LYDENBURG – Pregnancy is a beautiful experience, but learning that your baby has Down’s syndrome is not easy for any parent.
Upon learning that their unborn child had Down’s syndrome, Lois Dorfling and her husband, Gerrit-Jan, who are both teachers at Hoërskool Lydenburg, were shaken and they both knew life would never be the way they had envisioned it to be although they didn’t let this change the love they had for their baby.
The couple found out 17 weeks into the pregnancy that their unborn child had this disorder. According to Lois, for her it meant that she had to change the dreams she had for her firstborn and create new ones.
“As a mother I knew my love for her would not change even though I had to face our reality and start thinking of how I could help my baby,” she said.
Gerrit-Jan dealt with the news in his own way. He started researching the disorder two years ago and as a father he didn’t let the fear of not knowing how the community would receive his baby, stop him from preparing for her birth.
“I started researching it, I made sure that I read as many books as I could so that I could prepare my wife and myself for it,” he said.
“I started an awareness campaign to teach the kids in our school about how to deal with a person who has the disorder. I told people around me that my baby will have Down’s syndrome before she comes into this world. Because when people know about something, they tend to be more relaxed about it.
As much as I was educating them, it was therapeutic for me and it was a healing process for us. I knew once that they know, I will not have to hide my child from them,” he explained.
“The campaign made it easy for me to bring my daughter to school. Pupils in class asked me questions about her and those who had a family member with Down’s syndrome shared their experiences with me and we spoke about how my daughter was doing.
“I know that if I tell the learners in our school they will go home and tell their family and friends and before you know it, the information about the disorder will be spread and it will be easy for people to accept it in our society. I wanted people to know that our child is just like any other person, what she basically wants is recognition and for people to be friendly with her,” Gerrit-Jan said.
Lois said that they did not have to face as many challenges as they thought they would. “We know that we have to be patient with her because it takes time for her to reach her milestones and we will not push her.
I just gave birth to my second child and it gives me great joy to know that my daughter has a brother to walk with her through the baby steps.”
To show their support on World Down Syndrome day, learners of Hoërskool Lydenburg wore odd and mismatched socks. “Every year I educate learners about the disorder and they show support by raising funds by being paid to wear the socks on the day,” said Gerrit-Jan.
