Gina Daly: 'Whatever he has or hasn’t, he’s our baby and we’re going to love him'
Gina and Karol Daly with their children, baby Gene, daughter Holly 13, and son Ben, 11, at their home in Longwood. Picture: Noya Nolan
These days Gina Daly is quite likely to go to Tesco for carrots – and come home with five baby outfits.
One half of the husband-and-wife team behind the Daly Dish, Gina is loving being mum to barely-out-of-the-wrapper Baby Gene, born in late November. “With a new baby you’re anticipating the crying, being up all night, getting used to nappies and bottles – but it’s been surprisingly fantastic.”
Successful cookbook authors, she and husband Karol have garnered a massive Instagram following, courtesy of their food diary and recipe-sharing. But right now – along with children, Holly, 13, and Ben, 11 – they’re in a special bubble created by the arrival of 11-week-old Gene.
“He’s such a good baby, very content. He’ll give a whinge when he’s hungry, or if he wants a cuddle. He’s so happy to be snuggled or to just sit and look at us. It’s like he’s the missing piece that has slotted right in.”
Gene’s brother and sister are “obsessed” with him. “All they want is to kiss and hug him, talk to him, play with him. Ben was the baby – and we all do everything for him, so I didn’t know if there’d be jealousy.
“But he’s like the daddy,” Gina continues. “He says: ‘mind the head, don’t hold him like that’ and he’s there with the nappy, the wipes.”
The instant Gina first saw Gene she knew he had Down syndrome, which occurs when there’s one extra copy of chromosome 21 in every cell in the body. Down syndrome affects approximately one baby in every 444 births in Ireland.
Describing Gene as having an “extra chromosome of awesomeness” and “a little rainbow with an extra colour”, Gina recalls his arrival via C-section in Mullingar Hospital. “I could hear the [medics] talking: ‘Oh, look at him. Oh, he’s running! His legs are going 90’. The doctor held him up over the curtain and the second I saw him I knew by his facial features he had Down syndrome.
“They were saying he’s perfect. He had 10 fingers, 10 toes, he started crying. All I could think was ‘he’s healthy, he’s here and he’s safe’.”
Gene having Down syndrome wasn’t a bolt from the blue for the Meath-based couple. Gina fell pregnant with Gene six months after she suffered a miscarriage in September 2020, when she was just about to turn 40. That had been a surprise pregnancy. “We were at a stage where the kids were OK to go to their nan and grand-dad, and Karol and I could go for a meal on our own. After Ben was born, I felt I had my two gorgeous kids – my boy and girl – I never thought about more babies.”
But Gina was thrilled at being unexpectedly pregnant. “As shocked as I was, I realised it was what I wanted. We were hugely excited.”
However, it wasn’t to be. “I suddenly had an instinct something was wrong. I had a bit of spotting and I went to the hospital.” Her subsequent miscarriage floored her. “It dulled me, numbed me. I was very down on myself, thinking about what could’ve been. I thought ‘I’m 40 now, what are my chances of another baby? And what if I’ve another loss?’ That was my fear. But I also felt: look, what’s meant to be….”
Gina became pregnant with Gene in March 2021. And in April – on the due date of the baby she lost – she began to bleed. “I bled for 10 days. I thought that’s it, the baby’s gone. But I was told no, he’s still there. We had to wait two weeks to see if there was growth. I was in absolute bits. When we were told ‘there’s your little baby’s heartbeat – he’s alive, thriving’, I just floated home with the relief.”
At the early pregnancy clinic, the consultant said – given Gina’s age – there was higher risk of having a baby with various syndromes. “She was an older mammy too. She said the main risk was for Down syndrome. There was an option to do genetic testing but I’d no interest. I thought if I have a baby with Down syndrome, that’s my baby. I’m meant to be its mammy. Karol and I felt the same – happy to go forward without genetic testing.”
The pandemic saw Gina’s 20-week anomaly scan delayed until 25 weeks. “Karol was able to come with me. Everything was absolutely fine. The person who did the scan said the baby was a real wriggler and she’d reschedule another scan in two weeks so she could see his face. We thought nothing of it.”
