Georgia meets her sisters.

For such a long time, my eldest daughter Dakota had been waiting for "her" baby. She was four, and it was the first time that one of my children had actually understood that a baby was on the way. My other two girls, Indi, who was 3, and Montana not quite 2, would pat my growing tummy, and say "baby", but Dakota, a very mature 4, really got it. I enjoyed sharing it with her, and did so a little earlier in my pregnancy than I probably should have - as 9 months is a long time for a 4 year old!

The day I went into hospital to be induced with Georgia (the very last day of Before Georgia), Dakota went to kinder, and told the teachers that mummy was in hospital, and her baby was coming today. She was so excited!

This played on my mind a lot the first day of the After Georgia, as I waited for the girls to come and see their baby sister for the very first time. Georgia lay in the humidicrib in my room, under the blue lights, with her little mask on, totally oblivious to the fact that she wasn't supposed to meet her big sisters like that, she was supposed to be all swaddled, and laying in a plastic hospital cot, waiting for the love fest, for the first photo's, of how our family looked now. Oblivious to the fact that she was not the baby that everyone was expecting. I mean, she always knew, she always carried this little secret with her, she tricked 3 ultrasound technicians (and I can't honestly know for sure whether she would be here today if she hadn't...I don't know what I would have done), especially the first one, who couldn't get her to stay still long enough to get an accurate measure of the folds on the back of her neck. She was meant to be here. She had Down syndrome from the moment of conception, and I had walked around for 41 weeks imagining a completely different baby. She always knew.

I felt grateful that she was so blissfully unaware, of my pain, my fears, the endless tears that fell out of my eyes that very first day. For me, the guilt was crushing, the guilt for feeling so scared, so disappointed, so grief stricken, on the day that I welcomed this perfect little baby into the world. I had no right to feel these things....it.just.felt.so.wrong.

I had asked Gaz to bring the kids in at a specific time, when she was due to be taken out for a feed, as I didn't want them to see her for the first time through the perspex walls of the crib. He ran down the hall ahead of them to say they were here, and I lifted her out. Indi and Montana were distinctly underwhelmed, but Dakota ran over, and jumped up onto the bed, arms outstretched, waiting for her first hold. She cradled her so gently, so lovingly, and she thought she was a perfectly fine baby, with big chubby cheeks, and cute little newborn squeaky sounds.

We knew it would not be long before Dakota would know something was different about her baby sister. There would be many medical appointments in the first few weeks of her life, and therapists visiting the home. She is bright, my biggest girl, and she would know. So, I knew it was very important, what we did now, we had to react positively, as this could set the scene for their whole relationship. Dakota was going to have a sister with Down syndrome for the rest of her life, and it was going to have a massive impact on her, and Indi and Montana, too.

I dried my tears, and lay down next to my biggest girl, holding my littlest girl. I had waited for a long time for this moment, and I meant to enjoy it. I smiled big, I BEAMED, and I asked Dakota what she thought of her. "She's cute", she said, as she stroked the tuft of hair on the top of Georgia's head. "I'm going to help you look after her, always". I had to fight back tears again, when I thought how long always was going to be, when it came to looking after Georgia.

A few hours later, after the girls were home again with their aunt, Gaz returned, to find me in a bit of a state. I was pacing the room, like a caged lion, because that was how I FELT. I felt trapped. Trapped in this new reality, knowing that I could never go back to the old one. I said, over and over, "what am I going to do, I can't fix this, I can't fix it".

I kept remembering the time, when I was heavily pregnant with Georgia, maybe about 32 weeks, and we took our other 3 girls out on our boat. I sort of half waddled and half fell into the boat, and we put lifejackets onto the girls. We sailed from Frankston, pulling in at Mt Eliza and jumping out for a swim on the way, then continued on to Mornington. I remember saying to Gaz that this was so GOOD, the first time we had felt all the girls were old enough to be safe on the boat, and I felt quite sad that I was having another baby, and it was going to be another couple of years before we could do this again. Gaz said don't worry, when the baby is 18 months or so, we will all be able to be out on the boat all summer, every summer, no more babies (we were sure about that!) Sharing the good life with the ones we had.

For some reason, I kept thinking about that conversation...and realising that it wouldn't be happening now. That wonderful bit of freedom you get with every child, when they obtain those first bits of independence. When they first eat finger food, hold their own cup, climb into their own carseats, put their arms into the straps. Things that make life easier for any frazzled mum. I realised that Georgia was going to be a very long time doing any of these things, and there were some things that she would never do. It just made me feel very, very......tired.

I told Gaz of a dream that I had in the short few hours sleep I had managed since Georgia had been born. I was standing in front of a door, and there was a midwife there with me, who said that behind that door, there was my baby, and there were heaps of other babies too, all normal babies, and I could go in and get any one of them that I wanted, I could put this.....right.

"And what did you do?" Gaz wondered. "I nearly bashed the door down, and made a beeline for MY baby!" I was most emphatic about this, and it made me smile..this dream memory of grabbing her from her cot, and rubbing my cheek against her soft one.

"Well", said Gaz, through his tears, "there's nothing else for it, we just take her home and love her, and get on with the rest of our lives. We'll be ok".

Little did he know that the taking her home bit would not be quite so easy....we were soon on our way to special care.

(TBC!)

Georgia's birth.

Beautiful Georgie was born on 6 March, 2008. As soon as she was placed on my chest, I was troubled by something that I saw, a familiarity in her features...but yet, she looked nothing like my other children. I kept on frowning, at her, wondering why I did not feel the familiar joy that I had felt the moment my other three children were born.

