Samantha

Where do I start really ? well Samantha was my 5th child i have 1 son and another 3 daughters so it was a shock to me when they told me I was having a child with something different about her. When I was 5 months pregnant I had a scan and was told that my baby might be Downs Syndrome it was the biggest shock of my life. I had to have several more scans to finely be told that she had a very rare syndrome that it affected 1 in 15 thousand pregnancies. She was born 7 weeks early and weighed 8lb 6oz and hat to stay in hospital for a couple of weeks. She was tube fed as she could not suck a bottle or suck a dummy for her large tongue the nurses had to learn me how to do her tubes so that I could bring her home. At 3 months she had tongue reduction and as soon as that was done she was fine to suck her bottle. She had her 3 monthly scans on her kidneys and at 7 month they found what they thought was tumors but after some time they found it to be strawberry birthmarks so that was a big relief. Now Samantha as just gone 10 and she can ride a bike she goes swimming and does all the normal things kids do. She has to have leg surgery at the end of the year to slow the left leg length down as it is growing much faster than the right. And she has learning problems at school so she is on special needs at school but apart from that she is loved to bits by all her family. This picture is of Sammy now.