She came into our room! Do you hear me? She walked
right into our room as if she had any right to
enter our moment of happiness. She came right into
our special time of rejoicing over the birth of
our new baby boy. She walked right into our lives
wearing her starched stiff white jacket with her
ridiculous hair and began to open her mouth.
Nothing good could come from this, I knew it the
moment I saw her.
When I woke up sweet Liam was beside me in the
bassinet. I took him out and everyone there
celebrating with us sang happy birthday to him and
then with happy tears we all sang "Jesus loves me"
for him. What joy we all shared, what a precious
gift from God this baby is! It was such a sweet
moment in time.
Who does that? Who walks into a celebration of
happiness and new life and asks everyone but mom
and dad to please leave the room. Why then? Why
did it have to be right then? I looked at her
closely and could not really focus on anything in
particular. She had two shadows with her. Who
knows why they were even there. They never spoke.
Just nodded a few times.
Her joy killing words? "We understand"...now
wait, who is "we" exactly? That I still do not
know... Back to her words. "we understand you had
some testing before your baby was born" I heard
myself answer "yes". She continued with something
like this, "Well after looking over your son very
closely we have noticed some features that makes
us think"... I know somewhere shortly after that I
said it to her before she ever did ....-Down
Syndrome-... As the words escaped my mouth..my
eyes just shut down in this weird slow motion
sensation, against my will, as if trying to close
out the reality of what was about to happen but my
ears would not stop trying to listen. My head
became too heavy to hold up and everything, and I
mean everything, in my world began to spin out of
contol. She responded with "Yes. He doesn't have
many of the markers for it and they are soft but
we believe your son has Down Syndrome and would
like to test him for it." There you have it, the ax
that tried to chop every ounce of happiness out of
our hearts that day.
A lot more talking happened after that. I remember
bits of it. However I doubt I will ever be able to
recall all of what was said over the next few
hours after that. Its been three months now and I
still cannot tell you when this conversation took
place. The day Liam was born? The day after?? My
husband doesn't remember either.
I will always feel like this happened at the most
inappropriate time. No one should have walked in
and said anything about it yet. He was perfectly
healthy and in no danger. It could have waited
until......until.
I'd held him already, dressed him in sweet baby
clothes, Kissed him, changed his tiny diaper -
Looked over every ounce of him and I did NOT see
it. My sweet boy at that point hadn't opened his
eyes for me yet either. His ears were crinkled and
bent over on the top..but So were Brennon's when
he was born. He has his daddy's nose. Its regular
looking. I had no idea what they might have seen
at that point that made them feel that way. Surely
they had to be wrong.
They could have waited until I wasn't drugged. They
could have waited until I wasn't so lost in his new
baby smell and sweet fuzzy head. Why did she have
to come into our room? Why did she have to try to
steal our joy?
I did not cry at this point. I just wanted my baby
back in my arms. I pressed the button to call the
nurses' station, "Someone please bring my baby back
to the room".
