(Image and article courtesy of Special Seeds Singapore)
Down syndrome was an issue we were aware of but never understood. We had been part of a society that had once considered it taboo. And like most people we gazed at it from afar because we never had the courage...
...or the reason to get close.
It simply wasn’t relevant.
Until it happened to our precious second son Amos – now a sprightly three year-old who smiles more than he scowls and dances to anything musical.
It wasn’t like that from the beginning.
At birth he asphyxiated because the water broke before he was ready to meet the world. His lungs hadn’t yet learned how they ought to behave and Amos came out limp, blue and silent.
The nurses were so frenetic that they did a football-huddle around his tiny body and did their best not to look at us while we were desperately trying to look at them.
We rejoiced when we heard the first cry.
It was strong and furious, and nothing in it suggested anything about Down syndrome. We forged on and told ourselves he’d have to be raised like any other kid and be no different from his brother. Then there were the developmental delays; the perpetual dribbling, the inability to chew, to swallow, to breathe, to sleep. And in came the surgeries, the feeding tube, the respirator machine (CPAP) and so on…
Amos was learning to crawl when his brother, at matching age, would already be pattering up steps and shooting off the slide. At the age when most kids are stringing complete sentences Amos was still drenching up to three bibs a day with his drool.
Sometimes Amos appears to be grinning at everything. Sometimes Amos gets so caught up in himself he doesn’t even realise he needs food. Sometimes Amos just felt so different to us.