Nicolas and Stéphanie took an ambitious gamble. Some might even say totally crazy. After having had five children, this couple in their 50s decided to adopt a little boy with Down syndrome. But the decision wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment one, they tell Aleteia. “It was a calling,” explains Stéphanie.
An inner, urgent, disconcerting call. During the confirmation of their eldest daughter, in 2007, Stéphanie was seized by a sudden thought: “Adopt a child with Down syndrome.” A clear, limpid voice, as if it had been blown directly into the left hemisphere of her brain, she says.
“It was like being struck by lightning. I struggled the whole mass. I was trying to stay present, but this idea was going round and round in my head.”
A shared calling
For several days, she kept this secret fire inside her, dreading her husband's reaction. Because Nicolas, with every pregnancy, had always been filled with the fear of the announcement of a handicap.
And yet, after three days, one night before going to bed, she decided to take the step. Nicolas beat her to it: “You want a sixth child.” Stéphanie nodded. As she opened her mouth to tell him exactly what she wanted, Nicolas continued, “You want to adopt ... a child with Down syndrome?”
Emotion overwhelmed them both. “We cried. It was as if something was completely overtaking us.”
They took a sheet of paper and listed the pros and cons. The cons were many, but the call wouldn’t let them go. Then began a process of discernment, followed by administrative procedures. After receiving the agreement of their children, Stéphanie and Nicolas applied for approval to welcome a disabled child into their home.
A year later, just as the couple were about to take a trip to celebrate their wedding anniversary, a new intuition struck Stéphanie. “I had the impression that we should stay close and not leave, as if something was going to happen.”
They cancelled the trip. Two weeks later, on Good Friday, at 3 p.m., they received a phone call:
“Our little boy was waiting for us.”
A gift from God
Mathis was five and a half months old. His first name means “gift from God.” For the couple, this is no coincidence. “We encountered so many overwhelming signs that we realized just how much Providence was behind it all,” recalls Nicolas. The little boy was welcomed into his new home.
“We didn't try to find out what Down syndrome was. We welcomed a child, period.” Calm, fragile, silent. Mathis doesn't talk, doesn't show affection in a tactile way. He doesn't give hugs. He has autistic traits that belie the clichés of the “Down syndrome child ball of love.” And yet, he has transformed them.
“He made us into parents in a way we weren't yet. Mathis has never been a burden. He's not a constraint.”
“Active assistance in dying,” a threat to vulnerable people
Today, in France, where a law on the legalization of assisted suicide is being debated, Stéphanie and Nicolas are worried. For several weeks, voices from all sides have been raised, denouncing the risk of a drift towards the legalization of “active assistance in dying.”
Amendments aimed at explicitly excluding people with intellectual disabilities from the scope of the law were proposed but rejected during parliamentary discussions. The same was true for amendments proposing to prevent access to assisted suicide or euthanasia for people under guardianship. This is a worrying blind spot.
“This law frightens us. The vagueness it creates risks putting immense pressure on people with disabilities. It’s incredibly violent,” say Mathis' parents. They are calling for action: “Vulnerability must never become a criterion for exclusion from life.”
