At my 16 weeks ultra sound scan, I was told that my baby may have Down syndrome. I was scared because this was something I didn't know much about, but I knew it would be ok. Throughout my pregnancy I had one problem after another and I was told that he would have to be delivered in a hospital that would be able to handle his care. One of the most servere problems was he had pleural effusion and left side ascites. We were told that he would need to have a chest tube as soon as he was born. At 37 weeks my water broke and we headed off to the hospital. When they admitted me,the NICU doctor came in to talk with us about what was going to be happening. She went on to say that there was an 80% chance that he would die during delivery . She also said from her experience babies with Down syndrome don't have the will to live. It was up to Austin if he was going to be a fighter or not. September 21, 2008 at 1:03pm Austin was born. The room had a dead silence. I just looked at my husband with tears running down my face, when all of a sudden we heard the sound of a baby screaming. The beautiful sound everyone was waiting for. The nurse gave us 2 thumbs up and Austin was ok. He was breathing. He was crying. He had the will to fight. The nurse let me take a peek at my beautiful baby and she rushed him up to the NICU where he had his chest tubes put in. He was there for 3 weeks where we learned he had some other medical issues. He tested positive for Hirschsprungs Disease. We were told that the only way to fix that was with surgery. December 8th, 2008 he went in and had his Hirschsprungs pull through. To this day he is still having issues with his large intestine, but we have great doctors and they are working together to make things better for him. To the doctors that told us babies with Down syndrome don't really have the will to fight, you are so very wrong. Our Austin was born fighting and continues to fight everyday of his life. He has taught us to live each day to the fullest. That life is good even when there are bumps in the road. If there were no bumps, life would be very boring. Austin has showed us how to love more than we thought we could. We thank God everyday for giving us Austin just the way he is. One awesome little boy, filled with more love than we can handle.