The song “10,000 Hours” by Dan + Shay and Justin Bieber has perhaps never been sung more tenderly than in this performance by Rayce, a 6-year-old from Arkansas. Using the well-known song, the young artist soothed his younger brother Tripp, who was born with Down syndrome. Nicole Powell, a kind mother, photographed the touching event and shared it on Facebook in January 2020. The video rapidly became popular.
Tripp was just six weeks old and had just been discharged from the acute care unit when the video was taken. Rayce, who visited Tripp after school every day and briefed him on his responsibilities, provided him with unrelenting devotion throughout his hospital stay. Powell claims they were close from the start.
“Race was like, ‘Hand me the baby,’ from the moment he was born,” she told GMA. He’d just keep talking to Tripp after school every day, telling the baby everything that had transpired.
Every time the well-known song played, Rayce would tell Tripp that it was for him. Rayce and Tripp’s special friendship, which is bound to survive until adulthood, is a perfect match for the song’s deep lyrics about spending 10,000 hours getting to know your heart.
Powell recognized she needed to upload and share Rayce’s singing video online to raise awareness for Down syndrome. In addition to the video, Powell hoped to de-stigmatize Down syndrome.
Powell tells readers in the Facebook post that chromosomes do not matter when it comes to love. She states:
“Love doesn’t count chromosomes, or aren’t we all different?” Rayce once said.
Powell admits to being terrified when she received the diagnosis while pregnant with Tripp. She claimed that after Tripp was born and she heard him cry for the first time, all of her doubts vanished. In a follow-up post on December 30, 2020, Powell advised pregnant mothers to “not be terrified” of their baby’s Down syndrome diagnosis:
She told other expectant mothers who learn that their unborn kid has Down syndrome not to be terrified like she was. I guarantee that the child’s siblings will adore him or her like no other, and he or she will be such a blessing to your family in so many ways!
Powell announced the birth of her youngest kid on Facebook on Tripp’s birthday in November. Tripp’s debut to the world was not without incident. Powell was late in her pregnancy and went to a routine doctor’s checkup, as she describes in her post. She claims that, while one of her previous pregnancies was difficult to carry to term, her most recent pregnancy is going well thus far. However, the doctor’s reaction to what he observed during the checkup concerned her. She rapidly realized that her fears were misplaced because the doctor had some urgent and terrible news for her.
“I’ll be right back,” he vowed, “let me go get something.” I turned to JJ as soon as he turned around to go and informed him I had a bad feeling. He returned with the nurse to undertake another examination. They exchanged looks before facing me. I remember getting a lump in my throat right away. “We have to leave right away to have this baby delivered by c-section,” Powell explained.
Tripp needed to “get out now,” since the infant’s pulse rate was critically low. Powell admitted that it had been a bad experience. She wrote in her post, “I remember still feeling Tripp kicking and not even caring if he had Down syndrome anymore, I just wanted him to live.” Fortunately, Tripp the toddler survived.
“But I seem to recall asking, “Is he all right?” And then, at 10:55 a.m., I heard the purest, sweetest, and quietest wail I’d ever heard. Despite the fact that I have never sobbed with any of my babies (and I adore them all to death), his cry was like a sound I had needed to hear for so long to know everything would be well,” Powell continued.
Down syndrome is one of the most common chromosomal diseases in the world. According to a 2010 study conducted by the Department of Pediatrics in the Netherlands, approximately one in every 1,000 babies worldwide has Down syndrome. According to the National Down Syndrome Society (NDSS), 1 in 700 newborns born in the United States each year are affected by Down syndrome, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The actual cause of this genetic condition is still unknown. According to research, Down syndrome is not an inherited condition. Only 1% of known cases were passed down from a single parent, and practically all Down syndrome children are born to parents with the normal number of chromosomes.
Scientists are certain that a pregnant mother’s age impacts the likelihood that her unborn child will have Down syndrome. According to the NDSS, a 35-year-old woman has a 1 in 350 chance of having a child with Down syndrome, with the possibility increasing exponentially with age, reaching 1 in 100 at the age of 40. By the age of 49, the theoretical likelihood is one in ten. The incidence of Down syndrome cases has risen in recent years as more couples chose to have children later in life. Furthermore, painless screening throughout early pregnancy has become increasingly available.
Even while contemporary medicine cannot cure Down syndrome, it is not an insurmountable problem. It causes neonates to develop more slowly than a healthy baby due to physical and mental growth deficits. Because each kid and case of Down syndrome is unique, there are many various possible symptoms and developmental periods. Raising and educating children with trisomy 21 requires more time in general, but it is highly doable and useful. In the United States, 40% of children with Down syndrome who attend high school graduate or go on to complete their degrees. Many go on to have secure employment and live independently, but the majority still require financial assistance.