A Little Background...

I know that many who are reading this blog will have known me and my parenting journey for some time, but I thought I would share a little of my personal background story for those that are new.

My wife and I were married in 1986 (yes, we recently celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary!) and after a few years of planned childless marriage, we began to try to start a family. After struggling with infertility for several years, we were overjoyed to learn in 1993 that we were expecting our first child.

About 24 weeks into the pregnancy however, a routine ultrasound revealed a serious abnormality - there was virtually no amniotic fluid in the womb. My wife was immediately followed up with daily prenatal assessments. As part of that process, a cordocentesis was done to see if there was an in utero virus responsible for the pregnancy complication. With that blood sample, they did a routine chromosome test, which told us that our unborn child had Down Syndrome.

Though this news devastated our hopes of having a "normal" child, we nonetheless continued to pray that God would save the life of our unborn child, and deliver her into our arms safely. And that's when, God began to do a miracle. Whereas up to that point the fetal assessments showed that she was dying in the womb, her status in follow-up assessments began to show a dramatic improvement.

In the end, Erin was born at full term, and besides having low birth weight, did not have any of the health problems the doctors predicted she could have based on the earlier pregnancy abnormalities.

Our experience with our daughter's gestation and birth taught us that we tend to put implicate faith in the medical profession. After we were given the news of our daughter's pre-birth diagnosis, we realized later that we had begun to grieve her loss. But as we began to hope again for whatever God had planned for her, and after she showed how she defied all odds against her survival, we understood that doctors have their limits of knowledge as well, and that each and every life is in God's hands.

In those weeks before Erin was born, and in the weeks, months and years following, our understanding of what is "normal", healthy, and beautiful, changed drastically. I will leave it to subsequent posts to share how Erin's entrance into our lives changed us, very much for the better. We continue to thank God for answering our prayers over 17 years ago, by giving us this special gift.

Welcome...

So, I've just started a blog on a topic that I've been living for the past 17 plus years - raising a child and experiencing life with a daughter who has Down Syndrome. Although I've posted items about this topic over the years in other forums (my Taiwan Life blog, Facebook, etc.), I felt I wanted to post in a more focused way about my thoughts, experiences, and feelings about having a child with DS. I will also try to highlight a broad range of topics related to Down Syndrome, sharing third party resources or articles I find of interest. My goal is to educate, challenge, and generally open my heart on the matter. Every post will in some way be related to Down Syndrome, or raising an exceptional child.

As for the title of my blog, "The Deal With Downs", it has a double meaning for me. Dictionary definitions of the word "deal" include, 1) managing, coping, or taking measures regarding something, 2) distributing something to someone, or including them in something (i.e. "deal them in"), and so I could say, when it comes to Down Syndrome (or "Downs", as many say), we deal with the hand we were dealt. (Too corny?)

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Down Syndrome is something most people have heard of, but unless their lives have been touched by it in some way, they often know little about it. If I can change that in some way through this blog, I'll be happy.

If you are familiar with subscribing to a blog and wish to follow this one, I would invite you to do so. You can do this easily by clicking on the subscribe button to the right.