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When Monica Mangiacapra’s youngest baby, Isaac, was born in March 2022, he got here into the world stuffed with surprises — some anticipated, some not.
The first shock, the one the household anticipated, was that Isaac was a boy. His mother and father had opted to not study his gender earlier than his start and have been wanting ahead to discovering out.
The second shock, which no person had anticipated, was that Isaac had Down syndrome.
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“No doctors or nurses mentioned it” after her son’s start, Mangiacapra, a resident of North Texas, advised Fox News Digital in an interview this week.
“My husband was the one who recognized he had some Down syndrome markers while we were in recovery from my emergency C-section,” she mentioned.
Monica Mangiacapra was impressed to write down “Different by Design” after failing to discover a book that was based mostly in scripture and featured illustrations of incapacity. Her youngest son, Isaac, was born with Down syndrome. (Jessica Cernat Photography)
She thinks, maybe, that docs and nurses throughout supply assumed the household already knew their son’s analysis. But regardless of “at least eight” ultrasounds throughout her being pregnant, no person noticed something that would recommend Isaac had Down syndrome, Mangiacapra mentioned. (Prenatal screenings for Down syndrome often embody blood checks plus ultrasounds throughout being pregnant, in accordance with the NIH.)
In honor of her son Isaac and all others with particular wants, Mangiacapra wrote the book “Different by Design.” The scripturally based mostly image book helps clarify disabilities to children.
“How do we explain something that we don’t really even understand ourselves?”
She was impressed partly by her personal experiences, she mentioned. After their son’s start, Mangiacapra and her husband have been all of a sudden thrust into the world of parenting a toddler with particular wants.
“We had no link to disabilities or special needs before his birth. I only knew of a couple of acquaintances who had children with Down syndrome, but they were more ‘friends of a friend,'” she mentioned.
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Uppermost in her thoughts was how she would focus on Isaac’s analysis with her two older children — a four-year-old daughter and a two-year-old son.
“The first thing I thought of was, How do we explain this? How do we explain something that we don’t really even understand ourselves?” she mentioned.
Author Monica Mangiacapra, whose husband and two of her three children are proven right here, mentioned she was scared about how her older children would react to their brother. But “they were in complete awe” of him, she mentioned. (Jessica Cernat Photography)
In addition to Isaac’s analysis, Mangiacapra was recovering from a “scary birth” by which her uterus practically ruptured.
During her restoration, she discovered solace in scripture, notably Psalm 139: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful; I know that full well.”
“We knew God didn’t make mistakes, so we wanted to explain that to our older kids,” she mentioned.
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It was Psalm 139, she mentioned, that would develop into the spine of her book.
Even earlier than she left the hospital, Mangiacapra started to search for “a book with scripture, but also related to disability” that was not making an attempt to push some other type of ideological agenda, and was not targeted solely on bodily variations.
“We are all different, just as God designed.”
Her search got here up empty.
Seeing the hole out there, alongside with doing a variety of praying and receiving encouragement from her pals, Mangiacapra wrote “Different by Design.”
The message of the book is that “we are all different, just as God designed,” even when those variations are a incapacity.
The book options illustrations that “represent as many visible and invisible disabilities,” she mentioned, together with autism and communication issues.
“Isaac was going to be different, but we are all different. He may just be a little more obvious,” writer Mangiacapra advised Fox News Digital. Baby Isaac is proven between his two siblings. (Jessica Cernat Photography)
“Regardless of how one communicates, God knows our hearts, and we don’t have to verbalize a word for Him to hear us,” she mentioned. “I also wanted to show different skin, hair, eyes, heights and sizes.”
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As Isaac now prepares to have a good time his second birthday, Mangiacapra mirrored on her time as a father or mother of a kid with particular wants.
“I simply wish to encourage households who could obtain a analysis that pleasure and grief can coexist,” she mentioned.
The 5 members of the Mangiacapra household. “We are all better because of the joy we get to experience with him,” the writer mentioned of her youngest baby. (Jessica Cernat Photography)
“God hates suffering,” mentioned Mangiacapra, regardless that “His personal son, Jesus, suffered essentially the most ugly demise. He understands struggling.”
She continued, “God has used Isaac’s Down syndrome diagnosis to soften our hearts in ways that would not have happened otherwise. We are all better because of the joy we get to experience with him.”
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“Isaac was going to be different, but we are all different. He may just be a little more obvious,” Mangiacapra mentioned.
“But regardless of how Isaac does or doesn’t do things, God created him with no mistakes.”
The new book “Different by Design” is obtainable on Amazon or at Mangiacapra’s web site, “A Joyful Advocate.”
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