Where were you when the world stopped turning on that September Day? I can remember exactly where I was the morning of 9-11-01. I was in my office on a conference call when someone said, “Are you watching the news?” When I turned on the television set and saw that we had been attacked, my heart sank to my stomach. I guess it was the fear of the unknown. The questions of what’s going on, are there more targets, those poor families, what about my own family? The world truly felt like time had stopped and there were so many questions and fears.

Another September day with much the same feelings and concerns hit my family again on 9-9-03. I can remember exactly where I was on this day as well but this day started out much different than 9-11. This was a day for sheer excitement for my wife and I. We were expecting our third child, our first son, and the doctor had set this day to induce labor. We knew we were having a boy because we had several sonograms along the way. You may call it mother’s intuition because during this pregnancy, my wife felt something wasn’t quite right. We had all the normal pre-testing for a mother that was 33 years old and everything came back normal. I finally convinced my wife that everything was fine and we had no doubts heading toward the hospital that this labor would be no different than before. My wife, who is a speech therapist, has always been so protective of her unborn child. No coffee, no cokes, no aspirin, no “nothing.” She also chooses no pain relief during labor and no epidurals. What a special person. We felt, as long as we do everything right as parents, that the good Lord would take care of the rest.

Having been a football player at Mississippi State, you can only imagine what a nut I was through this nine months. My future sports star would soon be here and my son would help even things up around this house full of girls. The excitement and adrenalin were both running very high. Once we arrived at the hospital things started to happen very fast. They put my wife in a labor delivery room and hooked up a fetal monitor. This was the first sign that we were in for a special kind of a day. Within seconds of getting the monitors set, we felt our hearts sink. We were told that our baby’s heartbeat was, in regular people’s term, flat. His heartbeat was not as rapid as most babies in the labor canal. There was definite concern filling this room but the doctor was keeping us calm by telling us this could be a minor problem such as a cord being pinched.

By early afternoon, we had our beautiful 9 lbs. 6 oz. baby boy. Brady looked like my other babies as they came into this world. As a father, I was counting toes and fingers and was so happy that child and mother seemed fine. Within five minutes our world changed! A Neonatologist walks in, looks at Brady, then me, and said, “This baby has characteristics of Down syndrome.” What?? Not our baby! All of a sudden, everything seemed to be in slow motion. The exact same feelings from 9-11 such as the sinking heart, the fear of the unknown, my family? That was the major difference versus 9-11, this time it was my family. What a feeling of sheer panic! How can we do this, how is this going to affect my girls, what did we do wrong, why is the Lord punishing us? 

At this point our world did stop turning the way it did before Brady was born. Now the world seems to turn at a slower pace which is really a much better pace than before. We have survived the shock of 9-9 and our eyes have been awakened like never before. One thing we have learned is to never question the Lord because He understands the big picture when we couldn’t see it. We couldn’t understand that when people would say that the Lord gives special kids to special parents and that the Lord never puts more on you than you can handle, they were right. We felt feelings like we weren’t special at all, and this is a situation that we can’t handle. We cried for days and felt sorry for ourselves but looking back, we were crying over the unknown more than anything else. 

Once we started educating ourselves and understanding what had happened, we realized we were all going to be ok. I think it is notable here that what you read is of the utmost importance. My wife has been relentless at finding the correct info to educate us properly about Down syndrome. Some of the first info we read was outdated and scared us tremendously. Once we got our hands on the updated info and had some time to analyze what had happened, things have been much better. We now realize that our six month old baby boy is such a blessing. Until someone has a baby with Down syndrome, they’ll never understand this as a blessing. Brady has taught us that there is so much that we didn’t understand about God’s grace  and that every life is a gift from God. 

I want people to know that Brady is a sweet and wonderful baby boy, a boy that is loved dearly by his sisters and family. We realize that we may have some tough days ahead, but thanks to other parents that have been in our shoes and support groups such as the Central Mississippi Down Syndrome Society, we realize regardless of what happens, we are blessed. 

Brady may not be a future sports star, but my new little bulldog is definitely our new shining star.

Mark Bennett 
Phone: (601) 892-0322 
Email: shootingstar750@msn.com