#291 | Discovering Down Syndrome at Birth: Lacey's Story and Her Greatest Gift

At twenty-one years old, Lacey was pregnant with her first child. She was young and healthy and expected everything to go perfectly in her labor and birth. As a result of high blood pressure, she was induced for labor. When her son was born blue and unresponsive with an APGAR score of one, she knew something was off. She held her son for only a minute before he was whisked off to the NICU. Noticing that his ears seemed disproportionally small, her maternal instincts were alert. Five days later, she learned her son had Down Syndrome when a nurse inadvertently said, “This is the second baby with Down Syndrome this week,” upon entering the room. According to Lacey, how and when the news was reported to her and her husband was more difficult and painful than receiving the diagnosis itself.

Today, Lacey shares her mission to help parents understand the gift and beauty of raising a child with Down Syndrome.

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Transcript

And she said, I know you just received this diagnosis that will affect your whole life, and I know that it's really hard. I was so excited because I saw the way that you two love him, and I saw the way you adore him. And I just thought, thank God that this baby was sent to these parents who are going to love every single ounce of him for exactly who he is. That's exactly what I needed to hear like. I needed to be told that you're the exact mom for this job, that there's no reason for you to be afraid. There's gonna be challenges, but there will be so much joy than you can even understand. And my whole mission. It's this battle cry in our hearts, because there's so much fear, there's so much negativity. You know that, like that's the worst thing that could possibly happen to your baby, and it's not Down syndrome is a perfectly normal variation of being a human being, and their lives are just as important as ours.

I'm Cynthia Overgard, owner of HypnoBirthing of Connecticut, childbirth advocate and postpartum support specialist. And I'm Trisha Ludwig, certified nurse midwife and international board certified lactation consultant. And this is the Down To Birth Podcast. Childbirth is something we're made to do. But how do we have our safest and most satisfying experience in today's medical culture? Let's dispel the myths and get down to birth.

My name is Lacy Buchalon, and I'm just here to tell my story about my son, Bo, he's four now, and has Down Syndrome. We had a post birth diagnosis, and yeah, I guess I will start from my pregnancy. I had some complications in my pregnancy, blood pressure wise in the it was about 16 weeks my blood pressure was like, 190 over 119 or something, crazy high. And so he was like, I need you to go to urgent care. So I was like, okay, so I drove myself to urgent care. And was like, This is strange. I didn't really know much about blood pressure at the time, and had never had high blood pressure. Anyway, they monitored it for a while, and it came right back down. And then I just had on and off blood pressure issues throughout my pregnancy. So they were kind of monitoring. I was put in a high risk category because of that. And then fast forward, I saw maternal fetal medicine because of that. They just when they did my 20 week anatomy scan, it was long, and I knew it was supposed to be long, but they everything seemed to be normal. They just had a few things that they didn't see as well as they would like to because he wasn't in a great position, or he was hiding. He hid his face quite a bit, so they couldn't see his face. And at the time, I had no idea what they were looking for. I had no idea what was normal and what wasn't.

Can they ever see Down Syndrome in an ultrasound? And didn't they do blood tests or any other tests to screen for it, or I did not have testing done. So they I had a midwife that was in a clinic that was surrounded by obese, and they she was a pretty old midwife, really sweet, but she was in an OB office, and so anything that was high risk, she consulted and kicked over to the obese, and I don't know. So I think some of the things might have been missed because I was with a midwife. Wanting to stay with the midwife. She felt comfortable keeping me on her care and not pushing me over to the OBS anyway. So it was kind of like I at this point. I didn't think anything was wrong or different. She didn't actually ask me if I wanted blood work. I think it was just outside of what was, you know, normal. It was gonna maybe cost extra, or whatever. So I just turned it down because I was like, No, in the future, if there's something that they see, I'll get testing if you feel like I need to. But I don't really think it wouldn't make a difference for me at this point --

