Prenatal Diagnosis: Grieving

In early August 2017 two pink lines showed up on the test, or in our case one blue line. I was so excited and couldn't wait to have Emma tell her dad that we were expecting another baby.

The first trimester was pretty uneventful, just the normal morning sickness and overall exhaustion that pregnancy brings, on top of being a mom of a toddler and working full time. We declined the genetic blood test as we knew the results wouldn't change our mind about keeping the pregnancy and we didn't want to find out the gender.

On December 15th we went to see a specialist for our 19 week anatomy scan as I had had pre-eclampsia with Emma and my midwives just wanted me checked over by a specialist and released before they took over for the rest of the pregnancy. Bobby and I went into that appointment just happy to finally get to look at the baby on the ultrasound. Little did we know that our world was about to be turned upside down.

When the doctor came in to discuss the results she said that he had a calcification on his heart and that his kidneys had a little extra fluid on them. She said that these can be soft markers for Down syndrome. That is basically all she said and offered the blood screening. We were shocked as we thought Down syndrome was hereditary. We also knew nothing about it and were provided no information about it. We left distraught. I was in shock. I cried for days. I Googled for days. Even though everything I found said that the baby would be happy and able to do everything a typical child could do, it would just take longer, I still felt so sad.

I knew I would love the baby, I knew that the baby would be fine and that we would do everything in our power to help the baby be successful. I was in utter despair it felt like, because I was grieving the child that I thought I had lost. The the playing with Emma and their talks as adults. The protecting each other and playing make believe together. Now all I could think about was how we would probably never be childless, how when we were gone Emma would be left to take care of her sibling with a disability. I knew people said that a person with Down syndrome could be independent and take care of themselves, but I still knew that we would always have to be very involved in the baby's life. I hoped that Emma never felt like her sibling was a burden.

As the weeks went on the grief got better. I would look at the sonogram pictures and just stare at all the tiny parts. I would try to keep reminding myself that while life would be different our baby would still be wonderful. I burst randomly into tears over the next few months. I would feel sad and angry a lot. I snuggled Emma a lot more over that month. Christmas was a few weeks after our blood screening came back with a 93% chance. I tried my best to let that be a distraction. I would still wake up in the middle of the night and just burst into tears. I was a mess for several months.

I poured into all the resources that I found. Especially my Facebook group through Down Syndrome Diagnosis Network. These women who had already been there, or were going through the same thing as me were my rocks.

I felt so guilty for being sad about the baby's diagnosis. Every time I felt grief I would then feel guilt over feeling the grief. If I could go back and give myself advice, it would be to feel any emotion that I wanted for as long or as hard as I wanted. I had to grieve so I could move on and start to be excited again. Grief is an important part of the process. I wish I could also tell myself that it would be okay, all the stress and grief would be worth it and that Blake would be the sweetest little boy we had every met.