I used to fear Down syndrome. 

It’s that thing every mother carrying babies in wombs prays against, that diagnosis that somehow seems insurmountable. 

Almost like a death sentence. 

Lord, I don’t care if it’s a boy or a girl, I would pray as I carried my first two babies for nine long months in a belly that loved pregnancy about as much as it loved the bulging ankles that supported it. As long as the baby is healthy. 

But then I delivered a first child who almost wasn’t. 

And then I waited six weeks to find out if his chromosomes were in triplicate. 

And then God opened my eyes.

And then I met JOY.

And then I realized that Down syndrome wouldn’t have been a death sentence.

It would have been my LIFE sentence.