The Phone Call

For two long weeks, we wondered when we would hear the results and what those results would be. I spent endless hours on the computer in the middle of the night reading anything and everything that had to do with Down syndrome trying to prove or disprove that Joaquin had it. Hector felt relief at the doctor's instinct that he didn't think Joaquin had DS so he thought it was silly for me to spend so much time thinking and worrying about something that probably wouldn't be. I just had to know everything and to be prepared, it's just how I process things. Every day of those two weeks I would look at Joaquin and try to see "it" or not see "it." Mostly all I saw was my beautiful precious little boy who amazed me everyday with his smile and his adorable cooing and babbling.

Hector and I had many conversations about everything that we were going through. We talked through both scenarios. We mostly marveled at how one phone call was either going to dramatically change our lives or not.

On Friday afternoon, on Joaquin's three month birthday, we got the call. Hector was just home from work and playing with the big boys at the kitchen table and I had just put Joaquin down for a quick nap. I answered the phone. Our pediatrician called to say the results were in and plainly stated that Joaquin did not have Mosaic Down syndrome but in fact had Trisomy 21...true Down syndrome. My heart was pounding and I asked if I could please get my husband on the line. Together, on two different phones, we listened in on the call as he stated all the things that were going to have to be done, referrals that were going to be made and what this diagnosis meant for little Joaquin. The doctor mentioned that he was quite shocked and surprised by the results and that in his 15 years of medical practice, this was a first. He said it proved to him to always follow the mother's instinct. We hung up the phone with the doctor, held each other, put our hand on our sleeping baby and cried.