I'm sorry to interrupt you. I would just want to make sure we clarify, because many women do choose not to have the screening tests for things like Down syndrome, because they don't care what the results will be. They, you know, they know that one way or the other, they're having this baby. It doesn't really matter to them. And then sometimes women are not properly offered the test, or it's not the conversation isn't thorough enough, and they don't realize that they could have known or that, right? Maybe they wanted to know. It was kind of a, where were you in that it was kind of a mix of that, I don't remember. I don't remember making a distinct, like decision that was like, Oh, it wouldn't matter to me. I knew that. It didn't, but it was so far out of my mind that I just, I was like, No, we're thinking about things fine. And. Healthy? Yeah, I don't really need to go get poked in extra time, whatever. That was kind of how I felt. And then, yeah, come the anatomy scan. They saw a few things. I didn't even know what they were. I thought it was just an absence of things, which I think now they did see some maybe soft markers, or, you know, short femur bone, whatever it was, but they just didn't express any of those things to me. They just kicked me over to maternal fetal medicine. So I went to maternal fetal medicine, and they maternal fetal medicine wanted me to go no later than 38 weeks. And so I was kind of like, okay, and at the time, I didn't know very much about birth and and I basically gave up all of my own autonomy, because I just was like, okay, they know better than me. I'm gonna do everything that they say. And I really, really regret that. So fast forward, she mentions when she is in the office with me, I think after the second ultrasound, they haven't been able to see everything. Still, they see a couple things in the heart that aren't an issue yet, but that there could be something it was very all unclear, like they couldn't actually tell me anything. We continued like normal. I had this induction date for 38 weeks, and went in, got induced. I did two doses of cervidil, and my water broke on its own in the middle of the night, and they were saying, Oh, the this is a good sign. It's probably going to go fairly quickly. I was trying to hold off on an epidural if I could, but the nurse, I remember feeling pressure for the nurse to get it, because it was very busy night on the floor. And she said, if you're going to get an epidural, you might as well get it now. I finally progress enough, and at midnight, I was a 10. So we start pushing. And it took about it wasn't too long of pushing. It was about 30 minutes before things got you know, scary things were progressing fairly well, but I remember seeing the reflection in the TV and just like his head was right there, but I was stretching and like his head wasn't coming out. So I'm wondering, I was going to ask you guys, is that a sign of shoulder dystocia already, when their head is bulging and the skin hasn't come around the head, and if they're short, if their shoulder is stuck there, there is a sign called the turtle sign, which is when the head is trying to come out, but it keeps retracting, okay, as opposed to just continuing to move out. So, yeah, a really, really slow head with retraction can definitely mean that there's because what's happening is your uterus is pushing the baby out, but then it's the shoulder is landing on the bone and pulled back, right. Okay, that can be an indication, yes, yeah. So that was kind of the first thing, I think, is what they saw. It was a little fuzzy for me, but I just remember, that's what I remember seeing. And then, like, his head just wasn't coming out. Yeah, I kept, like, bulging and retracting and bulging. So I was like, Why isn't he coming out? I'm, like, pushing as hard as hard as he can. So then once his head comes out somewhere in there, it was a little bit of a blur. They pushed the button on the wall get all these nurses and people crowd into the room. And I just remember a nurse looking at me and saying, I'm going to push on your stomach, or like, two or three of them, I'm going to push on your stomach. We need to get him out with this contraction. And they're like, pushing on my stomach, pushing on my stomach very and I was like, I It's hard to push when they're doing that, but I was trying to push as hard as I could. And it just, it felt very emergent, but it felt like I was helpless, like I had no feeling. I knew it was an emergency. I didn't know why. I didn't know what a shoulder distression was at that point. And then finally they They told my husband, you won't be able to cut the cord. We have to take him once he comes out. And he was like, okay, okay, baby comes out finally. And I just remember it was like, he had zero tone. He just plopped onto me. He was purple and blue, and it was like, I just, I remember thinking, I should be crying right now, like, this should be a happy, like, happy tears moment where I meet my baby, and I remember, like, trying to cry because I thought that was what I was, like, I'm supposed to be crying because this is bad, and he's not okay, but I want to be crying because I'm happy, and they, they took him off of me, and I just felt so like it was just a very, very isolating, like lonely moment, because everyone was focusing on the baby, and I'm just sitting there, like trying to cry, but I couldn't. I just felt very, like, emotionless, and that scared me, because I was like, like, I don't even know who this baby is yet. Haven't even seen him yet, but it's my baby, and he's not okay, but I'm not, and I don't hear him crying, and I know that's a bad thing, and I'm waiting, and I'm waiting, um. All. I just hear, you know, murmuring from the nurses and stuff, and one of the midwives, who wasn't my midwife, but I was very thankful for this. She came up to my shoulder, and she just held my head against her and she said, everything's gonna be okay. They're doing everything they can to make sure that he's okay. These nurses are really good. They know what they're doing. He got stuck. His shoulder got stuck behind your pelvis. It's called the shoulder dystocia, and that's why all those nurses came in. She kind of took a moment to explain those things to me, and I was grateful for that and that connection. And she waited. She's like, I'm going to wait here with you until he cries. And so she just sat there with me until they got him crying. And that was a great his cry was very weak, but he let out one little cry. His first newborn score was one. I think it took him maybe 2025, minutes, and he came back up to a nine. So that was good news. But immediately they start seeing things that are, you know, abnormal, I guess you would say. And I remember, once he was stable, they brought him to me and said, be really careful with you. Can only hold him for a minute because we need to take him to get an x ray and take him to the NICU his arm. He was, you know, partially paralyzed. He had herbs palsy, and they just said, Be careful with his arm. He just, he won't move it, and it's in pain. And this the sensor that they had screwed into his head to monitor contractions or heart rate.

