"LUCKY DS"

Awww, yeah! Let's get the party started. I can't help but wonder if anyone's along for the ride. Let me know if you're with me on this journey. *cough*comment*cough*

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I've been thinking all day of how to start this month off on just the right note. Ideas would come...and then go...I just couldn't hold on to anything in my head. It's no wonder with the day I've had: waking up super early to get a workout in, OT at daycare with Playette, GYN appointment (finally!), blood draw, work, and picking Playette up early from daycare due to a high fever. Even I wonder how I function sometimes.

But as I was driving home, something came to mind. I remembered this one morning not too long ago when I was sitting at a red light near my house. I looked down and noticed the personalized plates on the car in front of me. They read, "LUCKY DS."

"Hm," I thought, "I wonder what that's all about."

I often imagine what license plates like those mean and feel proud of myself when I can figure out the codes that some have buried within them. This time, though, it was different. While "DS" could have very easily been the owner of the car's initials or stood for just about anything else, I realized that day that to me "DS" stands, first and foremost, for "Down syndrome."

It's just a fact of my life now. It's not anything I prayed for or dreamed of or wished for upon a shooting star. It just...is. And that's ok.

Ironically, today, I felt empowered more than any other day since we received Playette's diagnosis that I can recall. I'm not sure why, really.

Maybe it was the conversation I had with a friend who is newly pregnant. We talked about prenatal testing and why some of us feel there is no point if the results won't change your actions. In a fleeting thought I wondered if Ds just isn't as scary to her as it was to me back when Playette was on the inside and wishing we'd stop calling her "Teep" already.

Maybe it was the slap I heard as I placed my Ds Awareness magnet on the back of the truck. "There!" I thought, "It's there for all to see. They can ask questions, they can stare, they can wonder...and it's ok." I never thought I'd be a magnet-sporting type of person, but this just seemed different somehow.


Maybe it was the way I responded to the GYN when he asked me if there were any complications during Playette's delivery. There was a time when I would have told the whole story about the pregnancy and my fears and what I thought and what no one told me and then have it culminate with the eventual diagnosis. Today, I said, "No." And I believed myself. I didn't get sad, I didn't sigh, I didn't even feel like I wasn't telling the truth. I'm very thankful that Playette is healthy (fever be damned) and aside from hellacious labor, there were no complications. Ds is not a complication to me. Not today at least. It just...is.

Really, I don't know why I feel this way today. I just hope this fearlessness sticks around for a while. It feels so much better than being anxious.

I know there are people that feel like they are lucky that their child, sibling, or friend has Ds simply because of all of the wonderful changes and enlightenment and joy this person has brought to their life. I hope that they'll show me grace in not quite being there yet. Bear with me - I'm still a newbie.

I am grateful for my Playette. She truly has taken me to places I would have never gone before. I surely wouldn't be blogging and I wouldn't care as much as I do now about people that are different than myself. I probably wouldn't fight as much or as hard as I do and I surely wouldn't understand what it's like to be an advocate for those with special needs.

One day maybe I'll see that as lucky too.


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31 for 21 Snapshot of the Day

Awww, poor baby!