When her son was born with Down's Syndrome, Jacki Welsh admits she and her husband were devastated. But as well as bringing much joy into their lives, baby Tom has inspired a calender with a difference and an new charity. Women's Editor Lindsay Jennings reports.

JACKI Welch was going to have the perfect pregnancy. It was part way through November, but already the Christmas presents had been bought and wrapped and were sitting under the tree. The colourful nursery had been finished and was filled with beautiful gifts and clothes.

"My whole pregnancy was about everything being perfect," says Jacki, from Fawdon, on the outskirts of Newcastle.

Everything was new for the hospital - new bag, new make-up - I'd had my hair done, I'd been waxed, I'd had a St Tropez tan and my nails were done.

"He was going to be the most beautiful baby and I was going to be the most glamorous pregnant woman. But life has a way of not working out like that."

Jacki, 37, had had a normal pregnancy with no indication that the son she was carrying had Down's Syndrome, a genetic condition affecting one in 800 babies. Jacki was not classed as a "high risk" mother, there was no history of the syndrome in the family and she had had a perfectly healthy son before, Jake, now nine. The three scans she'd had were normal and no heart defect or stomach problems - common Down's traits - were picked up.

The first signs that everything was not perfect was when Tom was born.

"For a split second when they put him on me, I thought to myself," he has Down's, but then I presumed someone would have told me," recalls Jacki. "But I didn't know then that the midwives can't tell you, that it has to be a doctor."

To the couple's immense relief, the paediatrician said Tom was fine, but that more tests were needed and they were moved to a private room. In her post-euphoric state, Jacki admits with a wry smile that she thought she was getting fantastic service.

"I can remember saying 'eh, a private room on the national health, how about that'," she says. "But then Steve went to go and pick Jake up and I was left on my own. Five minutes later the room was full with two paediatricians, a consultant and two midwives. The consultant said he was a little bit concerned, and my heart just sank."

Although she suspected Tom had Down's, which causes delay in physical and mental development, she says that she felt grief stricken when it was confirmed. She also had to break the news to Steve.

"They may as well have told me that he'd died," she admits.

"Steve was absolutely devastated. It was his first child. We knew he was a boy, he was Tom before he was even born. He felt guilty. You feel like you've let your family down, which is odd, because there's nothing you could have done."

Tom faced a series of hospital tests on his eyes, heart and stomach, all problem areas for Down's children, but was thankfully given the all-clear.

"That was such a relief," says Jacki. "We came out of hospital feeling quite euphoric and went home and drank champagne."

The couple then set about finding as much information as they could about the syndrome.

"We couldn't get over the stereotype of Down's," says Jacki. "We thought he was going to end up shuffling around wearing a bad cardigan and holding his mum's hand when he's 40. Those were the preconceptions that we had.

"We began reading up but I found some of the charities were really negative. They would talk about mental retardation, how their life expectancy was shorter and how they were prone to leukaemia and dementia. But when Anne Webster, chairwoman of Down's Syndrome North-East, came to see us and talked about them as "our kids", I just loved that."

It was when Jacki went back to work part-time as an account manager at Job Centre Plus, in North Shields, that the idea of raising money for a Down's Syndrome charity by producing a calendar with men from her work first emerged. When she approached the lifestyle photographers Venture to see if they would take the snaps for free, the Gosforth franchise owner Neil Cash suggested capturing images of the Down's children instead for the calendar.

Work colleagues Jim Taylor, Paul Sharpe, Jacki and Steve, who also works at Job Centre Plus as a contracts manager, got together and decided to call the calendar Down with the Kidz. They are also in the process of setting up a charity in the same name and have enlisted the help of Nicola Docherty, another mum of a Down's child.

"People always say 'oh Down's kids, they're dead loving', and they are," says Jacki. "But we wanted people to know that they've also got attitude, that they can be really cool and wear designer gear if they want to.

"Another of the things we know we want to do is to produce some really positive literature that we can give to hospitals to pass on to new parents. These are things I would have liked to have been told - that they can have a life. Tom will do all the things that Jake will do. The only thing we know he's not going to do is go to university and have children - but who's to say Jake ever will?

"I want new parents to know that yes, it's very scary, but that their child still has loads of potential."

Other fund raising events they have talked about include a charity ball and an awards ceremony to celebrate the "wonderful things" kids with Down's can be and are involved with.

"We just want to raise the profile of Down's," she says. "Tom will always be a little bit different, but I want that difference for him to be as tiny as possible."

With that, Jacki scoops up her 12-month-old baby son and gazes lovingly into his eyes. She smiles widely at him as she bounces her energetic bundle on her knee.

"You need to go to sleep," she says to him. She rubs her nose against his and his face breaks into a huge grin.

"The future doesn't scare me anymore," she says. "I don't see a baby with Down's, I just see Tom."

* The Down with the Kidz calendar is available through their website www.downwiththekidz.co.uk. The calendar is priced £5 plus £1.50 for postage and packaging.