J&J at Great Falls in Southwest Missouri, Fall Trip, 2017
Today, I leave with my two kids, towing a travel trailer, to drive to Yellowstone National Park. The trip will be fraught with challenges and risks. Yet, we are choosing to take the journey.
Last Fall, I asked James what National Park Service site he’d like to visit on a long summer vacation. Without skipping a beat, he said, “Yellowstone, Daddy.” And, so began months and months of planning on my part.
A fellow DAD suggested before hearing of this western journey that I should get a travel trailer or an RV given all the trips we take. I investigated and decided to go with a travel trailer. Those who know me, and particularly those who knew my father, know that I am genetically indisposed to all things mechanical. A neighbor friend of ours would joke that if he ever needed threads on a bolt stripped, just tell my dad to tighten it. Therefore, all of the mechanics of hooking up a trailer, towing it, unhooking it and leveling it, getting the water and electrical connected, and on and on, are significant challenges to my utter lack of natural intuition for mechanical things.
Our trip will take us across Nebraska, through the mountains in Wyoming, and have us camp in the Shoshone National Forest just outside Yellowstone. On the return, we will go through the Black Hills and Badlands of South Dakota and visit two national rivers. We will be going out to what some have referred to as the American Serengeti. Herds of Bison will be ever present, along with other mega fauna of elk and moose. Apex predators will be hunting outside our trailer in the forest and throughout Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons: bear, both grizzly and black, packs of wolves, and mountain lions. Smaller, but equally lethal creatures will abound: ticks and venomous snakes.
And, yet, I’m choosing to go with two middle schoolers, driving hours upon hours, going from one national park site to the next, and hiking in woods where you’re instructed to carry bear spray.
To say I’m trepidatious is putting it mildy.
But we’re choosing to take this trip because of what else the journey holds for us.
We will camp at the foot of Chimney Rock and at Devils Tower. We’ll visit a fossil bead with fossils of the even larger, prehistoric mammals that roamed the plains. We’ll see geysers and hot pots, and Mammoth Springs, Yellowstone Lake and Yellowstone Canyon, the Grand Tetons, the Little Bighorn Battlefield, Mount Rushmore, two caves, the Badlands, and Wall Drug.
This is why we, like millions of others, will visit these National Parks and take this journey to the West–because we expect that the good will far outweigh the risks, most of which (God willing) will never come to pass.
This thought of choosing to take the journey has been turning over and around in mind as we are about to set out. It made me further appreciate what a daunting choice it is, in the face of a prenatal test result for Down syndrome, to decide to continue a pregnancy.
Unlike this adventure we have planned that most would refer to as a vacation (but I know James won’t upon returning), we have images, stories, YouTube videos, testimonials that abound with all the good that is in store for us. The same cannot be said for most couples receiving a prenatal test result.
Instead, studies report how physicians and genetic counselors focus on the medical complications associated with the condition (which aside from intellectual disability, most will not have, and for those who do, most can be treated surgically, e.g. a heart condition). Plus, they were already on their journey, looking ahead to raising a healthy child that very likely they envisioned providing for an even better childhood than the one they had. Not only are they told of the negatives, the risks, and the challenges their child will face, they are also having to process not having those visions that they had been expecting before receiving the test result.
This is why the photographs and information in the Lettercase booklet Understanding a Down syndrome Diagnosis, the photos and content of Diagnosis to Delivery, written to support mothers who continue after a test result, and the parent support organizations that are there to help expectant couples are so vital to helping those who choose to continue their pregnancy. They provide a vision of what their child’s life can be like; they share stories of the real hardships, but the real triumphs and joys they’ve enjoyed with their child; and, most importantly, they let these couples know that they are not alone on this journey.
Enjoy the start to your summer everyone and to everyone choosing to take a journey, may you be encouraged by visions that it will be worth it and thankful for those there along the way lending a helping hand.
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