Newspaper blog

When not knowing is better than knowing


My husband and I get asked a lot whether or not we knew about Zachary’s Down Syndrome before he was born.

We had no idea at all.

The only thing that would have given us advanced notice would have been optional genetic testing that we turned down about halfway through our pregnancy.

In a journal I kept for Zack while pregnant, I found an entry the other day that described our decision not to do the tests, which only gives a percentage, or odds of certain abnormalities and occasionally causes miscarriages.

“It was the easiest decision of our pregnancy so far,” I wrote in the journal. “We’re going to love you no matter what and we are prepared for all the possible outcomes.”

For a split second after learning of Zack’s diagnosis with Down Syndrome, I kicked myself for that “easiest decision.” But the longer I have to think it over, the more relieved I am that we didn’t spend a huge portion of our pregnancy worrying or stressing about something we couldn’t change and, perhaps more importantly, something that wasn’t going to change us.

Especially with as mild as Zack’s signs of the disorder are so far, I’m sure I would have spent 20 weeks preparing myself for a much worse scenario.

I've been e-mailing with one mom that I met through the organization Parent to Parent, who has a six-month-old daughter with Down Syndrome. She found out early on in her pregnancy that her baby had DS and I keep getting stuck on a handful of words in a recent e-mail from her: "It really saddened my pregnancy."

My pregnancy was an amazing experience for me. I loved being pregnant and I loved knowing that my child was growing inside of me. I'm not sure I ever knew happiness before that positive pregnancy test. I'd hate to have missed out on that bliss, even if it came from ignorance.

And even after what we’ve been through so far, I wouldn’t change a thing. We’ve already decided that if we have a second child, we still won’t get the tests done, even though the odds of having another child with Down Syndrome greatly increase the next time around.

It just doesn’t matter to us.

The end result is still a healthy baby; a baby that will be loved forever, no matter what.

What would you do?