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Good friends just found out their baby has downs
I'm at a loss. any advice on ways to support them?
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Re: Good friends just found out their baby has downs
Wow, that's tough. I'm confused - has the baby already been born or was this an amnio result?
I would see how they are handling it first - but we have a dear family friend who has a child with Down's and they choose to look at it this way, which I find beautiful: it's like having a perpetual 5 year old. Everything is new and exciting to them. They are loving and kind. They are rarely disappointed or unhappy about anything. Depending on the degree, many of them can learn to live independently. Their daughter is 19 and just the sunniest, most wonderful girl in the world. Not that there won't be challenges, but you have to look at the blessings as well.
I will keep them in my thoughts!
This may not be the help you are looking for, but I always found the following inspirational...
I have this framed in my office. A gift from a mother with a Downs child.
I workwith rare metabolic diseases all day, so this is very real.
WELCOME TO HOLLAND
by
Emily Perl Kingsley.
c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It?s like this??
When you?re going to have a baby, it?s like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It?s all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, ?Welcome to Holland.?
?Holland?!?? you say. ?What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I?m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I?ve dreamed of going to Italy.?
But there?s been a change in the flight plan. They?ve landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven?t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It?s just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It?s just a different place. It?s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you?ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around?. and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills?.and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy? and they?re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say ?Yes, that?s where I was supposed to go. That?s what I had planned.?
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away? because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But? if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn?t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ? about Holland.
The best thing I think you can do at this point is let your friend know you are there for her if she needs anything.
When we found out about Gavin's CDH (not the same thing but we were told he might not live after birth so it was devastating news for us) the way we looked at it was that God wouldn't give us anything we couldn't handle. I had a really hard time dealing with the idea that this happened to us when we are good people and that there are tons of babies out there born to people who do drugs, steal, etc. and they all get "normal" babies. Then I told myself that these individuals couldn't handle having a baby with special needs. This probably won't help your friend much but you need to be aware that she may be really upset right now and push away support at first so all you can really do is offer it to her.
I agree with the pp who said that you just need to let your friend know that you are there for her. There's no way to explain why this happens and she probably doesn't want this rationalized right now.
But it would be helpful if you read up on downs syndrome so that you can be more informed when she decides she wants to talk about it.