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....!