Our son Christopher has Down Syndrome. We did not know that he had Down Syndrome until he was born. The day after he was born they did an echocardiogram and discovered that Christopher also had a heart defect – AV Canal. Basically, he had two large holes in the center wall of his precious little heart. When he was one month old, he went into congestive heart failure. His heart was working so hard trying to pump blood that Christopher was having trouble gaining weight. He needed to be ten pounds before he could undergo heart surgery. By two months, we started supplementing his feeding with an NG tube at night to try to get his weight up for surgery. He had his open heart surgery at just under four months of age. Thankfully, everything went well. Today, Christopher is six years old. He is a happy, healthy Kindergartner. He is learning in a regular classroom setting, and has no health problems whatsoever. He has been a beautiful gift to our family, and we couldn’t imagine life without him.
