With October marking both Respect Life and Down Syndrome Awareness months, Kevin Alviti, president of the Down Syndrome Society of Rhode Island and powerful keynote speaker during the recent diocesan Human Life Guild Day, offers in the first of a two-part Op-Ed a firsthand perspective on the pressures he and his wife faced to abort their baby when doctors determined the child would be born with Down Syndrome.
Since my wife and I got married we knew we wanted to have children and after many years of trying we were blessed with beautiful twin girls, Isabella and Giana. I have to admit, I thought my life was complete. Well, God had a different plan.
In July of 2013, the twins came home from vacationing with my dad and my stepmom in Florida. After we picked them up from the airport, out of nowhere the twins started to beg my wife and I for a baby brother or sister. The weekend after the twins came home my wife started to complain she wasn't feeling very well, by midweek she still wasn't feeling well and she said to me, either I am pregnant or I am dying. I said you must be dying because you are not pregnant. This is all that baby talk from the twins.
My wife was pretty adamant, so I told her I would go and get her a pregnancy test. We did the first test and the lines light up immediately. We went in for our first appointment and we saw the baby on the ultrasound screen; everything looked great. We sat down with the doctor and came up with a pregnancy plan. Then he tells us about this maternity 21 test, we thought nothing of it and left.
I believe that God as a plan for all of us, and everything happens for a reason, so during this pregnancy I tried to figure out God’s plan, and I did — God is going to give me a son.
We went for another doctors appointment and this time they bring up this maternity 21 test again, but this time they tell us we can find out the sex of the baby. They tell us this test is a simple blood test. They extract the baby’s DNA and check for chromosome abnormalities. You see, we are all born with a set of chromosomes, we get one part from our mom and the other part from our dad making up a set of 23 chromosomes. The screening checks for the deadly trisomy 13 and trisomy 18. And then they check for trisomy 21 — known as Down Syndrome. I told my wife she has to have this test done, that we are not going to have a child with Down Syndrome. I needed to know if I was getting my son.
About 10 days went by, and my wife got a call at work from one of the doctors in the practice. He says “Mrs. Alviti I know you are at work right now and there is no easy way to tell you this. But your baby tested positive for Down Syndrome. You need to contact this genetic specialist and he will explain to you all your options. Again I am really sorry — oh by the way — it's a girl.”
My wife called me up and we left work, went home, held each other and cried. But within and an hour we go on our phones and tablets and start to research Down Syndrome. We went to the National Down Syndrome Society website and started to read. We found that Down Syndrome occurs in 1 every 691 births, and there are more than 400,000 people living with Down Syndrome in the US. We read about the health concerns when having a child with Down Syndrome. Forty percent of children born with Down Syndromes have some type of heart defect, 30 percent of children born with Down Syndrome get childhood leukemia, they have a compromised immune system, low muscle tone, developmental delays.
Then we started to look up pictures of children with Down Syndrome and we see so many beautiful faces. We say it doesn't matter — she is ours.
It came time to have our appointment with the genetic specialist. This was the day we would get all our questions answered. We would leave his office with so much information we would be reading for months.
He said, “This child will be a burden to you and your family. This child will never walk, will never talk, will never tell you she loves you. She may be bedridden for the rest of her life. You may have to institutionalize.” He asked if we were religious, we told him yes. He said, “Put your religion aside and think with your heads, not with your hearts.” He told us all about the abortion and how it would work. He told us the sooner we make up our minds the better.
My wife spoke up and explained that we would be continuing the pregnancy. When we got up to leave he said to my wife, “I won't be surprised if you call me back in a couple of weeks — they always do.”
We got back to the car and I was very quiet. I told her I don't know if I can do this, I don't know if I can raise a child with all these disabilities. And so began a two-month internal battle that I would have with myself. I can remember driving to work in the mornings thinking “how can I convince my wife to have an abortion?” To only be driving home at night thinking, “I wonder what Natalia will be like?”
I told my wife that I wanted to learn everything I could about Down Syndrome. We contacted Dr. Tracey at the CNDC, we reached out to Claudia Lowe at the Down Syndrome Society of R.I. I read books, did research, I joined social media groups, I joined a Dad's group where I meet a local dad and he invited my family to meet his wife and their 2-year-old son who is living with Down Syndrome.
One morning, I was having a cup of coffee with my stepmom and of course the talk was about the baby. I put all my cards on the table, it was the first time I used the word abortion out loud. And then it happened, it was like someone snapped their fingers. I looked at my stepmom and said “God forbid something happened to one of the twins and they were confined to a wheelchair. Would I not, as their dad, care for them? Of course I would, so what is the difference between a child that is here and a child that we have no idea where she will be on the spectrum.” I called my wife and told her I was back on board.
This part of the journey I hold really close to my heart. You see, on July 31 of this year my stepmother passed away. We had many conversations about this while she was still alive. I have thanked her so many times for allowing me to speak so freely. She said to me the whole time I was talking she was praying to God that we would not abort this baby.
God wanted to make sure I got the message that day. Early that afternoon I went the store to pick up a few things we needed for dinner. I cashed out and was leaving the store when a young man that works there gets within speaking distance of me. I noticed that this young man has Down Syndrome. In a very clear voice he says to me, “Hi, how are you?” I said, “Good and you?” And he said, “Today is a great day.” You see that young man had no idea what those words meant to me, as just a few hours before I accepted Down Syndrome for my daughter.
To learn more about the Down Syndrome Society of RI, please visit, www.dssri.org.
