Rejecting Ableism
I learned my son had Down Syndrome on the day of his birth. Having only ever been a new mother to babies without Down Syndrome, I wasn’t prepared for the immediate and distinct difference in the experience when Lucas was born.
When we hold our baby with a new diagnosis our instincts tell us that there isn’t a difference between this new life and the ones we have held before. The child will be loved and encouraged to follow his or her dreams and the future is unknowable and therefore we look toward it with hope. But, that intuition is slowly attacked and the seeds of ableism are planted.
The nurses that joked and cooed over my other babies, sat quietly with tears in their eyes. The room immediately after birth that is usually abuzz with excitement as Apgar scores are yelled out and the joyful expectation of holding a newborn for the first time was replaced by silence as my son’s beautiful face betrayed his secret. The Social Worker delivered the new baby bag to my room shortly after birth and even it had a little extra in it, a book dubbed a must-read for parents of babies with Special Needs. A glance through the book revealed beautiful pictures of smiling children with Down Syndrome as it outlined chapter after chapter of problems we could expect.
I threw it across the room.
