrival felt surreal would have been the understatement of a lifetime…or at least it was for me. 

He was about 90 minutes old when our Midwife sat down on my bed and took him from me, giving him a physical exam as she told us so gently and with so much love that our son had an extra chromosome.  And her eyes held love in them as she eased through the realization that we needed to grieve for the child we lost in order to accept the child we’d been given instead.   And in our fear we did grieve that loss as we waited for the things we didn’t know to be determined…was his heart okay?  His digestion?  Would we lose our son before we had even begun to know him?  He was a child with needs that I didn’t know if we could afford.  Would he suffer in this life because we were a single income family that wouldn’t be able to support what he would need to make his life a good one, a happy one?  I remember looking at Eric while he was holding Bradley and I felt like I had let him down.  Here was our third chance, our last chance…and he had patiently waited for a son.  He had accepted that even in this last pregnancy that we might have yet another girl, but he was ready.  He told me that, he told me he was ready to take all he had learned with the girls and be even better to this baby.  And he was right.

I stared at him holding this tiny infant, the smallest we’d welcomed…and as he cradled our son against his chest, he told him of all the things they were going to do together and every so often he would say “I love you.”  And he did…from the moment I handed Eric a bag with a blue baby blanket in it to tell him we were having a boy; my husband had been head over heels in love with our son.  I looked at him and I said: “What do you we do?” 

And he just looked at me and smiled, “He’s our baby, we love him.” 

Neither of us knew if that would be enough, but we both knew that at least we could start at the same place – loving our son together.  When our oldest (Age 7) walked in she started crying before she saw him and told us: “This is the GREATEST day of my life!”  It made me cry.  Guilt because I hadn’t said it, proud that she had said it from her heart, hopeful that we were going to all be okay.  And then our youngest daughter (Age 5) came in and sat with me on the bed, her brother in her lap and sang to him:

This little piggy went to the Exchange

This little piggy went to the Commissary.

This little piggy went to the Home Store.

This little piggy went to the Mini mart.

And this little piggy cried wee, wee, wee all the way home! 

She couldn't remember the words so she improvised.  At that moment I realized that my fear that I would never laugh again would never be possible in the presence of this bright little spirit holding her brother.  God had planned all this: I had my rock to keep me from going under in a swirl of fear and uncertainty, I had my oldest to teach me how to love, and my youngest who would keep me laughing…this baby had come to the right family I just had to get myself in gear and be the mom I was supposed to be.  I’m still working on that part- but Bradley is a patient little guy and he is teaching me how to be that mom.  I take classes every day.