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Sweet

by Jennifer Graf Groneberg Oct 11th 2007 11:00AM

I'm making cupcakes with the kids. We have the big silver mixing bowl and the wooden spoons and the measuring cups spread out on the kitchen counter. Avery, my 4-year-old with Down syndrome, stands on a step stool; Bennett, Avery's fraternal twin, sits on a chair. And 8-year-old Carter stands at the end.

Let this be fun, I think as I try not to put my food-consciousness on them today. The cupcakes are from a boxed mix with candy sprinkles in it, and are so sweet just thinking about them makes my teeth hurt.

My husband's friend Scott tells a story about a little boy he knew growing-up. The boy's parents were so health-minded, so "crunchy" that not only did they bake their own bread, they even ground all the wheat. The little boy would come over to Scott's house and devour slice after slice of Wonderbread, as if he were eating manna from Heaven. He grew into a junk food addict--the result, I surmised, of all those years of what he felt was deprivation. I don't want the same thing to happen to my children, so even though we eat healthy foods most days, every now and then we make cupcakes from a box.

We crack the eggs, measure water and oil. Dump everything into the big silver bowl and while the boys take turns stirring, I wander over to the computer, which sits across from us on the kitchen counter. I check my emails; a friend has recommended a blog post about a father's first ultrasound with their second pregnancy. It's how it always happens--innocently enough. Things draw me in.

I find the post and begin reading. Reading and waiting, because I think there will be something about Down syndrome in the story--it's always about Down syndrome, these days. Waiting, reading. But nothing makes me cringe. It's simply a thoughtful, honest post about one family and their choices.

I read the comments, too, and there it is: A man writes, very matter-of-factly, that at this very moment, he and his wife are in the process of ending their pregnancy because tests confirmed a diagnosis of Down syndrome. I inhale quickly and touch my cheek. It feels as if I've been slapped.

How can he do this? How can he say they will go in tomorrow and it will all be over? A pregnancy that was wanted, and now he's typing this story in the comments on a blog as if he were speaking about taking his wife to get her cholesterol checked, or her teeth cleaned.

It's none of my business, I know. Why do I do this to myself? I know better. I stop reading and unsubscribe to the comments, as if clicking the blue link could make it all go away.

We are making cupcakes. Stirring around and around. Taking turns, one-two-three. My three sons, lined up against the kitchen counter. I pour the much-mixed batter into the tins, six giant ones and a dozen tiny ones. I don't want to make decisions for other people. I can't even make them for myself, some days. It's all so confusing. We are told we have choices, that all the prenatal screening is about freedom. But we're not told what to do with this information. Does your faith guide you? Your personal experiences? Your friends? Your heart?

I think about the shape of our family; what my last pregnancy meant to us, how it changed us, changed me. I'm not a black-and-white sort of person; not a person to choose sides. I'm more of a smoother-over, a finder-of-middle ground. But it's difficult for me to do, right now. It feels as if we've been judged, and that we come up lacking. Either a family with Down syndrome is acceptable, or it's not. And my answer is, and always will be, Yes.

The boys have sticky fingers and smudges of cake mix on their faces. They've licked the spoons and now they're sharing the bowl. From the back, they are just three boys. They have the same color hair, the same little-boy arms, the same skinny shoulder blades, budding like wings. Wings that will some day carry them away into the world, a place I can not protect them from, a place that is sometimes not-so-sweet.

I go to them and kiss each on the top of the head, one-two-three, and put the cupcakes in the oven to bake, because it's what I can do. Give them all the sweetness, and the love, that I can, and hope that it is enough.

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