Hi, Mark! Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

when the pediatrician's diagnosis of DS had just been
confirmed, the gynecology resident accosted me outside
our room to ask... in essence... why I hadn't been
weeping & wailing & gnashing my teeth. I told him
about Judy, a former student of mine, and added that
I'd be quite content to have a daughter like her.

We had a similar situation. After they first told us
that our son had DS, they sent in a "counsler" to talk
to us and make sure we were "ok". I couldn't believe
they did such a thing and sent the person out of the room.

When Nora & I returned home, after her birth, a public health nurse visited us once a week... ostensibly to weigh the baby. She seemed to regard inspecting me & my housekeeping as her chief responsibility, however. On one occasion, for example, she went to the kitchen to wash her hands although the bathroom was closer. Then another nurse took her place. This nurse was very different. She said I had a wonderful rapport with Nora, i.e. the first nice thing anybody had said about my parenting. I reckon she must have given me a passing grade because we heard nothing more for the next fifteen years. :-))

They treat it like some horrible disease -
which is far from the truth.

Yes, and they can easily do more harm than good by projecting their own fears onto others. I'm reminded of the dietician who came to see us when Nora was in rehab. Nora's weight had been stable before her stroke, but as a result of the stroke she wasn't getting enough exercise & was gaining weight. This woman, who clearly had a weight problem herself, kept trying to reassure Nora that it was nothing to be ashamed of. Nora wasn't ashamed of it at all, therefore we didn't want the dietician putting ideas into her head... (sigh).

The gynecology resident was different too. He's the sort of person who inspires me to believe things are slowly changing for the better. He was present at Nora's birth... he was aware of the gloomy prognostications in the medical textbooks... yet he said to himself, "Something doesn't add up here." He approached me in the spirit of a person seeking more data because a lot of what he's been told doesn't match his observations. I immediately recognized him as a kindred spirit & the teacher in me seized the teachable moment. :-)

We are happy with whatever we were given.

... as are the vast majority of other people who find themselves in similar circumstances, apparently, among North Americans at least:

"Parents, Siblings, and People With Down Syndrome
Report Positive Experiences"

http://sacbee.com/2011/09/21




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
* Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)