Choosing Naia: A Family's Journey

About this book

A powerful story based on an award-winning series of articles about a modern family and Down syndrome Halfway through their first pregnancy Greg and Tierney Fairchild hear the news all expectant parents dread: their baby isnt perfect. A routine ultrasound reveals that the fetus Tierney carries has a major heart defect. Making matters worse the nature of the defect leads doctors to suspect it might be a symptom of Down syndrome. With those events as its starting point Choosing Naia examines the exploding world of prenatal informationand the emotional maelstrom that ensues from an unwanted test resultthrough the prism of the Fairchild familys experiences. Rapid advances in prenatal testing are enabling doctors to diagnose with great certainty a wide assortment of problems inside the womb. But thats where certainty ends. As they struggle with grief and confusion would-be parents have only days or weeks to make choicesabortion adoption or continuing the pregnancy and keeping the childwhose reverberations are bound to alter the course of many lives. In the Fairchilds case those choices are further complicated by race. Having married across racial lines Greg and Tierney can imagine the discrimination felt by the disabled. Ultimately that understanding informs their decision about whether and how to parent a disabled child. Once the choice is made they face a difficult delivery where Tierneys vigilance literally saves her babys life and high-risk open-heart surgery before the baby they name Naia can celebrate her first birthday. After clearing those hurdles the Fairchilds face new barriers they must tear down on behalf of their beloved child for all the days of their lives. Mitchell Zuckoff won the 2000 Distinguished Writing Award from the American Society of Newspaper Editors for his series "Choosing Naia " which also was honored by the National Down Syndrome Congress and the American Association on Mental Retardation.