A Bit About Us

I am Amy, mum to Ella and Lucy and partner to Ian and we live in the Northwest of England. As well as being a mummy, blogger, cake baker and amateur photographer, I am a nurse by profession.  It's a job that I love but I'm currently on an open-ended career break so I can be at home with the girls.

This blog began when Ella was a baby as a way to chart her babyhood and milestones.  It was also a way for me to share our experiences, educate others and challenge some of the ignorance and preconceptions that surround Down's Syndrome.  

We soon realised that life was very different to the negativity and bland, clinical information and leaflets we'd been given as Ella lay in her incubator on the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. 

She was our first baby and we were new parents who had been given a post-natal diagnosis of Down's Syndrome.  I didn't want facts, figures, doom and gloom - I wanted to know that others had been where we were, hear their stories and see the reality of Down's Syndrome, not the black and white bullet point list of signs and symptoms or related health problems on the page in front of me. 

To have been able to google 'Down's Syndrome' and find a blog such as this or the many other fantastic, upbeat resources that are now available would have really helped us in those early days.

The following is about us from the beginning...   

If you had told me then that I would feel as happy and as blessed as I do today, I wouldn't have believed you. Not for a second.

I wonder where I should begin in telling the story of our family. A family that has so far existed for such a brief moment in time and yet so much has already happened.....

Our first baby Ella, was born at the end of November 2010. We were shocked to find out soon after her birth that she has Down's Syndrome. Our world was knocked completely off kilter and we found ourselves grieving for the child we had imagined we would have, a child who didn't actually exist but whom we had already fallen in love with and had dreams and aspirations for.

 It didn't take long for us to fall in love with Ella. She is a beautiful, innocent and wonderful baby... 

Our baby...

And just like any other child, she still needed comfort, feeding, nappy changes and love...

Lots of love...

And, for whatever reason she came to be mine, I will be eternally grateful.  I felt sure that life was never going to be the same again. This has proven to be true, but not for the reasons I worried about then. Most of the time, the worries I have and problems I have to solve are those shared by mums the world over and have more to do with motherhood than Down's Syndrome.

I was determined from the start that Down's Syndrome will never define Ella or what she is able to do. We will provide for her everything she needs to become the child and the person she deserves to be.

There will be hard times ahead.... there are already many hard times behind us. But I already know that the good times will always outweigh the hard times. She has taught me so much in such a short time and seeing life from a new perspective is a privilege that not many of us get the chance to experience.

To Ella xx

You may also like to read Ella's Story

Post Script.... I always had an intention to start a blog from before Ella was born, but the events from the first weeks and months of her life overtook me somewhat. So the blogs a little late, but I still have the memories and will weave them into future posts when possible. I feel it improtant to mention that Down's Syndrome is not the focus for this blog but capturing Ella's childhood and milestones in words and pictures is.