Fetal spelt monitor. It monitors his heart rate, which I wish they would tell people. I know they why they don't, but I wish they would tell you what that actually is. I just wish they wouldn't use them so often, but maybe, yeah, I mean, for it. So, yeah, so they take, they put, they had him on me, and his arm was limp. And I'm so I'm I feel like, I don't know if I can really touch him, but I'm trying to, like, snuggle him. I can't really see what he looks like, but I remember what I did see of him. I was like, I can't tell who he looks like. And they're like, well, he's really swollen, and that will probably take a couple days to go down his face. He was had a two black eyes and was purple and blue, like, just looked like he had been in a fight and had, you know, a lot of cone heading, or big cone head. And I just remember thinking how angelic he looked, but that he didn't look like jebrae. And I remember seeing your ears are so small, like, I didn't like he was so chubby and big, but his ears were so tiny. And I was like, Oh my goodness. Anyway, so I knew that they had seen abnormalities. I knew that there was things they were talking about, but I all my focus was kind of on the shoulder to socia and what had happened and the trauma of that. So they take him to the NICU after a minute on me, and I, it takes me, it was about 2am and they eventually take me down to recovery. I had no feeling in my legs, and had a really hard time getting up at all, even into the wheelchair. So they it took me a while to be able to get back into the NICU with him, which I was very sad about, obviously. And we go in, and it's dark, and my husband's with the baby, and then I remember sitting them, sitting me on my bed and getting me situated. And the lights were still off, because it was nighttime with, you know, a little glow from the one of the under cabinet lights and and she left. And I just remember sitting there and looking at the empty crib and just feeling like this is the lowest I've ever felt, like it was just like the hormone crash and the just this trauma that just happened, and it was just it felt like a huge weight. It was just on my chest. And I wanted my husband to come back, but I also wanted him to be with the baby, and at that point, what did you think was wrong at that point, I thought he is in the NICU because he had a shoulder dystocia and he had, he got a little beat up, and his oxygen, he needed the X ray, and his oxygen was low, so I needed a little help with that. That's all I knew at that point. So he needed an x ray because they thought he hurt his arm, they thought he had dislocated his collarbone or his shoulder or something. Sorry, yes.

And do you believe at that point they suspected Down syndrome? Surely they did.

I, I do and and the fact that it took five days for me to even hear Down Syndrome.

Let's hear about that part of the story. What happened? Yeah, so, so we go into the NICU and we're looking at him, and they're explaining things to me, of he's just tired from the birth and all these things, and a few days are going by and and we go home and he. Doesn't, and that's hard. And and I we, we just remember feeling like he looked a little bit different, but we weren't sure. We and the nurse practitioner had come in and briefed us and said it could be, you know, we're thinking we're going to send genetic testing, and it could be, you know, one of these few things. And I thought immediately Down syndrome. And she was like, well, it could be a number of things, or it could be nothing, and it was kind of this, like, very, very, very unknown. And I was like, obviously scared by that, but she said, I encourage you not to google anything, or, you know, look up anything, until we get a diagnosis. So they sent testing. It took them a day, a whole day, of poking him all over just to get enough blood for the test, because he just had really small veins, and very like, didn't have, I guess, good blood flow when they poked him. So they finally send the test, and it's going to be, you know, several days up to a week, and we're like, Okay, well, so we don't know what's you know why he's having these abnormalities? They said, one of the things that is a marker is he has the small ears. He has the Simian crease, which is the single line across his hand, instead of the M or W. Wait, um, wait, what do you mean? So like most people have, like, an M or a W, like, lines in your hands. And a lot of people with Down Syndrome, not all of them will have just a single line across, a straight line across the hands, really, yeah, like the big hand that goes horizontally, well, yeah, and it's just one instead of splitting, yeah, straight across instead of curved like right hand lines. Are interesting observation that somebody made, okay, yeah, that's a very telltale sign.