Before the fortnight was up, Gina was unexpectedly called back in. The consultant had spotted on the scan that the baby’s femur was measuring small. “She said it could be a marker for Down syndrome. My brain just switched off... I kind of zoned out. I asked: ‘what do I do now?’”
The consultant recommended genetic testing, explaining if the baby was born with Down syndrome, a team would need to be ready in case of heart problems. Referred to Holles Street Hospital for genetic testing, Gina and Karol tried to get their heads around the news. “We felt even if he’s born with Down syndrome, it’s not the worst thing in the world. As long as he’s healthy and his heart strong, we felt we could deal with anything.”
Just before the genetic test, Gina went for the rescheduled scan. “She re-checked the leg length and found everything fine. Maybe he’d been in a funny position the first time. She checked his nose and the back of his neck, for soft markers of Down syndrome. Nothing showed up, but she said these can be hard to detect on ultrasound. And she said his heart looked really strong.”
Gina decided then she didn’t want the genetic test. “It’d be to find out if he had Down syndrome – but if he had, it didn’t make a difference. All I could do was hope everything would be well, that he’d be well. I just wanted to enjoy being pregnant and the couple of weeks we had in our little bubble.”
But the couple had countless conversations about the possibility of Down syndrome. “You hear people say they grieve for the baby they should have had. All we ever felt was ‘whatever he has or hasn’t, he’s our baby and we’re going to love him and the kids will love him and our family will love him’.”
Gene arrived quite quickly and Karol was outside the door, getting his scrubs on, when he was born. “When he saw Gene he was just overwhelmed with love for him. I was brought to recovery and Karol was brought upstairs to have skin-to-skin with Gene. The doctor checked out his heart – it was ticking perfectly and that was the news we wanted to hear.”
Having told family the baby was healthy, Gina needed time before telling them the extra news. “For me, the hardest person to tell was my dad. He’s 82 – from that older generation who’d have seen Down syndrome as a burden. I wasn’t expecting that kind of reaction from him, but I knew he’d cry on the phone – he gets emotional – and I’m his little girl.
“So my sister, Jackie, said she’d ring Daddy and tell him. And my dad texted: ‘Jackie rang and told me. Everything is fine. Just bring him home so we can start to love him’. I rang him straight away. I said, ‘Daddy, he’s absolutely perfect, he’s gorgeous’. And he said, ‘I know – the pictures are beautiful. I just want you to bring him home’.”
Gina has met one person who sympathised, cried and said ‘I’m so sorry’. “I was taken aback. I said ‘don’t be sad’,” says Gina, who feels hugely supported by the positive community of mums she has been following on social media in recent years.
“One in particular has a four-year-old born with Down syndrome. I’ve been following her journey from when she was a baby. So I see children with Down syndrome and they’ve wonderful lives. They’re not being held back – they’re going to mainstream school, doing all the things other children do.
“And that’s going to be our little man. He’s going to grow up – have a first pint with Daddy, have a girlfriend, go to college.
“We didn’t realise until recently that Karol’s friend has a girl in her 20s with Down syndrome. She has just graduated from university. All these people show there are no limits to what these children can do. And over the next 10 years things will be even more available to them.”
This support and positivity are all the more important as Gina and Karol face into various medical appointments with Gene over the next few weeks. “We were in Crumlin last week for his first cardiology appointment. It’s all new to us and your heart would be going 90 – I’ve never felt worry like it. Gene has a tiny hole in his heart, which I wasn’t expecting to hear. There was talk of surgery that had me on my knees crying, but the surgeon says it’s so small he won’t need surgery – it will close itself. I was so happy.”
Gina has set up a separate page on Instagram (to the Daly Dish) for Gene. So is he an early influencer? “I’m hoping it’ll be somewhere to record his different milestones, for mammies like me, who look at the page and think ‘oh, there’s her little boy – and look, he’s walking!’ And to give hope to those who might feel a bit of grief.”
She wants to be a really good advocate for Gene, and for children with Down syndrome. “I have a platform. And whatever I can do, I will do, for him. I don’t want him to change. I want the world to change for him.”
- See: downsyndrome.ie
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