When Jessica Young Egan and her husband Josh welcomed their sweet baby girl Gwendolyn after a fertility struggle, they were overjoyed.
At 11 weeks, they were told their daughter would have Down syndrome, which caused some concern with the new parents that their daughter would not be accepted or lead a normal life.
Now, two months later, Egan has gone on to write about her daughter and on her Facebook page, offering love and support to Down syndrome parents all over the world and her story is going viral.
Egan shared a gorgeous photo of her young daughter on Facebook with a tongue-in-cheek “review” of her new baby.
She began:
“When I placed my order I said, ‘Regular amount of chromosomes, please!’ That’s what everyone else got and what I wanted too. They called me shortly after my order was in production and said ‘Great news, we went ahead and upgraded you to extra chromosomes for free! You’ll receive the extra chromosomes with your completed order in 9 months.'”
Pointing out the obviously faux perfection of everyone’s online lives, Egan joked that this was not the perfect Instagram baby she had originally “ordered”:
“What?! I was mad! All the other orders I had seen displayed via perfect Instagram posts did NOT have extra chromosomes. Well I decided that receiving my order with extra chromosomes was better than not receiving an order at all, so I settled in to wait for this surprise upgrade to arrive.”
Of course, now that her “order” has arrived, she couldn’t be more happy with the “finished product”:
“I have now had my order for two months and am writing this review to let others know the upgrade to extra chromosomes is amazing!! If offered, definitely take it! I posted some photos below of the finished product and you can see the extra chromosome is so worth it – it is extra cute, extra special, and extra-ordinary! So much extra joy. Would purchase again for sure.”
Egan hashtagged the photo #sweetgwendolyn #t21#theluckyfew #upsyndrome #extrachromosome#nothingdownaboutit
Egan’s post now has over 350,000 Facebook reactions and 75,000 shares and the comments are beautifully supportive.
In a recent post, Egan expressed her pleasure at baby Gwen’s story being shared by so many people all over the world and her joy at being able to help other parents struggling with a Down syndrome diagnosis:
“Gwen has now been shared in news articles, websites, and Facebook pages around the world. From Florida to Singapore to Australia to the UK, she has been loved and written about. And it isn’t slowing down yet!
To think we could save a baby’s life or help a family who is struggling with a new Down syndrome diagnosis to feel some hope is all we could ever ask for.”
After Egan’s coworkers began to have children (including three sets of twins among them), she admits that her fertility struggle and subsequent news of her baby’s diagnosis was hard on her.
“In that moment I felt extreme devastation,” Egan told the Mamamia blog.
“All I could think when I received the diagnosis was that my baby wouldn’t be as accepted and celebrated as everyone else’s had been. From three sets of twins to Down syndrome?… I spent the next three days at home in tears, afraid to tell anyone the news.”
But after reaching out to local advocacy organizations, Egan and her husband learned that Down syndrome affects around 1 in every 700 babies who often go on to lead perfectly normal lives.
And, of course, when Gwen was born, all doubts went out the window and they are overjoyed by their new addition.
Now that Egan has shared her two-month “review” of her daughter, we’re sure that even more parents will learn that a Down syndrome diagnosis is nothing to fear or be disappointed by.
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