MM Down’s Syndrome
A child with Down’s Syndrome can bring extra challenges to parenting but, as one couple tell us, they wouldn’t change it for the world!
A wee ray of sunshine
It’s a normal – if hectic - weekend morning in the McErlean home. While dad Donard is feeding ten-month-old daughter, Naoishe, mum Michelle is supervising her two sons – Padraig and Daire – as they play together in a corner of the room. The fact that eight- year-old Padraig has Down’s Syndrome does not alter the ‘normality’ of this scene. And that’s exactly how Donard and Michelle want it to be… Sweethearts for more than 18 years and a married couple for
ten, this unassuming Mid-Ulster couple are perfectly typical of a mid-30s couple raising a loving and close family. The fact that Padraig was born with Down’s Syndrome is of little consequence to the couple, who refer to the fact that they have been ‘lucky’ since the day and hour he came into the world……a day and hour when mum Michelle was the only person to pick up that there was something ‘different’ about her son. ‘As soon as the midwives placed Padraig into my arms, I told
them that he had Down’s Syndrome,’ Michelle told MM. ‘I just knew from looking at him, but no-one believed me. The doctors came in to look at him and checked for all of the standard Down’s Syndrome tell-tale signs, such as webbed feet, a crease in the palm of his hand, a dimple on the back of his head or floppy toes. They left the ward telling me that Padraig was perfectly normal and that there was no evidence of Down’s Syndrome.’ ‘I think the doctors thought that the pethidine that Michelle had
been given for the pain was having an effect on her,’ says Donard, ‘and was making her a bit woozy. I went home with no concerns, but when I woke the next morning, I found that there were missed calls on my phone from the hospital. When I rang, I was told that Padraig had had a ‘dusky’ spell during then night when he had turned blue and had had difficulty breathing. As soon as I got to the hospital I found that Padraig was in the neonatal unit in an incubator.’ ‘After Padraig had had that very bad night,’ Michelle continues,
‘the doctors took me into a wee room and asked me if I wanted to get someone to come up. Then they started to talk about my ‘special wee baby’ and about how I couldn’t have done anything differently. They had, in fact, just confirmed my fears that Padraig had Down’s Syndrome and I broke down, crying. When Donard arrived a few minutes later, he found both myself and the doctor in tears.’ ‘For one awful minute,’ says Donard, ‘I actually thought Padraig was dead! When I found out that they had done the Down’s
16 Modernmum
Donard and Michelle with Naoishe (ten months), Daire (five) and Padraig (eight)
Syndrome blood test and had confirmed it, I was just so relieved. I said immediately, ‘So what if he has Down’s Syndrome? He’s my son!’ ‘I didn’t care what was supposedly ‘wrong’ with him, my view
was – and still is – that he was my son and that, regardless of anything, we would cope.’ Michelle, however, didn’t cope quite so well. Over the next few
months, she began to suffer badly from post-natal depression and was tearing herself apart questioning what she could have done to have changed the situation. ‘I was beside myself,’ she says. ‘I couldn’t understand why I had
been given a baby with Down’s Syndrome. After all, I wasn’t a bad person. I didn’t drink or take drugs or hurt anybody, yet I felt that I was sort of being punished. As a result, I didn’t bond with Padraig for some time until I got my own head sorted out.’ The ‘sorting out’ came in the form of the lead consultant, who
was dealing with Padraig’s Down’s Syndrome. Seeing Michelle’s despair, he took the couple aside one day and gave them an analogy, which was to prove a life-changer for her. ‘The consultant had previously told me – and Donard – that what I was experiencing would have to run its course. He said
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