What the Doctor Got Wrong About Our Twin Girls

When Matt and Judy Farry from the United States found out they were expecting twins, they were overjoyed. The couple already had one child, and now they were thrilled to welcome two more precious souls into their family. Everything seemed to be going smoothly until the seventh month of pregnancy.

Judy remembers the moment vividly. Her doctor called with urgency in his voice and asked her to come to his office. When she arrived, he looked at her with a serious look on his face and said just two words: “I’m sorry.”

“We were shocked when he told us that our twins needed to be born early,” Judy recalls. “But what really stunned us was his next words that both our babies had been diagnosed with Down syndrome.”

The doctor’s tone was heavy, as if he was delivering tragic news. “He made it sound like we had been handed a life sentence,” Judy says quietly. “From that moment, all the excitement and joy I felt during my pregnancy disappeared.”

For years afterward, that painful meeting stayed with Judy. The sadness in the doctor's voice had planted a deep worry in their hearts. “We knew it was rare to have twins with Down syndrome,” says Matt. “One in a million, they said. But the way the doctor said it, we felt like our children had no place in the world. That’s what hurt the most. No one told us that even with the challenges, we could still be a joyful, loving family.”

The early days after the birth were filled with fear and uncertainty. “We didn’t know what to expect,” Judy remembers. “We had so little guidance. Would they ever walk? Talk? Go to school? We had no answers. And everywhere we turned, the message was that we should be pitied. But as their mother, I knew better. I knew how much love surrounded Abigail and Isabel from us, and from anyone who truly saw them for who they were.”

Now, ten years later, Judy still thinks back to that meeting in the doctor’s office. “To this day, I don’t understand what he was so sorry about,” she says. “If I could meet him now, I’d show him my daughters, Abigail and Isabel, and tell him he owes us an apology. Because he was wrong. So wrong.”

With warmth in her voice, she adds, “We wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world. Today I know the truth: that doctor didn’t give them a chance to live but we did. And they’ve filled our lives with so much love.”