I'm so average, that about once a week I have strangers ask me if they know me. I look like your neighbor's daughter or your friend from 9th grade. I don't have any remarkable talents or features. But what happened to me last year was not at all ordinary.

I found out I was pregnant for the fourth time. I already had 3 beautiful little girls and did not want anymore children. I was so devastated to be pregnant again. But we all like babies, right? I talked myself into accepting this new bundle of joy. In fact, since I didn't have morning sickness like I had with the girls, I thought I must be having a boy. But then again, four little girls sounded fun--as long as my baby was healthy.

Around the end of the first trimester, I found out that I had carcinoma insitu. This is what they look for when you have a pap test. I had a spot on my cervix, and my doctor was worried. She called me herself, telling me that I had these cells that were the beginning stages of cervical cancer. She warned that they could start invading fast and told me of a case where a woman had died in less than a year after the exact same diagnosis. I was so scared because I had lost several close relatives to cancer recently, including my mom. She suffered so terribly, dying at the young age of 46. But here I was at the beginning of a pregnancy. I was torn about what to do; and, we decided to do frequent pap smears and act if we saw that the cells had become invasive.

A few weeks later, I went for "THE" ultrasound. I was going to find out if I was having my first boy or my fourth girl! I was excited. As I entered the room, I told the tech that I wanted to tell her that I thought something was wrong, so that by saying it out loud I would "un-jinx" myself, and everything would be all right. She laughed and asked me what I thought was wrong. I told her either the baby was a "little person" or had Down syndrome. She asked me why I thought that, and I told her that the baby's movements weren't very strong. "I'm sure everything is just fine," she said; and, we went on with the ultrasound. By law, she is not allowed to make a diagnosis based on what she sees on the screen, which would include relaying that information to us. She went on with the scan, not giving us many clues that anything was wrong. In fact, my husband went back to work thinking everything was okay.

I met with the doctor minutes later and got the devastating news. My baby had a severe heart defect (only 2 chambers, I was told), as well as a brain anomoly and they couldn't find the kidneys. The combination of these things led her to suspect a chromosome abnormality, and she offered to do an amnio right then and there. I agreed, but we couldn't get any fluid. Her staff had made an immediate appointment down the hall with a perinatologist, who got me right in just half an hour later. She did a level II ultrasound, where we saw the heart defect and the brain anomoly; but, the kidneys looked fine. We saw the sandal gap, but couldn't get a nuchal fold measurement because of the baby's position. This doctor said that she usually didn't see problems with the brain in babies with Down syndrome and prepared us for another Trisomy, such as 18 or 13. She also explained the heart defect, called AV-canal or AVSD (atrio-ventricular septal defect) or endocardial cushion defect. The baby had such a large hole in the middle of the heart that the wall was basically missing. Since the two valves on either side didn't have that wall to grow into, they malformed into one valve in the middle. Also, in my baby's case, the left ventricle was noticably smaller than the right. The perinatalogist got amniotic fluid when she did the amnio and told us to expect the results in 10-14 days.

In the week that followed, I don't know if I really stopped crying. My baby wasn't healthy--that was the ONE wish everyone has for his or her child, isn't it? I wanted my babies chromosomes to be normal so badly! I got the news only one week later: the baby was a girl and had Down syndrome. I don't know where to begin describing my pain. I didn't feel like a good person because I wanted my baby to die. I didn't want to deal with the challenges of raising a child with Down syndrome, much less deal with it for the rest of my life! I felt angry, resentful, depressed, frustrated, bitter, and worst of all...trapped.

But I had a way out: I had this cancer issue. My whole pro-life family, my friends, and my church wouldn't blame me for putting my life first. Afterall, I had three other little ones who needed their mommy. People are induced early all the time for the sake of the mother's health for things like blood pressure, etc. I could just take that route, the baby would die, I wouldn't have to have a child with Down syndrome, and I wouldn't have to worry about the cancer. I was an emotional mess. I knew that it seemed like the easy way out; but, it wasn't right. Though I couldn't imagine being able to love this baby, I also knew that I couldn't take away her chance at life. It was scary to think that I could never change by baby's condition--she will always have Down syndrome. The only thing that could change was the condition of my own heart in regards to her, though I honestly didn't have much hope for that.

My whole life, I have been pro-life no matter what. I haven't changed my mind towards the issue, but I've changed my mind toward people in this kind of situation now that I've been there. It's a desparately sad place to be in. I had to keep looking to find hope, and I found it in the children I already had. I have a goal as their mother: I want them to learn to distinguish right from wrong and to learn to discipline themselves to choose what is right. I had to be an example. I knew it would be wrong to let a doctor kill my baby; so, I had to choose what I knew was right.

We continued with the pregnancy, and tried to get all the bad cells by just doing a cone biopsy; however, the diseased spot was too deep. They monitored the cells and saw that they were changing fast. We decided to induce as soon as the baby's lungs were ready and do a hysterectomy 2 weeks later when the swelling went down. This was so that they could explore my other organs and make sure the cancer hadn't started to spread.

So, Carly Megan was born at 36 weeks gestation on March 20, 2002, weighing 6 lbs 15.5 oz. Because of complications, I didn't get the hysterectomy until 3 weeks later. The carcinoma insitu had turned into invasive cancer by the time they got my uterus out; but, they could see the margins and are confident that they got it all. I will still be watched closely for the next couple years, but I feel like my life is no longer in danger.

Carly's brain anamoly hasn't had any consequences. She was born with an additional heart defect that they missed on the prenatal tests: her aorta was too narrow. She had surgery at 5 days to correct this; but they had to wait until she was older to repair the AVSD that they had seen in the first ultrsounds. As we awaited her open heart surgery, she had a feeding tube. She had the NG tube from when she was 4 weeks old to 4 months because her poor heart made her too weak to eat. On July 22, 2002, she had surgery to successfully repair the AVSD, and by October 8, she was off of all heart medications and doing well!

I can't explain the value of this sweet little person. There are times that I fear the future, but most of the time I look forward to watching her grow. I take pride in her and get joy from her. I didn't think I would love Carly this much; but, I absolutely love her--no matter her condition: whether she has a low IQ, whether her health is poor, or whatever may come, I will always love her. Before this past year, I thought it took a special person to parent a child with Down syndrome; but, there's certainly nothing special about me. The love for my child came naturally, despite all my fears and heartache. Just as I love my other children, I love Carly unconditionally; and, I am determined that she's going to know it!