Lion and Magic Boy

I think this might be my obligatory Down syndrome post. Wait a minute — obligatory? Why do I feel I require explaining?

Hmmm.

Anyway, Eric was conceived in the spring of 2003. I was making plans to leave my husband, Eric’s father, because, well, of a number of reasons that I won’t go into now. It was time, though, past time. Then pity struck. Yes, sad to say, we had Pity Sex, and voila! Eric was conceived.

I was devastated. My chance at freedom had evaporated, and I now had to be tied, again, to this man whom I was hoping to escape. Abortion didn’t seem to be an option, didn’t feel right. I had to stay.

So Eric began his life with someone angry at him. I was angry that I had missed my opportunity. I was angry that my body would be changing, again. I was angry that I did not feel in control of my life.

Poor Eric.

As he was my fourth child, I felt no reason to have prenatal testing. I had been down that road before, many times, and this was old stuff. No big deal. I didn’t even seek a midwife for months, took a long time selecting one.

When I finally did accept the pregnancy, in my own mind, I decided that this birth had to be perfect. Being the good Waldorfy mom that I was, this meant a home birth, in water. Cool, huh? I finally found a midwife who I felt more or less comfortable with a couple of months before the birth. I took a class in hypnobirthing, and felt more or less ready for the event. Except that I was totally freaking out. Being a fairly private person, I decided that there was no way I would feel comfortable having this midwife come into my house, so at the last minute I chose to have the birth in a hospital. Felt much better, except I was still freaking out. When would this baby be born?

Did I mention that people around me commented on how great I looked? I gained maybe 10 pounds, and I’m not so big a person to begin with. I wore my regular jeans the whole time. People expressed envy and admiration at this, and it gave me fuel in my mind to eat less. Eric weighed just over 5 pounds at birth.

After Eric was born, the midwife had a strange look on her face. Hours later, a nurse flatly told me that Eric had Down syndrome.

What? No way! He might be small, but he’s perfect! Look at him! He’s beautiful!

It all made sense though.

Eric’s father wouldn’t accept this. He insisted on genetic testing to find that third 21st chromosome, and there it was. Despite this, he wouldn’t let me talk about it, to anyone. We told no one, not even ourselves.

Eric was small, quite small, and frail. Breastfeeding was difficult for him. He grew slowly. Meanwhile, I was still struggling with accepting him as someone as Down syndrome. It took about a year of avoidance, and then I saw that Eric had different needs, but he was still Eric.

How do I express this?

Eric is one of the coolest people I know. I can tell he looks at the world differently than I do, for instance, and I look forward to finding out what he sees. He attracts people to him. He is the most expressive child I have ever known, and his facial expressions change faster that a blink of an eye. He is both curious about and amused by the world around him. I used to think he was going to be my “easy” child, back in the days when he was too weak to really make demands on us, but now it’s obvious he has other plans.

One of Eric’s favorite activities is pushing his books under the door to the basement, which we wisely keep closed. It’s a little like pushing things into a mail slot. Another favorite is throwing. Anything. Throwing, crawling to get the item, and throwing it again. Fun, eh?

I could say a lot of trite-sounding things about Down syndrome. Do I wish Eric didn’t have it? Maybe, but I have no idea what he’d be like, how that would change him. He’s who he is, and the DS is part of him. Back when he was tiny and this was all so new to me and I had no idea what would be in store for him, I thought that the DS would define him. I didn’t want him to be a label.

I didn’t need to worry. Eric’s been guiding me the whole way.

My hope is that he will continue to surround himself with people who see him for who he is. Perhaps one of his goals this life is to help people do just that.

[tags]down syndrome, family, parenting[/tags]