That's something they look for. One of the first things they'll look for, okay, yeah, you know. So then, with seeing that, and Jeb told me later, he remembers, right away, they saw the semi increase, and they held up his hand and pointed to it. And Jeb was like, What's wrong with his hand? And they didn't say anything about that. Lacey, I'm sorry, your husband noticed the creases in the hands right at birth and showed people, and they didn't say anything about it. No, sorry the nurses. He watched the nurses hold up his hand and point to it. They didn't say anything to you. They didn't say anything to my husband or anyone. It felt like there was a secret they were keeping from us, and they couldn't tell us. It took a couple it took three days, and then I felt like I knew, but my husband was in denial and said, No, we're going to wait till the test comes back. We don't know what it is. I don't think he has Down syndrome. And if you look at pictures. I mean, he he was very swollen and very chubby, and you can't really, you know, his features weren't super deep, you know. And so I don't follow myself too much. But then the moms with Down syndrome, who's I posted pictures? I had a friend who had a baby with Down syndrome, and she was like, I knew right away. I was like, I didn't know. Well, Lacey, how old were you?

So I am currently 26 and this is four years ago. So I was 21

And they so they say that, um, more moms, more moms in their 20s have babies with Down syndrome than moms in their 40s, but that's just because more moms in their 20s are having babies. Well, I have a I have a midwife friend who has attended about 3000 births, and she has seen Down Syndrome twice, and in both cases, they were women in their 20s, which I just always found so unusual as obviously, statistically, we know it's more common later, but now you're a third woman, telling me and you were so very young, and obviously doesn't run in your family or anything like that. Is it genetic? It does.

It's a purely genetic condition, yes. But does it ever run in families? So just an anomaly, or is it a very small type? So there's three types of Down syndrome. There's Trisomy 21 which is what Bo has, which is completely unavoidable, completely random, and it just happens, you know, in some babies. And then there is mosaic Down syndrome, which only some of the chromosomes have, the 21st chromosome, but not all of them. So then not all of their traits are affected, but some of them are. And then the third type is translocation Down syndrome, which is the genetic where my I have a friend, it's only 1% of Down syndrome, and I have a friend whose son has that kind of down syndrome. And it's because I think her she carries the gene, and it's a one in think it's a 25% chance that one of the baby will have Down Syndrome every time she concedes. So that's kind of the difference between the three. So, so the most common is the kind that your son has.

