Confessions of a Rockin mom #4: Fears about physical similarity & race

A strange fear that I distinctly recall after learning of Everett’s diagnosis, was the fear that he would never be like me because we have a different number of chromosomes. So this fear is a little narcissistic, but perhaps everyone feels this way when they’re expecting a child. Maybe everyone wants or hopes for their child to favor them. I deem this fear unwarranted AND silly. First, if there’s anything I’ve learned (and that I’m hopefully teaching you), it’s that genetics and conception are a roll of the dice. Who knows why any of us look like we do and why we have certain talents and others don’t? And frankly, who cares. If we all looked and acted the same way, it would be a weird and boring world indeed. Secondly, and let me reiterate, genetics are a crapshoot. There was a 1/560 chance that Everett would be born with Down syndrome. But let me ask you this, what are the odds he’d be born with hair that sticks up straight in the air and pink cheeks? Because racially we’re a mixed family, I guess I assumed that we would always check “other” or “biracial” for Everett on standardized forms. But most of his current medical records have him charted as “Caucasian.” Who saw that coming? Not me. To date, this is still more puzzling to me than the fact that he has T21. I’m still not sure which emoji to use for our little E ?????!