Vikki Rooney
When I was little my best friend was called Pippi. Pippi has Down syndrome, she’s now 34 and I still see her.
My mum always tells me how I always said to her “When I grow older I would love to have a baby with Down syndrome”.
Fast forwards 20 years, it was my second pregnancy, I was 28 at the time. I had antenatal screening, the combined test like I did with my daughter Izzy. I received my letter from the hospital to say that the combined test results came back as a high chance that my baby would have Down syndrome and the hospital had automatically tested my second blood sample with NIPT (a DNA type of test). That result came back low chance; 1 in 50,000. I never gave it another thought as I was lead to believe that the NIPT test 99.9% accurate.
I had my baby boy by emergency cesarean section as he was coming feet first instead of head first. It was love at first sight, he was perfect. I knew as soon as I saw him he had Down syndrome. He breastfed straight away, he took to it like a duck to water. The day after he was born the neonatal doctor did a routine heart scan, it was then that we found out he has a complete AVSD (two holes in his heart and only one valve). That was the first time I felt in shock and yes, I cried. He came home the day after he was born. At 6 months old Lenny underwent open heart surgery, I was told he would be in hospital for 1-5 weeks, he came home on day 4, he is now part of the Zipper Club! Not everyone gets the chance to join this amazing club.
I can’t put into words how much love he has brought to my whole family. Everyone who meets him falls in love with him. I won the lottery the day Lenny was born. 1 in 50,000 chance of having a baby with Down syndrome and I won!!
I wouldn’t change a thing, our journey so far has been fantastic, I couldn’t have wished for anything better. Lenny has a fantastic big sister and he now has a baby sister, Nell, he adores both of them.
