Dear future dad

You feel torn. You know what your partner needs from you, but you can’t give it – you’re consumed with worry over how having a kid with Down syndrome will affect your lives. You are a family of three already, and your first daughter was born with no issues, no diagnoses, so when you are told that this daughter has a 1 in 2 chance of being born with Down syndrome you are scared, confused – and angry, although you don’t know at whom or why.

You don’t like going to the scans because they make you more afraid. You feel guilty at being unable to share your wife’s enthusiasm. The best you can do is just sit and say nothing. The best you can do is feel nothing.

In the labour ward you will be the first to see Sienna as she comes into the world and takes her first breath, and, suddenly, where there was nothing – there is now a tsunami of love. Where there was confusion – there is now certainty that this is the most perfect little human being you’ve ever seen. Words will fail you, but for a different reason now.

Sienna will need heart surgery at 6 months old, and the fear keeps drumming – you do not want to grow too close to her, because you are afraid of losing her.

You will be asked to sign a consent form before she is operated on, and it is in that moment you will realise the futility of resisting closeness, because she is already wrapped in and around your whole heart. All you want is for her to live. Nothing else will matter.

Your daughter will fight her way through the operation and thrive. Seven years will pass, and life will be a blur of great times and hard times, laughter, and a few tears. The one constant will be your love for and pride in Sienna. She will amaze you every day. She will make you a better man.

You will continue to make mistakes, Future Dad – that’s the job of dads, isn’t it? And Sienna will force you to keep learning and keep being better.

But you won’t be afraid anymore, of anything.

Yours,
John,

Heating Engineer, dad to Sienna and Hannah