MATT PARRY: What I have learnt about Down syndrome,
I’ve learnt that what I knew before was wrong.
FINLAY PARRY: My sisters always wake me up
at 5 o’clock in the morning. They are quite cute. They are a bit annoying.
JODI PARRY: The fact that they are twins makes everything hard work.
JODI PARRY: There’s just nothing in the
world that could convince me to change them two.
MATT PARRY: More? Go then. More higher? Okay, go on then.
COMM: The odds of having identical twins with
Down’s syndrome are one in a million. Abigail and Isobel’s diagnosis has been life changing
for the Parry family, but not in the way that some might presume.
MATT PARRY: The girls have brought us together
massively as a unit, but also made us appreciate the here and now.
FINLAY PARRY: Can I use the green, Abby?
ABIGAIL: Yeah. FINLAY PARRY: Where’s the green?
FINLAY PARRY: Down’s syndrome means that
I have to help my sisters a bit more than if I had…. than if I had sisters with no
Down’s syndrome, because they would be able to learn quicker than my sisters. So with
Down’s syndrome it’s a bit harder.
JODI PARRY: Got number 4? Can you do me a
number 3? FINALY PARRY: I’m doing it.
COMM: As well as physical characteristics,
Down’s syndrome causes varying degrees of learning difficulties. But life expectancy
is fast catching up with people who don’t have the condition.
COMM: The Parrys were not aware of the diagnosis
until the twins were a few weeks old.
MATT PARRY: I don’t think any of us will
ever forget that day. The whole world had ended. Life was not how we’d wanted.
JODI PARRY: When the doctor took us to one
side to give us the results, the one thing he said to us was that he was sorry that Abigail
and Isobel both have Down’s syndrome and to this day I will never know what he was
sorry for and I think if I could ever meet him again, I’d like to show him Abigail
and Isabel and kind of say, ‘No. Why did you say sorry? Because we wouldn’t change
Abigail and Isobel for the world now.’
COMM: The genetic condition is caused by an
extra copy of Chromosome 21. Tests during pregnancy can indicate the likelihood of having
Down’s syndrome, after which parents can choose termination.
JODI PARRY: The amount of people that have
openly admitted to us that they thought that they perhaps wouldn’t go through with the
pregnancy if they knew that their child had Down’s syndrome. And now they would look
at that differently, because they have seen that there is nothing to be scared of, because
they make everybody laugh, they make everybody smile. So I just think it’s just lack of
education and I think also lack of education from the professionals as well as a big impact,
like the doctors saying to us he was sorry.
MATT PARRY: I don’t care biologically about
the girls. I don’t care how many chromosomes they’ve got. I was more interested will
they walk? Will they talk? Will they interact?
COMM: Now 5 years old, the girls are flourishing in mainstream school.
MATT PARRY: I said from the day dot that we
weren’t just going to fester as a family and wait for things to happen. That progress
will be slower but we will still set them goals. We will still push them to achieve.
COMM: Inspired by their one in a million twins,
the Parrys set up a charity with a very special name.
JODI PARRY: So, we went with Twincess that’s
because obviously they are twins and princesses. It’s a celebration of Down’s syndrome
and it’s just to kind of dispel any myths that come with Down’s syndrome. I am not
going to say we have got great expectations and, you know, we think they will be the first
person with Down’s syndrome to be a Chartered Accountant or anything like that.
MATT PARRY: I am enjoying my life far, far
too much to think about hurdles. As a hurdle appears, we will deal with it. But at this
time, I am just living for today.
JODI PARRY: The one thing I have learnt about
Down’s syndrome is that life with Down’s syndrome is a life worth living. But now there’s
just nothing in the world that could convince me to change them two. Just wouldn’t change
them for the world.
FINLAY PARRY: My life won’t be the same without them.