Having a Trisomy 18 sibling

Aaron is a little boy that is 3 years old and has Trisomy 18.  (See his blog here.)  Recently his mama put together a video of pictures of Trisomy children and their siblings.  There are several pictures of Lilly with Tabby and/or Hunter in it, all within the first 20 seconds of the video.  (Those same pictures are below.)  Click this link to watch this sweet video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W-fqVHTJng (It is entitled "Trisomy Siblings Ain't Heavy")  So many happy, loving siblings!

Over the past few years, I've been asked a couple times if Tabby and Hunter were OK with having Lilly as a sister.  That didn't it seem "unfair" to them to have a sister "like that."  One woman that was pregnant with a Trisomy 18 baby emailed me last year and said that she was being pressured to abort her baby because people were telling her that it would be unfair to her current children and would cause them many problems in life.  (I have to wonder if any of those pressuring people had any evidence at all.)

My answer is "NO."  Tabby and Hunter's lives were made BETTER by having Lilly as a sister.  Their character was improved and they both learned compassion for special needs people.  They learned that "different" is not "bad" - that God doesn't make mistakes.  They both still miss Lilly and we all still talk about her with frequency.  When a stranger asks one of them about how many siblings they have, both always include Lilly.

There were a few times during Lilly's life when Tabby and Hunter each experienced frustration that we couldn't do something or I couldn't help them at the particular instance they wanted help, because of Lilly.  But neither resented her for it.

Our conclusion:  having a special needs sibling is a BLESSING, not a burden.