Renate Lindeman, president of the Nova Scotia Down Syndrome Society, is troubled by routine prenatal diagnosis. Writing in the Halifax Chronicle-Herald, she says she wishes more people would open their hearts to the unexpected.

… it seems that today, many people struggle to adjust to this concept. Now that we are used to control most everything in our lives, the perfect house with the perfect temperature, the perfect job, the perfect car that navigates itself, is it surprising we want the perfect offspring to complement our perfect lives?

So what happens if we decide that a child will make our lives even more perfect, and three months into our pregnancy we hear the baby we were expecting is not going to be perfect?

… I, for one, am glad to have opened my heart to the unknown, the uncontrollable and unexpected. I am rewarded every day with hugs and kisses and smiles from my two beautiful children. I am rewarded with challenging the norm of what is called “perfect” and celebrating minor (and major) victories. I am rewarded by the realization that a perfect life is so much more than superficialities.

Our lives are not perfect anymore. Our lives have become better than perfect: they are raw, pure and full with unexpected rays of sunshine.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 10th, 2007 at 5:59 am and is filed under Down syndrome, prenatal diagnosis, public attitudes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.