A paediatrician came and spent an hour with her, fixing a cord perforation that had occurred when my husband Gary was cutting her cord. I kept looking over at him, at her, at the midwife, brow furrowed, trying to work out what was causing my disquiet. The paediatrician was looking her over very carefully, but I didn't think anything of that, just thinking that he was doing a normal newborn check, since he happened to be there. Everyone saw me fretting, and were quick to re-assure me that the cord bleed was no problem, and she would be fine. I just shook my head, and said, "no, it's not that. It's not that".

After about an hour, she was placed back on my chest, and I stared at her some more. She was beautiful - healthy, pink, and perfect, with a robust set of lungs on her.

The next moments will be clear in my mind, for as long as I live. Especially that searing moment where I realised what I had seen all along. I looked around the room, looked over at Gaz, who was chatting amiably with the beautiful midwife that had bought my baby into the world. I didn't say anything for a few minutes, instead wrapping the blanket a little tighter around Georgia, who had started to fuss again, and saying, "it's ok", and "you are going to be fine with us", cuddling, patting, re-assuring, and all the time looking between my husband and our new baby, waiting for a break in the conversation, and wanting to give him a little more time. Time to be normal. Time before I opened my mouth, before I said it, before I drew a line down the middle of our lives. The line that meant there would always be Before Georgia, and After Georgia.

Finally, I said very quietly, "The baby has Down syndrome". I thought I had been too quiet to be heard, but Gaz and the midwife flew to my side straight away. Gaz looked frantically at her, at me, and desperately at the midwife for reassurance.

She was so gentle, so calm, so compassionate, but the reassurance did not come. She knew. And by her demeanour, so did we. She told us that she would call the paediatrician back to talk to us, and left the room.

I looked at Gaz, thinking how I would have done anything to protect him from this kind of pain..that's what you do when you love someone. But I couldn't protect him from this. "Please don't hope that I am not right about this. She has. Look at her eyes, darling, look at her eyes". As he looked at her eyes, tears welled in his. And then, I fell in love with him all over again, when he scooped her up from my chest, and held her to his, telling her over and over, "it doesn't matter, we love you, you will have a good life with us". I knew everything would be ok, not right away, but eventually.

The paediatrician came back in and straight away started to explain the physical characteristics of children with Down syndrome. Almond shaped eyes, low set ears etc. I nearly bit the poor mans head off, as I snapped, "Yes, yes, but does SHE have these characteristics, does she have Down syndrome?" He said, "yes, I believe she does". And that was it. Forever changed.

The midwives made us up a double bed in a vacant birthing suite next door, and said Gaz could stay the night - unheard of in this hospital, but I was grateful for their compassion, as I could not have been alone. The night started off peacefully. We were so tired, and we lay in the dark room, spoon style, with our new baby beside us. Each of us asking the other one if they were ok, periodically. Soon, the sound of Gaz's even breathing...but there was no sleep for me.

After some hours, I must have dozed off, as I woke up to what felt like the whole room shaking - I thought there had been an earthquake. It was my husbands body shaking, as he held me, his body racked with sobs. He was 54 years old when Georgia was born, and he despaired about the future, the very distant future, where he would die, and leave me to look after her alone. I just shook my head, I was in another place entirely, unable to think much more than 10 minutes ahead.

Gaz left early, to go home and tell his sisters, who were looking after our other 3 children. I was very emphatic, that he was to tell people who were wanting to ring, or visit, that there was to be no grieving, no tears, no sympathy. That she was a baby, and she was to be celebrated like every other baby. Grief was for when you lost someone you loved. It had no place when you gained someone you loved. (While at the same time acknowledging to myself that it felt very much like grief, and indeed, was....grief for the lost baby that I thought I was having, the hopes and dreams that I had for her.)

After he left, I bought Georgia into bed with me, in the quiet hour before the ward really starts jumping. It was a beautiful time, even in the midst of such despair. She nuzzled into me, so content to be in my arms, and went right to sleep, and I just drank her in.

The consultant paediatrician came in to see her a little while later, and he looked kindly at me, and said that he was there, as there was a question about Down syndrome. I said no, there was no question, she definitely had it, I knew. He looked her over briefly, and said yes, she did, a blood test would confirm it, but he could indeed see that she did. I don't think I was secretly holding out any hope, I don't think I was, I was always sure. But for some reason, this is when I finally, really lost it. I sat there while he fully examined her on the end of the bed. I was rocking back and forward like a lunatic, tears bucketing down my face, while he explained how things were going to be with our girl. How he would do some tests, and we would get the results, and then we were to get on with raising her like we would a normal child. He said he was re-assured by the fact that she seemed to have no health problems that can commonly afflict children with Down syndrome, no issues with her bowel, and no heart murmur. She did however, have severe jaundice, and needed to go under lights.

They wheeled the crib into my room, this enormous contraption, where she had to lie, naked for hours at a time, with a very cute little mask over her eyes to protect them from the blue lights. She didn't like it at all, she twitched, and fretted, and wanted to be held, but I was only allowed to take her out for 10 minutes at a time, to feed her. So much time to sit and reflect on the fact that 24 hours before, I was yet to to into labour, and thought that I was going to give birth to a perfectly normal baby, like I had done three times before, go home, and get on with raising my family of four girls. It was impossible to imagine how things could have turned out so differently.

To be continued....!