Yes, the most common is Trisomy 21 but So the funny part about how we found out, you know, we have this suspecting, but it's very unknown. A nurse that was older, do. Came in and guess she didn't get the memo, didn't read the chart, whatever, and she walked right up to him, and when we came in, she was like, This is the second baby with Down syndrome I've taken care of this week. And at that point, we had not been told he had Down syndrome. Oh no, we still did not really think he had Down syndrome. I had an inkling, and just the wave of sick feeling that that went over us, and we were like, Oh, well, we haven't gotten a diagnosis yet, but I guess do you, is that what you think? And she was like, oh. And I just remember her kind of like, shutting up and skirting away, is what I felt like. And at that point, I don't know why they didn't just sit down with us, or in the beginning, I don't know why they didn't just sit down with us and tell us we suspect Down syndrome, like I would have been like that would have been easier to hear at that point where we could start to absorb the information and have this possibility that, you know, the doctors do think that's what it is that I just, I wish they would have just said that like you did. You could, you could handle it, is what you're saying. It's not like we couldn't handle it. It's not fair to withhold information from the parents about their child, and that's what they did. They want, and they do it, I guess because they believe that they don't want to falsely worry parents about something. But they have a pretty good sense. They may not have known exactly what type of genetic right issue it was, or, or what type of Trisomy it was, but they knew right exactly that this was not and something I tell people, the unknown was harder than the diagnosis, exactly that that that unknown place where we don't know, you know, we have this new baby. We're first time parents, and we're simultaneously trying to soak up these newborn hours that are so very fleeting while he's in the NICU where we can't really have full autonomy over parenting him. It feels like, and we don't feel like we are the main caretakers of our own child. And that's already hard, and then throwing in this unknown was was really difficult, but we got the diagnosis A few days later, and and things are changing. I think a lot of people are trying to move towards this better diagnosis, and there's a lot of lot more education now in hospitals and stuff for doctors, because if this is going to be something we live with for the rest of our life, why couldn't you tell it to us joyfully? Like, like, I know that it's hard, and it was hard to hear. It was really difficult. But I was told they came in and she said, I have, I have the results back, and can, can you guys come sit down and and, you know, they closed our curtain and sat down, and she's just very distraught. You can tell this is a bad day for her. She didn't want to have to deliver this news to parents and and she and she tells us, and you know, we're just crying and holding him and holding each other. And it was very emotional. And this nurse, who was rotating, she was shadowing, and she saw the, you know, that we have the diagnosis. She had heard about that. And she came in later and she, you know, she was like, I don't want to overstep, but Can I just talk to you for a second? And she came in and she said, I know you just received this diagnosis that will affect your whole life, and I know that it's really hard. And she said, but I just want to tell you how excited I am for you? She said, I have two brothers, and they're twins, and they're my older brothers, and they both have Down syndrome. And as soon as I knew that that was a possibility for your little bow, I was so excited, because I saw the way that you two love him, and I saw the way you adore it. And I just thought, thank God that this baby was sent to these parents who are going to love every single ounce of him for exactly who he is, that I know that doesn't always happen, and so I was just thanking the Lord that he has these amazing parents, and I'm like, That's exactly what I needed to hear. Like I needed to be told that you're the exact mom for this job, that he was sent to you for a reason, and that there's no reason for you to be afraid. There's going to be challenges, but there will be so much joy than you can even understand. And my whole mission now going forward is to help people understand the joy that comes with Down syndrome, and it's this battle cry in our hearts, because there's so much fear, there's so much negativity, so many things that people are you know that that like that's the worst thing that could possibly happen to your baby, and it's not. Down syndrome is a perfectly normal variation of being a human being, and their lives are just as important as ours. And I will stand on the rooftops and yell that as loud as I can for as long as I can, because if just one person can hear my voice or see that, and when they get their diagnosis, they remember Bo and they remember how much joy we have in our family, that if that helps them, even just a little bit, that. That I've done my job, and that is a purpose that I have. So yeah, my I want to share two things in my limited experience with this. One is my dentist is a I have a female dentist. I've been my family has been seeing her for 15 years, and she she has three children, and the oldest has Down syndrome, and I've always connected with her. Every time I see her, we chat, and I ask about her family. And I remember 15 years ago, they were teenagers, and I remember her saying, He is my kindest child. He is my easiest child. He is the most considerate child in my house. He cleans the dishes before my other children begin cleaning the dishes. And now I can tell you, 15 years later, they're all independent adults, and the younger two, of course, are like good looking and thriving, and went to college, and like, they got all their beautiful photos. But her oldest child is living a very happy, fulfilled life. He works independently. He lives in the facility, and I don't remember the details, but it sounds very lovely with other other young adults with Down syndrome, and he has friends and he has a job, and he is independent, and he takes care of himself. And then I read the book expecting Adam, because my cousin recommended it to me years ago, and I read it, and I only remember one part. What is it? Martha Beck wrote it right? She's a good she's a good writer, and she and her husband both went to Harvard and got married, got pregnant, and it was the shock of their lives that they weren't going to have like a genius child. That was the big joke, like, Oh, two Harvard grads, you're gonna she was a professor there, and she named the book expecting Adam. It was so beautiful, because they were expecting this child that was not gonna have any of their qualities that they were familiar with. The part of the book that I remember the most that really stuck with me, and I think, I hope, made me a much better person, was that she said, in her years of walking around campus with him on her hip and bumping into students and bumping into other professors, she said, not once did Anyone look at him and acknowledge him and say hello to him, like he's a real human being? And that just blew my mind, because there's something in our culture where I think people like, oh, just to act normal, pretend it's not there. Well, how about turning to this human being and say, hi, hey, Adam. Like didn't happen. And that really touched me, because I thought, oh my god, if I had ever been one of those people not acknowledging the child, I would feel horribly. But I do want to ask you this question. Can you talk about just quickly, what are the hardest aspects of having a child with Down syndrome? What should people know unequivocally the hardest part about having a child with Down syndrome is, how is the fear of how other people would treat him? It's not the medical stuff, it's not the appointments, it's not the therapies. It's the fear of, I think, I think, for me, that there are people who would rather abort their baby than have their baby have Down syndrome, that 90% of children with Down syndrome are aborted, that that that feels like an attack on my son to me, because like feels like indicating he's not worthy exactly, not worthy Exactly. And just like in China, when we heard about everyone aborting female babies for so many the same message that they were less valued, same message.

