I Am Capable Of More Than I Think I Am

I believe in mystery. I believe in family. I believe in being who I am. I believe in the power of failure. I believe that normal life is extraordinary. This I believe.

Down syndrome has been in the news recently; the infant son of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has the disorder. About one in 800 babies are born with Down syndrome, today, our This I Believe essay comes from a parent of one of them and we should say, it was submitted before Senator McClain picked Governor Palin to be his running mate. The essay comes for Gregg Rogers, he is an English professor in State Collage of Pennsylvania, he was sure he could handle being the father of a child with Down syndrome. Here is our serious curator and dependent producer Jay Alison.

Gregg Rogers came to his belief only after his daughter was born, before that, his beliefs were different, and based he said, on fear. His transformed journey toward his new belief began in the doctor’s office, during the pregnancy when he and his wife first received the news. Here is Gregg Rogers with his essay for This I Believe.

It is * 21, it is Down syndrome, beyond those words; I heard nothing, sitting in the obstetrician’s office. The doctor was talking about my own born daughter, and the result of an *. I know that were words after that statement, but I don’t remember them. I do remember returning home with my wife and crying on the sofa, I distinctly remember saying I don’t want this. I didn’t want the situation, I didn’t want the responsibility. I didn’t want to become one of those parents, the parents of child with disability. People told me, if anyone can handle it, you can. Easy for you to say, I thought. God never gives you more than you can handle, they reassured me. Really? Then why do people have nervous breakdowns? We will help however we can, they said. Fine, I thought, you have the kid with developmental delay, and I’ll help you out. For months, I was terrified. My wife * and I now refer the * of time leading up to my daughter’s birth as the pit. We barely spoke to each other because we didn’t know what to say. We simply suffered through each day together, but feeling terribly alone. And then J was born.

She spent the first eight days in the near * and intense of care unit at regional medical center. On each of those eight days, I made the 150 mile round trip to see her because she was my daughter. I sat in a surgical * of intense of care, holding her entangled of tubes and wires, saying the same songs I’d sung to other daughters. On the 9th day, she came home, and I began to realize that my feelings of fear and * had changed in way, that no prenatal screen could ever have predicted. I now believe J is here for everyone. I believe J is taking over the world one harder at a time beginning with mine. I believe that what was once I perceive domination has now become our unexpected salvation.

J recently turns 3 and she is doing very well for herself. She runs and climbs on everything and loves to wrestle with her two older sisters and her younger brother. She doesn’t have a lot of spoken words yet, although her full sentence turned out to be What’s up with that? She does have over 100 signs that allows her to have strawberries, pizza or ice-cream. She will tell us when she wants to sleep or play on her computer. She goes to a regular preschool 3 days a week, and seems to know more people around town than I do; I laugh everyday because of J. I am a right wrest; I wear simple sliver chain with three little beads on it. I used to say the 3 beads signified the third * that results and * me 21 Down syndrome. Now when I look those beads, they simply remind me that I don’t ever know as much as I think I do. But I am always capable of more than I think I am.

Gregg Rogers with his essay for This I Believe. Rogers say the decision not determinate the pregnancy with rarely his wife’s, he said, she had more faith in my ability to handle this than I did, and she was right. They’ve studied an information that work for other families with Down syndrome in their area, and you can find a link on our website npr.org/thisibelieve, along with information about submitting your own essay. For This I Believe, I am Jay Alison.

Support for This I Believe comes from Prudential retirement.

This I Believe is independently produced by Jay Alison and…