“In 2016, I was a stay at home mom taking care of my five-year-old son and my four and two-year-old daughters. I was also pregnant with our fourth child. I often joked with my friends that giving birth to this baby would be like going on a vacation. Family and friends would take over my exhausting parenting duties. I, on the other hand, would be in the quiet hospital room, being served meals with no dishes or laundry taunting me with their endlessness.
My husband Chris went with me to my twenty-week anatomy scan. We found out our baby was a girl. Chris left for work as I stayed for the doctor’s appointment that followed. My doctor went through the list of things that looked great on my daughter’s developing body. At the end of the list, she said, ‘I should mention she has an echogenic focus. This is calcification or a bright spot on her heart. It does not affect heart function.’ She went on to explain that babies with Down syndrome, as well as babies without Down syndrome, can have echogenic foci. I was offered blood work to see if our daughter had Down syndrome. After some discussion, I declined the bloodwork. I was only thirty-two years old. I had a 0.0014 percent chance of having a baby with Down syndrome at my age. Our baby did not have any other soft markers and I do not like needles! We decided to re-ultrasound at thirty-four weeks to check for soft markers.
No soft markers were identified at my thirty-four-week appointment. To say I was relieved was an understatement. Down syndrome was off the table. Like my previous daughter, this baby was measuring small, so I had to go to the doctor’s office every week to monitor her. Every week, she passed with flying colors.
When Scarlett was born, I hugged and kissed her. I told her I loved her. Then I passed her off to the nurse to be cleaned up. When the nurse handed my daughter back to me, I instantly noticed her cheeks were really red and big and her ears were teeny tiny. I looked at my husband and asked him, ‘Do you think she has Down syndrome?’
I knew he would tell me to stop being dramatic and ridiculous. Instead, he looked back at me, glossy-eyed, and said, ‘Maybe.’ My heart sank. My husband is a doctor, so I knew his ‘maybe’ meant ‘yes.’ I asked the nurse if she thought Scarlett had Down syndrome. She unswaddled my baby, looked at her for three seconds before saying, ‘Yes, yes she does.’ My eyes filled with tears.
Although I was the one asking the question, I did not think I would be told yes. This news was completely devastating to me. I was overcome with fear and emotions. I worried about whether Scarlett was healthy. Fifty percent of babies with Down syndrome have a heart defect. I worried I didn’t know how to take good care of her. I felt like my life, as I knew it, was over. Had I ruined her life by allowing her to have Down syndrome? Had I ruined the lives of her siblings? I did not know what her diagnosis meant for her life and our family’s. I was afraid Scarlett’s diagnosis would negatively change our lives forever.
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