Exactly. And it's that, it's that you can say whatever you want to me and to my face, but that I know the statistics that I know how people actually feel about downstream, and I'm hoping to help change that right like it's I know that you can look at my child and smile, but I also know that he makes you nervous, and I also know that that you know that you don't know how to let him interact with your kids and and that there are parents who request to not have those kids in their kids classes because they think it's going to hold them back, and that it's and there's just, it's a constant fight, a constant battle for equality, and that is the hardest part. I you know, there the anxiety, I think is hard because he, he has sleep apnea and and that's hard just because, you know, I get little sleep with a newborn, but also because he wakes up a lot because of his sleep apnea. He doesn't like currently have a CPAP because he's on a waiting list to get another sleep study in order to get it, and that's months and months away. So like knowing that he's being affected by this and doesn't have help, and then the sensory issues of he probably won't even want to wear the CPAP ones we do get it. So, you know, things like that can be hard. It's just kind of, you know, the this constant anxiety of making sure that I'm doing everything for him, doing enough for him. Parents with special needs will understand like you always feel like, is this constant thought in the background? Am I doing enough? Am I Is he in too many therapies? Is he not in enough therapy? Piece, oh my gosh, I forgot to schedule his hearing test, and it's been two months. Oh my gosh, I forgot that. There's this clinic that we've been meaning to go to in Denver and and, you know, I haven't scheduled that, but yeah, I think those that's what I would say. It would be the hardest parts.

One final question for you, Lacy, now that you have been through this and know this, and know how much you absolutely adore and love your son, just as anyone would. Would you do? You wish that you would have known in pregnancy? Would you have this test in the future, in a future pregnancy? Did you have this in your second pregnancy?

So why do you think of it? What do you think mothers should do.

So I didn't have the test of my second second pregnancy either, because I thought it would be, even if we did get another Down Syndrome surprise, that it would be the best, because that was very unlikely of happening. So if it did, it would be like, Oh my gosh. We know that God is sending us these children for a reason, but, but no, I think it's up to a mom. I think parents find out how they're supposed to find out. And I've had a lot of moms say that to me, that they felt like the way they found out was how it was supposed to be. I don't know that I could have handled the diagnosis during pregnancy. I think it happened that way for a reason. For me, personally, I am very type a planning kind of person, and I think it would have thrown my anxiety over the edge of the unknowns and the anxieties of, you know, making sure that it just yeah, just the unknown. I think of it all. I think if we were to be able to see hardships on the horizon of our life and constantly be able to avoid the ones that were hard, I think that is a complete disservice to our humanity and our growth as human beings. I think he is Everything I Never knew that I wanted and needed. I would have never picked it, but going back now, knowing what I know, I would totally pick it. I We might adopt a second child with Down syndrome in the future. It's a huge need, and we feel that calling on our hearts, and as our last child, you know, if everything goes the way we hope it to go, that that is a dream that we have. You think you're not strong enough, but you don't know the version of yourself that is going to be in the hard parts, like I I couldn't have handled some of the struggles I'm going through now. Four years ago, when he was born, but I didn't have to. I was slowly grew into the kind of person, the kind of mom that I am today, who he needs me to be, and I'm not equipped to handle a 16 year old Bo but by then, I will be, because it's every single step grows you into the version of yourself you need to be. And I, I just think that hard is not bad. Hard is just hard. Growth. Yeah, it's a beautiful thing. The my husband and I have plenty of frustrating moments that we, you know, throughout the day, where we're like, uh, but the laughter is tenfold of that. The the joy is tenfold that he is the funniest, most hilarious little boy, constantly keeping us on our toes, constantly making us laugh. And if I didn't have his spirit and his healthy distraction in my life, then I think you know, my mental health would be much worse as a mom. So I'm just very grateful. We just feel so grateful. And if you talk to Down Syndrome parents, that will be 99% time, they will say the same thing. So don't be scared of Down syndrome. Down Syndrome is joy.

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