Get it down: 31 for 21 - Day 2

First of all, to those who come from where the National Down Syndrome Awareness Month were established, let me introduce us to you.

Our little sweetheart was born July 2007 after a quite relaxed pregnancy 3 weeks early. Shortly before she was delivered, heart problems were mentioned. When she was there she was such a beauty. As Mia was our first baby we didn`t realize that she might look a little else then other babies. No one in the hospital told us, but after 2 days she was so tired and didn`t eat anymore. A doctor from the PICU came, had a look at her and mentioned to me "Well, you know you have a mongoloid baby here, didn`t you go to the ultrasound check ups?"

Wow, that was like a hammer. A mother who just gave birth to her first child, feeling that there is something going wrong because the little one was sleeping and not eating all the time, and then that. Anyways, Mia had to stay for 10 days in the PICU because she suffered from streptococcus and needed treatment. During that 10 days she was tested and after one week they told us that she had a free trisomie 21. I have to say the nurses in the PICU were great, they talked to me a lot and reassured me. I never thought that I don`t want to have her, to be honest I was frightened to death that she might not come through. I thought all the time that this cannot be, to lose a baby which was just born, after such a quite relaxed pregnany....that was like a real nightmare. The Down-Syndrome? I didn`t really know much about it, I didn`t know any people with Down Syndrome, and after informing myself on the internet I found out that there are sooooooo many parents around here. I just thought this is going to be hard maybe, because you have to fight for your child`s rights all the time...ok...*roll up the sleeves* here we go! She is sooooooooooooooooo worth it.

Being home after leaving PICU was the greatest. Mia was such a lovely baby. Parents and friends were surprised, but not as shocked as I sometimes thought they would be. Everybody was sad because of the PICU thing so they were just happy to get to known to her. We chose an open-word-policy about Mia and her little extra. Looking backwards, that was the best we could do. I think that everybody who was introduced to Mia was a little unsure how to behave or what to say, but looking at us - being normal and relaxed with everything- might have helped them to deal with the whole unexpected thing.