Hello, I am Ingerlise.

Our story began in the land of the midnight sun. Darling Maia was born in Oslo, Norway on a chilly autumn afternoon. From the minute her soft cry filled the room, we knew our world had changed for always. We had no idea just how true that was - or that we had just joined the community of the lucky few.  

How it all started...

I could feel her. She was almost here - in our world with us where she belonged, in our arms, in our embrace, in our hearts. She was only seconds away. The pain went away. My entire being was focused on the life that was about to surface, the little girl I had been waiting for even longer than she would ever know, for our little love child. I felt her come into this world, sobbed with relief when I heard her cry and my soul melted when I held her tiny warm little body in my arms. She was perfect. She was mine. She was ours. She was perfect. Perfect. Perfect. 

24 hours later I sat next to my husband in a white room, as proud and delirious with joy as only a new mum can be. Routine, they had said. But it wasn't. My mind exploded. I couldn't hear, feel, think, breathe. I was caught in a whirlwind dragging me down, down, down. Down in a world with Down. The nurse cried, and her tears and '“sorrys” reduced my baby to something less than a newborn little human being. Suddenly, there was a despairing “but” attached to her life; to her soft skin; to her entire being. A thick and sticky fog seeped into every cell in my body and as I tried to breathe, another feeling hit me so hard it took years to recover. Guilt. What if Maia felt the sudden shift of energy in the room?

What if she could feel our fears? I screamed but no sound appeared. My rational mind shut down, and to this day I don't remember what happened the next five days.

What I do remember, however, was the love. The furious, protective, all-consuming, don’t mess with me-kind of love. A raging, fierce, out-of-control and feisty love that transformed me into not just a mum, but a lioness ready to rip into anyone with a look of sorrow in their eyes. My girl was here. My Maia. She was perfect. She had Down Syndrome and from people’s reaction I could tell that was truly, well, down… Except she wasn’t. She was up. She is up. Happy, crazy, curious, full of life and above all, a force of joyful zest. She is the perfect version of herself - and in that crazy first week of trying to wrap our heads around life with a little extra, someone delivered a red suitcase to our hospital room. It was a gift from parents and their kids with Down Syndrome, and to me, it was everything.

The suitcase became my travel guide to a future I didn't know how to plan for. It symbolised everything I had dreamt about, planned for, longed for, hoped for and cried over. It is also the inspiration behind 21 GIFTS, and I am so proud to pay this forward in Australia and New Zealand for babies diagnosed with Down syndrome and cerebral palsy.