Real life Down Syndrome Awareness
My husband and I live in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. We met in 2010, he is British and I am Brazilian. During my pregnancy, I was unable to get much done in the way of testing due to my insurance company. I wasn’t concerned, though; I was just looking forward to the birth of our son. After a labor which lasted the best part of three days and a very difficult birth, our son emerged purple and was immediately taken off to be woken up and bathed.
Michael James Snyder was born March 28, 2015 at 11:59 pm. I was in labor for 17 hours. They had prepped me for an emergency c-section because both of our heartbeats were dipping. My dr. let me try to push one more time before they operated. I pushed with every ounce of strength I had left in me and it only took 3! It was hard on me. I was weak and tired, but when they handed him to me I instantly fell in love. He was so round and red and perfect!
The next day his pediatrician came in to do an examination on him. She looked over him for a while. We were all standing around his clear plastic crib watching. She asked us if we knew that he had Down Syndrome. We told her we didn’t. She never once looked up at us. She just said “Well, he does” and walked right out of the room. There were no pamphlets or information, just three simple unfeeling words and a long list of medical tests that needed to be performed before we could leave the hospital.
