A Mom Realizes Her Baby Has Down Syndrome During This Water Birth And The Images Will Warm Your Heart

The family, which lives in Cedar Hill, Texas, includes 10-year-old Xavier, 8-year-old twins Kaydence and Zayden, and toddler Evra, who was about to turn 2.

In lieu of a baby shower, they had opted to use a birth photographer. And Amber's prenatal care and ultrasounds had not detected any issues. The one planned surprise? They had decided to not find out the baby’s gender ahead of time. With two boys and two girls, it was okay to have a little uncertainty, although everyone seemed sure it would be a boy.

So when the first signs of labor started at 2 a.m. a week or so before her due date, the Rojas family bundled everyone into the car so they could be together at the birthing center Amber had used for her previous deliveries.

At the birthing center, Amber’s contractions stalled for a few hours. But as she paced outside the center, they came on quickly. “I almost didn’t think I was going to make it back into the birth center my contractions were coming so hard and so fast,” she said.

“It was like this thing came over me and I could not help it, my body was pushing the baby out,” Rojas said. “And next thing I knew she was out and in my arms.”

“When I picked her up out of the water I could literally see it, I could see it in her face,” said Rojas. “I looked down and was like ‘Oh my gosh, our baby has Down syndrome’.”

Down syndrome is caused by a trisomy 21, or three sets of chromosome when there are normally two. This can result in certain physical characteristics like a flatter facial profile, an upward slant of the eyes, a deep crease in the palm of the hand, and low muscle tone.

And then Rojas saw that the baby — Amadeus Reign Rojas, nicknamed Ami — was also a girl. Rojas was “super excited,” because her last baby had been a girl and she “was so grateful it was another girl so they could grow up together."

“I just kept looking at here and thinking why is no one mentioning that she could have Down syndrome?” Rojas said. “Now I know there are some people who don’t know their children have Down syndrome for weeks after.”

Finally, the midwife did let her know that they should take Ami to the hospital for further evaluation.

“She said I don’t want you to be worried, but your daughter has some soft markers for Down syndrome, and when she said it, I knew in my head that I knew it,” said Rojas. “Another reason they also brought it up is that she had a low resting heart rate.”

About half of babies with Down syndrome are born with a heart defect that may or may not need surgical repair. The low resting heart rate suggested that Ami might be one of them.

After a series of tests at the hospital, it was determined that Ami did indeed have a heart problem, and that she needed the surgery sometime in the next few months. “That was very scary just like it would be for any mom, even a mom without a baby with Down syndrome,” Rojas said.

Before she could have surgery though, Ami, who was born in September, contracted respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). RSV is usually a mild respiratory infection with a quick recovery, but it can be a dangerous in newborns and other vulnerable people. Ami spent 20 days in the hospital in December.

“That to me was probably the scariest — seeing your daughter struggling to breathe so hard from a respiratory problem and then to have a heart defect on top of that,” Rojas said. “We actually spent Christmas in the hospital.”