She is More

My baby girl. My daughter. My little mini me. My person. ⁣
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For a moment, those dreamy words were wiped away when I learned she had Down syndrome. I remember an afternoon laying in bed where I cried so hard + so long, that Andrew wasn’t sure if I could breathe. I was coming to the realization that she was mine, no matter what that meant for either of our futures - and I felt the loss of what I had planned for the two of us so greatly, that it broke me in two. That day, I accepted that my daughter would be different than I had imagined, and I started loving her all over again.⁣
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It’s very difficult to admit, but Kenzie is the only child out of my four that I didn’t want to have. However briefly that reaction lasted after hearing her diagnosis, I cannot lie and say I didn’t feel it. ⁣
That’s a hard truth to tell, but I can say this out loud now with the hindsight that I had no idea what we were getting. I was told she would make our life harder, worse, she would be sick ... it was a doctor saying it, so yes, I believed the misguided information, and I believed our life would be less because of her.⁣
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Sometimes I can recall Andrew and I talking while I rubbed my hands over my belly swollen with two babies. One healthy, one not. That’s how it was phrased to us. We knew we couldn’t survive another sick child - we couldn’t live through another baby in the hospital. Because of Lochlan it seemed like all of our ability to battle was used up... but we were wrong. ⁣
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Kenzie deserved every apology in the world before she was even born. When I think back on how sad we were to hear the words Down syndrome, I realize that sharing her with the world now is more important than ever. ⁣
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She is wild + stubborn, she is joy + curiosity, she is naughty + beautiful. She is so much more than I was told she would be. ⁣
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She is far greater than any explanation someone in a doctor’s coat could give me.⁣