Mighty Molly spreading a message of positivity

THE birth of five-month old baby Molly last year spurred Kimmage mother Rhona Cullinan to set up a Facebook page to document what it is like to have a little baby with Down Syndrome.
Rhona, who is a make-up artist and owns the Powder Room Girls in Citywest, spoke to The Gazette this week to explain that parents should not be fearful if their baby is born with Down Syndrome, as she feels little Molly is a blessing to her and her family.
Rhona discussed how she first found out that little Molly had Down Syndrome: “When I was first pregnant, I had my nine-week scan which showed that there was a problem around Molly’s heart. We do have heart problems on both sides of the family, so it wasn’t totally unusual, but they did say initially that it could be associated with Down Syndrome.
“At 16 weeks, the doctors told us that there was a definite heart defect and it would require open heart surgery. We could have had a test done to check for Down Syndrome, but we both agreed that she was our baby either way, so we decided not to do the test.”
Rhona started to research Down Syndrome and came across numerous blogs and Facebook pages about it, but what she noticed was that there was nothing negative written by any parents who had Down Syndrome children.
“All of them said: ‘It’s such a blessing’, and ‘I wouldn’t change it for the world’,” she said.
Rhona added that she realised her previous misconceptions of Down Syndrome were wrong, and she now wants to help other parents who may be going through the same thoughts as she once did.
“I kind of limited Molly before she was born – I didn’t give her a chance to start anything, but she’s proved me wrong the whole way through!
“She’s strong as an ox. She’s going for surgery in the next week or two – she’ll have a six-hour operation on her heart but I know she will be fine. It’s not like there’s anything actually wrong with her; she will just do everything a bit slower.
“So, she’ll feel the same, she’ll want a boyfriend, she’ll want to get married. They [people with Down Syndrome] can do anything they want – there’s no limits on them, only the limits you put on them yourself.” You can check out Rhona’s Facebook page dedicated to Molly at https://www.facebook.com/
mollyblessedwithds/