My husband and I are expecting our first child, a boy. Spina bifinda runs in my husband’s family so
we made sure to get a full panel of testing done to ease our worried
minds. We had our amniocentesis test and it was determined that our child will be born
with Down Syndrome. We are nervous and
do not know much about Down Syndrome, so we have begun researching daily,
absorbing all of the information we can so we are as prepared as we can be to
welcome our baby boy. According to
BabyCenter.com, “DS is a chromosomal anomaly that occurs in about 1 out
every 700 births…an inexplicable error in cell development results in 47
chromosomes (rather than the usual 46), and the extra gene material slightly
changes the orderly development of the body and brain.”
My husband and I both work full time, I as an early
childhood Center Director, and he is an electrical engineer. We are comfortable financially, there’s
enough money to pay the bills and extra each month for our varying interests
and hobbies. We own our home in a rural
area and have been fortunate to not have been affected by economic downfalls
like the rest of country. As of right
now, our growing family has not been impacted by current Sociocultural or
politics/policy contexts.
With this news, we have some decisions to make. We currently live several hours from our
families and have not established a close connection with other people that we
could entrust with our new bundle of joy.
Fortunately, our jobs would allow us to move easily to be closer to
friends and family, but at this point in my pregnancy would it be a smart
decision to move? The baby could come to
work with me everyday, my teachers are trained to work with children with
exceptionalities, but the idea of mixing my work with my personal life leaves
me uneasy. My husband travels weekly and
I have a long commute to work everyday, this is another consideration we have
to keep in mind.
I am lucky to have a wealth of early childhood services
available at my fingertips. My company
has an Inclusion Services team, designed to help families and early childhood
providers with accommodating children with special needs in the classroom
setting. There is also support groups
available that we can join that would give us a sense of community, understanding,
and socialization for our child. I read
a beautiful story, written by a mother whose child has Down Syndrome. It was raw, honest, had me in tears the whole
time I read it, but in the end made me so excited to start this beautiful
journey. Kelle Hampton has an amazing
blog with resources to help parents with their own personal journey.
I am sure wherever we go that we will make the right choices
for schools to help our baby grow and learn, with caring dedicated individuals
that are educated life long learners that want to do what is best for my child
day in and day out.
Resources
Kelle Hampton (January 2010). Enjoying the small things; Nella Cordelia: A
birth story.
http://www.kellehampton.com/2010/01/nella-cordelia-birth-story.html
3 comments:
Amber,
Amber,
Your story sounds so realistic that I believe that there are many families in your situation or worse in many communities. My story is similar except we are adopting and have no childcare available so that is a real big decision. The website that I research was care.com that offers a variety of information on children with special needs and finding a nanny if necessary. But since you will take your child to work with you will have a great early care program already in place for the child. This site will offer substitute care. So far you seem like you are off to a great start but you should try to make some plans to have some quality time with your spouse because having a child with special needs can overwhelm the best of us.
http://www.care.com/special-needs-caring-for-a-child-with-down-syndrome-p1167-q16876.html
Hi Amber,
Your story was well informed and to the point. You reminded me of some important facts that I was going to mention in my paper and then I forgot. I found it to be very mind boggling to provide all the necessary extra special needs assessments and accessories. I researched my topic a lot and I came to the conclusion that it was well worth the effort. For many who are concerned with finding the right school fit for your child and then finding a child care provider who is qualified in working with children with special needs there are still so many other areas that still need to be attended to. You have a great start on your hypothetical family situation. One of the things that I thought was so beautiful was the acceptance of the possibility of having a special needs child, and then when it was confirmed there was no sadness or regret, just positive planning. I liked that a lot.
Amber,
Love your hypothetical family but I would give more thought to how your family is affected by sociocultural, economic, and political effects. Families are always affected even if it is in a positive way.
The fact that you and your husband did an amniocentesis exam because of his family history is a cultural factor. Thanks for sharing!
Annie P.
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