I woke up extra early this morning, I do cherish some alone time and I went to my support group and read about a young man with Down syndrome who was depressed. No one knew why, until he finally opened up and explained how he was feeling. You can read about him here: BLOG What spoke to me about this young man was a concern I had about my now two soon to be three daughters with Down syndrome. For Meghan it will be easy to tell her, not for a millisecond did we consider you not being a part of our family.
For Kara and Amanda; Kara's mommy and daddy left her at the maternity house after they learned she had Down syndrome, and Amanda is the 4th child in her family, she was given up because of her diagnosis. How do I tell them they were cherished children when their own families did not want them? They will be loved and cherished by us, but I know they have to carry pain from being left and not knowing the loving embrace of their mothers after their births. When Meghan was a tiny infant she did not like to be left alone and would yell until someone returned, not crying, vocalizing, like "Hey, hello? Hey out there". It was uncanny that she could communicate her needs so well. These two angels would likely have cried out and been ignored as the caregivers tended the 30 other babies in their care.
We heard many hysterically crying infants while at the baby house in November-December last year. In fact I had to leave because it made me ill to hear the need and not be able to answer it. Several times the caregivers were sitting and watching TV and eating sunflower seeds while the infant(s) was screaming. I was angry with them and upset for the baby(ies). I left the orphanage in tears many times because of their indifference and laziness; something DH said because he had worked in orphanages here (we don't call them that) and said it is unheard of to sit and relax when the children needed you. I inferred that they did this to all of the babies in their care and the babies learned they could not count on anyone to give them attention, and forget about loving them. HOWEVER, Kara did have two older women who obviously loved her and took very good care of her, I could see it in their eyes. When they worked neither came out of the room and lazed about. When I opened the door they were often rocking babies and singing to them. You could tell they cared about the children, but the young workers seemed to like to watch TV more.
Well, we have been home with Kara for 3 months, I can't say that people have rushed to our home to see our new daughter, s few very good friends, yes, thank the Lord for them. We are so excited and happy to have Kara home but yet many of our old friends clearly do not share that excitement. To be honest, most of them can't wait for their children to leave home, and look forward to that empty nest, I guess I am the opposite.
I think a lot of us are shocked at the reactions of friends and family when a child with Down syndrome enters our lives. When we decide to adopt a child with special needs, many people react badly, and try to talk us out of it. Some just don't say anything but stop returning calls and emails. I suppose that is when you decide to leave those friendships in the past and move beyond them.
I have done a lot of reading about Down syndrome since Meghan was born 7 years ago, I made it my goal to know all I could about her diagnosis. I joined support groups both in person and on-line to help with the day to day things parents of typically developing kids do not understand. My friends here tried to be supportive, but they did not know what we were going through. Meghan's doctors did not send me to any of these groups, they did nothing to help us, support us, and one told us to give her up for the sake of our other children, and that she would destroy our lives. He was our doctor ONE day.
We got some wonderful and supportive phone calls after all our friends heard about Meghan, we also got quite a few strange reactions that baffled us. I guess my favorite was from a woman who had a daughter with cognitive issues herself; she told me to tell everyone I had an affair with an Asian man, since Meghan looked Asian to her. At the time of her birth I was working with senior citizens teaching fitness classes for them. I loved them, and they had given me a huge baby shower, some however used the term "Mongoloid" to describe Meghan, and a few were off put by us keeping her in our family. In their day it simply was not done.
I woke up extra early this morning, I do cherish some alone time and I went to my support group and read about a young man with Down syndrome who was depressed. No one knew why, until he finally opened up and explained how he was feeling. You can read about him here: BLOG What spoke to me about this young man was a concern I had about my now two soon to be three daughters with Down syndrome. For Meghan it will be easy to tell her, not for a millisecond did we consider you not being a part of our family.
For Kara and Amanda; Kara's mommy and daddy left her at the maternity house after they learned she had Down syndrome, and Amanda is the 4th child in her family, she was given up because of her diagnosis. How do I tell them they were cherished children when their own families did not want them? They will be loved and cherished by us, but I know they have to carry pain from being left and not knowing the loving embrace of their mothers after their births. When Meghan was a tiny infant she did not like to be left alone and would yell until someone returned, not crying, vocalizing, like "Hey, hello? Hey out there". It was uncanny that she could communicate her needs so well. These two angels would likely have cried out and been ignored as the caregivers tended the 30 other babies in their care.
We heard many hysterically crying infants while at the baby house in November-December last year. In fact I had to leave because it made me ill to hear the need and not be able to answer it. Several times the caregivers were sitting and watching TV and eating sunflower seeds while the infant(s) was screaming. I was angry with them and upset for the baby(ies). I left the orphanage in tears many times because of their indifference and laziness; something DH said because he had worked in orphanages here (we don't call them that) and said it is unheard of to sit and relax when the children needed you. I inferred that they did this to all of the babies in their care and the babies learned they could not count on anyone to give them attention, and forget about loving them. HOWEVER, Kara did have two older women who obviously loved her and took very good care of her, I could see it in their eyes. When they worked neither came out of the room and lazed about. When I opened the door they were often rocking babies and singing to them. You could tell they cared about the children, but the young workers seemed to like to watch TV more.
Well, we have been home with Kara for 3 months, I can't say that people have rushed to our home to see our new daughter, s few very good friends, yes, thank the Lord for them. We are so excited and happy to have Kara home but yet many of our old friends clearly do not share that excitement. To be honest, most of them can't wait for their children to leave home, and look forward to that empty nest, I guess I am the opposite.
I think a lot of us are shocked at the reactions of friends and family when a child with Down syndrome enters our lives. When we decide to adopt a child with special needs, many people react badly, and try to talk us out of it. Some just don't say anything but stop returning calls and emails. I suppose that is when you decide to leave those friendships in the past and move beyond them.