The Real Story

What a beautiful day to write to you all and bring some things to light! Currently our story is branching out. Articles reporting our views on Down syndrome and in regards to our daughters, are being written and published literally around the globe. People of different country and language are reading about Nettie and Lottie, twin girls with Down syndrome, chosen, and loved by their parents. What a strange feeling it is to receive links from people, finding these stories in their local news outlets, before we ourselves knew they had been written. While you may or may not have read them, I feel obligated, for the sake of truth and honesty, to address several of the claims being falsely made on our behalf.

First of all, we are blessed to have a story. We are blessed to feel a purpose and passion to proclaim the value of all individuals who are labeled ‘disabled’. We are thrilled to have entered the community of lovely, capable humans with Down syndrome, and stand up for what we realize has been likewise spread falsely in their names, concerning their worthiness of life and inclusion. 

Secondly, we endorse the exposure. How will we ever spread global awareness, without the progression of word of mouth and sharing of written word? We want our chant of, ‘Choose joy, deny fear, love your child,’ to echo through every culture and demographic. If that means we are involuntarily succumbed to a game of telephone, and watch our words morph into fabricated facts and imaginary quotes, so be it, as long as our core message remains intact. To refocus our point over and over again, will be nothing but a pleasure, and we will persist in doing so, until eugenics are forgotten and human rights no longer waver in the presence of differing abilities or chromosomal make-ups. 

Here is your heads up; these headlines we are all surprised to be reading on the Daily Mail and Breitbart News, are becoming progressively more and more fictional. I advise you to discard many of the ‘facts’ concerning how many specialists told us this or that, or how many weeks along we were when we began ‘refuting medics’. Oh, or that I am ten years older than I truly am. -Rude. 

There is a need for clarity and fact in regards to our story, and it will come. Until then however, I admit, I am thrilled to read some of these faulty articles- for they demonstrate the very lies and prejudices we raise our voices to combat. For example:

Published this week in China: (bare with the rough google translation)

“Is it love? After All, only the love and warmth of the parents is not enough to make this pair of children grow happily for a lifetime. Therefore, many people think that abortion may be cruel, but it is more painful for children to be harmed even if the parents have love, they have blind and ignorant love. Their insistence on giving birth to twin daughters is irresponsible behavior.”

See what I mean? I applaud this article for putting into words the misconstrued popular belief that seems so often swept under the rug, yet thickly perceived through the stereotypes of our society. Our family can read this statement and confidently attest that YES, Nettie’s and Lottie’s lives are worth living. You can discard all seeds of doubt such as this, that are being planted in the hearts of expectant parents, and know that I do not speak out of ignorance or blind love. In the beginning I walked in hope, but today I speak on the basis of a joy-filled reality with my children. We stand with them and many others who shout against this idea that it is the parent or medical professional’s decision/responsibility to deem what is, ‘life worth of life,’ and that a life with Trisomy 21 equates to pain and hardship.

Thank you to examples such as this, solidifying the need for us to share the truth we have experienced. What an opportunity to uproot lies that have been tripping up society’s perceptions, for so long in history. For every parent that has felt the weight of negative interjections such as this, I would like to encourage you: your hope is not irresponsible or ignorant. Nor is it easy, as we both know, but it is all that can drown the fear that attempts to steal so much of our joy and coming awareness.

If you are looking for the truth of our story, and the entirety of what we experienced, we have exciting news: after the prompting of others, and a recent tipping-point nudge from God, I have taken the plunge of composing a book. Start praying now, because this endeavor is founded in obedience, not expertise. My days of typing are filled with reminders of the Casting Crowns lyrics, ‘Moses had stage fright. David brought a rock to a sword fight. You took twelve outsiders nobody would have chosen and you changed the world.’ Here I am, just starting out on an adventure God is calling me to, and friends, it is now apparent as to why. Stick with me through the articles, through the obstacles, through the resistance. Let’s call out what is incorrect and oppressing, sling some truth, and change the world.