Sister Taylor's blanket

Seven weeks ago tomorrow I gave birth to our 6th baby. We'd found out that he had Down syndrome at about 17 weeks' gestation, with an amnio. That started me down a dark, terrifying spiral. My imagination, all bloated up with crazy pregnancy hormones, went wild picturing how truly horrible having a chromosomally "abnormal" child would most certainly be. It didn't matter how many people told me it'd all be fine, that I'd love this little boy and that he'd bring me immeasurable joy--even people who had their own children with Down syndrome. Didn't matter. In my wild imaginings, this baby was defective, and I couldn't possibly handle raising him. There were a number of dark moments where I wished and prayed for a miscarriage, because I thought it'd be so much easier to have a little angel baby in heaven waiting for me than it would be to have him here in his "imperfect" state. I wallowed in dark, miserable self-pity. I felt like I'd never be happy again. My misery painted everything in my life, till I couldn't see things as they really were anymore. It was so very, very ugly. I'm not proud to admit all of this, not one bit. It's pretty shameful, I know. But then, I've never been one to NOT over-dramatize a situation....

So, anyway, one morning soon after we'd received the amnio results, after a terrible night where I'd cried myself to sleep (and asked God more than once to please just take this little soul back to Heaven with Him), a sweet friend, Mary, knocked on the door. She left me a beautiful white blanket she'd made, and a card to go with it. She told me, with tears in her eyes, to read what she'd written about this little white blanket, gave me a hug, and left. The message she'd written was one of the sweetest things I've ever received. It seems that she'd prayed for an opportunity to serve someone in some way, and in answer to this prayer, she'd felt strongly impressed to make a baby blanket. So she bought some fabric and began making it, not knowing who it would be for. Because she had no one in mind as a recipient for it, she didn't complete it right away, and tucked it away on a shelf to finish sometime later. There it sat for a few months, until one day she felt very strongly that she needed to take it down and finish it. She finished it up and tied it with a pretty ribbon and stuck it back on the shelf, still not knowing who it was for. Soon afterward, her husband (our bishop) told her that our family had just recently found out that our baby would be born with Down syndrome. It hit her--the blanket was for us! She showed up on my doorstep the next morning, gift bag in hand. I answered the door, all swollen-eyed and exhausted from so much crying. When she told me the story about making the blanket, and knowing it was for me, I started to cry again. Here I'd spent the night before feeling so devastatingly sorry for myself and begging God for relief--including taking this "defective" baby from me--and she showed up in the morning with a blanket she'd made for him? It was just too much. It was such a clear, distinct message to me that this baby was meant to be here, that his life would be meaningful and perfect and so worth it.

I still had a lot of worry throughout the rest of my pregnancy, where I momentarily forgot this sweet message I'd received and returned to my feelings of doubt, worry, and fear, but so many times I was able to pull out that little blanket and snuggle it close and remember that a loving Heavenly Father had promised me that this baby would be a special gift. Now that my sweet little boy is here, I still have moments of worrying about his future. And now I have him--my sweet, perfect little boy--as a reminder of God's promise. Perfect, even with his baby acne and oxygen tank and big, clunky casts and beautiful slanted eyes. When I start to feel anxiety about him or his future, I hold him so close to me and breathe his sweet, milky baby smell, and feel God's love for me--and for him--so deep and real and comforting. And I know, no matter what happens in his life, this little boy is so, so worth it.