Sarah Palin For VP?

I rarely post twice in one day but I feel compelled to comment today on what has just occurred. Senator McCain has just chosen Governor Sarah Palin to be his VP running mate! Unbelievable. I really wasn't sure where I was standing on who I would vote for. I like Obama, I believe Obama, and I seem to trust Obama and I really like his wife. However I don't really care for or trust the VP he chose, Biden. I've been having several discussions with my father regarding this lately. He's really for McCain and not really crazy about Obama. I'm somewhere in the middle. However today I really got thrown for a loop. I was getting ready to leave the house when I turned on CNN. I just happened to catch the acceptance speech being given by Palin.

Wow. Was I impressed. I had never even heard of her before, or so I thought. And then my phone started ringing off the hook. I must have had 10 different people call me to tell me that Sarah Palin had a baby with Down Syndrome and he was only 4 months old! What? 4 months old?! And, she had 4 other children, one of whom is going off to Iraq in a few days. Then I remembered, I had read about Sarah Palin several months ago on my DSTNI group (Down Syndrome Targeted Nutritional Intervention) and in my local DS support groups daily email. Her name was passed around when she gave birth as well known figures names usually are when they have a baby with Down Syndrome. It seems there are several people in government with children with Down Syndrome, 4 that I can name. Maybe you know of more.

Anyway, I listened to this beautiful woman speak, so poised, elegant, focused, calm, confident and warm. I instantly got excited. I started thinking about the possibilities. Could there really be a woman in office? Could this be the woman we've been waiting to see in the White House? I sure didn't want Hilary to be the one. I couldn't bare the thought of the Clintons being back in the White House again (I don't trust him at all). But Sarah Palin, hmmm. It really got me thinking. So I listened to her speech and listened to the commentaries and then went to go pick up the kids from school. I decided to read everything I could about her in the last few hours, and I am so impressed with what I have read. It really seems like she has morals, values and ethics that can't really be bought like most politicians. Could this sway my vote? Would I vote for McCain because of her? Possibly. I do like McCain's wife as well. Maybe I could vote for a man who chooses to surround himself with 2 very intelligent, powerful women.

I read several quotes given my Sarah Palin regarding the birth of her son Trig. It brought back my own thoughts, which I believe are completely universal. One of her comments said "What is normal anyway? Show me normal." I can't count how many times I've said this when discussing Jaden. We found out about Jaden after he was born, and even then the Dr's weren't sure so they had ordered blood tests, which they lost. I remember my Ob/Gyn discussing the possibility that Jaden might have DS the day I was going to be released from the hospital. I was all alone in the room, thinking he was going to talk to me about Jaden's circumcision, and instead needed to tell me the Dr's suspected he might have DS. He gently reminded me that I had "refused" an amnio. I then reminded him I didn't "refuse" anything. I wasn't going to terminate my baby regardless, so the amnio meant nothing to me. He then told me "Jaden" was a cute little guy and that he was healthy and looked great anyway.

3-1/2 years later I still have people aske me the million dollar question, "Did you know before he was born?" It's as if they are trying to confront their own issues with how they would accept the news. Knowing full well that it's impossible to know how you feel. I was one of them, before. I actually no longer talk to someone because I realized I had nothing in common with them when they "honestly" told me they would have aborted had they known before hand. To which I said, "Then you would have been in the 90% majority, and I have never been in the majority with anything, and would never want to be."

I often wonder how any Dr. could scare any mother or father into not wanting a baby with Down Syndrome. I used to think I was "pro-choice" and that "pro-lifer's" were radical extremists out to destroy women's liberties. Wow, was I naive. I now realize that I never understood what abortion meant. I never understood our lack of acceptance as a society. I never understood our need to create the impossibly "perfect" baby. I never understood that the medical world is weeding out all medical "imperfections" prenatally at the cost of thousands and thousands of lives every year. Pro-Choicers argue that abortion needs to remain legal or it will become unsafe and there will be unwanted babies all over. I have heard from Dr's who have performed abortions, there's a letter on my website written by a Dr. himself who describes what he saw in carrying out abortions. I am not only pro-life, I am pro-education, pro-support, pro-difference and pro-truth.

Thank god I never let a Dr. talk me in or out of anything nor would I. But millions of parents do, every year. If only they knew. If only they had faith in their own ability to unconditionally love their baby, no matter what. If only they trusted God and the cards they were being dealt. I'll never forget the mom who told me one day as she was staring at Jaden. "My last pregnancy was terminated because they told us he had 'really bad Down Syndrome'." I just kept quiet knowing there is no possible way to detect prenatally "really bad" Down Syndrome, but had heard this before from other mom's who had also terminated. It sure made the mom feel better in her decision I guess, to say that the baby would have been really bad off anyway. She then went on to tell me that her recently born son, was paralyzed on one side and they didn't know if he would ever walk or stand. She also said that she knew God was punishing her. But that in her Upper East Side Manhattan World, her son with Down Syndrome would never have been accepted and he would have had a horrible life. I just sat and listened to a mom who was confessing to a stranger her obvious guilt. She then commented on how cute Jaden was and how he didn't really look like he had Down Syndrome and that he seemed so "normal".

I only said this to her when she was finished. "Jaden is the epitome of perfection and I thank God every day for showing me how ignorant I was before he came along. Now I am constantly aware of just how much growing I have to do and how deserved we all are of life."