October is down syndrome awareness month. For the month of October, I am going to write a post everyday telling our story and giving down syndrome facts to spread awareness. I know a question everyone probably has is, what did you do when you were told your daughter has down syndrome? Lets go back to my pregnancy. The doctor continued to order ultrasounds because my stomach stopped growing. For those of you who knew me then, I only looked about 5 or 6 months pregnant when I had karsyn. I had a total of 7 ultrasounds and it was not until the 6th ultrasound a week before she was born that she decided to show her face. I saw the monitor and immediately asked the tech is that a cleft. The tech said, I have to get the radiologist. I knew as soon as she said that, it was for sure a cleft. I remember laying there on the ultrasound bed and said out load, if it is only a cleft, we can handle that. The radiologist at HRH would not confirm the cleft and sent us off to Columbia. The doctor at Columbia confirmed Karsyn was going to be born with a cleft but said, there is nothing else wrong with your child. We can fix your child with surgery. I just had to tell another family we cannot fix their child. I spent the next week getting prepared and researching cleft lips and pallets. On October 18, Karsyn was born. The NICU doctors were waiting in the room and wisped her away to check her out. After about 15 minutes, Trent finally brought Karsyn over to me so I could see my baby. As soon as I looked at her, I knew she had down syndrome. I felt like a horrible mother because I thought I was trying to find something else wrong with my child because her face was completely distorted. I only got a quick look because the NICU doctors rushed her to the NICU because she could not keep her oxygen levels up. After about 2 hours, I finally got to meet my baby for the first time. A nurse told me that night, the doctors are going to run a ton of tests trying to figure out why she was born with a cleft lip. I kept that in the back of my mind as Karysn under went test after test. On October 19, we got the news that Karsyn had holes in her heart. All the doctor would say at that time was, We are going to do additional testing. On October 21, the doctor finally told us she had her suspension that Karsyn had down syndrome. At that point, I knew she did. I finally told my husband that night that the first time I ever seen her, I knew she had down syndrome. On October 23, we got the confirmation test results that Karsyn did indeed have down syndrome. I thought to myself, I am only 25 years old, how can I have a child with down syndrome. I thought only older women have down syndrome kids. I soon learned that 1 in every 691 children born in the United States are born with down syndrome. On October 23, our lives changed forever. We began learning everything we possibly could learn about raising a child with down syndrome. Stay tuned the rest of the month for more of our story!
Posted on: Wed, 01 Oct 2014 14:02:34 +0000
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