Caribou: Fact vs Fiction About How My Child with Down Syndrome Looks

When she was born, I was surprised at how perfect, normal and human mydaughter looked. I am not really sure what I was expecting. I have seen other children with down syndrome and none of them have 3 eyes or anything like that, but it still seemed odd to me how perfect she was. One thing that has stuck with me was when the doctor originally thought something was wrong, she told me that having an extra chromosome was like having bad blue prints. When you build the house it is not stable. I guess I envisioned a human version of an Escher drawing or the leaning tower of Pisa or something. I also would look at pictures of other kids with down syndrome. Many of them have some pretty weird features I wondered if my baby would have them as well. However, when I saw pictures of these babies with weird features with their parents, I think that their other 46 chromosomes have more to do with those features than their bonus chromosome. Trying to imagine someone else's baby who was born with down syndrome as mine is just as weird as imagining someone else's baby who was not born with down syndrome as mine because God did not intend those children for me.

It is possible my daughter is also guilty of having weird features that go unnoticed to me that the other 46 chromosomes are responsible for, but they are what make her mine. I am still in awe about how perfect she really is. She is in no way a human Escher drawing or like a house built with bad blue prints or the futurama sewer mutant that my fear lead me to believe she might be.