I could have missed this.

My OBGYN told me this child, at best, would mop the floors of a fast food restaurant one day. He followed his speech by saying I didn’t have to be a hero, I could have my child under his care but then let him die of natural causes. I thought I was a ticking time bomb, carrying death instead of life. For a moment, I wondered if it was cruel to bring him into this world.

I could have missed this.

The first year of parenting a child with Down syndrome (and I imagine other disabilities) is intense. There are laws to learn, insurance companies to navigate, acronyms to memorize, specialists to see and therapies to practice. It’s a flood of a new and it’s hard to stay afloat, but meeting you in the depths is this new person. A lovely soul in a little body keeps you from drowning by making you laugh with their full-faced smiles. Their very essence chips away the most hardened parts of your heart and molds it into something better than what was there before.

I could have missed this.

Life goes on. You start finding your new path, at times it feels so similar to the one you knew before and yet something about the scenery has changed. Everything is more extraordinary. The hills are steeper and yet the views pop in ways they didn’t before. You pick up heartache on the path and also purpose. The love you have for this child born with vulnerabilities is fierce. It’s that fierce love that fuels your steps when the walk turns into a steep climb. When you reach the top of your current hill, you are tired and so grateful because that soul is so completely worth it.

I could have missed this.

Having a child with a disability is the hardest and the most rewarding thing I have ever done. It is exhausting and a gift.

It takes my breath away thinking I could have missed this.

*It is #GivingTuesday . The Down Syndrome Diagnosis Network is where I went from grief to hope. The parent members showed me that I could not only parent a child with Down syndrome but that I would find joy in it; they were right. DSDN is actively changing the diagnosis conversation. They send out teams to medical conferences all year long to advocate for factually accurate and unbiased diagnosis conversations. No diagnosis should be steeped in outdated notions and outright bias. Women need to know the facts, the good, the hard and to quickly know they are not alone. With DSDN- they never will be. Consider giving today. Donate here.