I write these words on the eve of the 18th yartzeit of my dear mother a’h. While the pain of her loss is still stinging, I take comfort in the fact that we were with her and held her hands down to the moment when she slipped into the World of Eternity.

It is so painful for me that in this very edition of DSAU, under the topic ‘Confrontation’ there is a lot of ‘dialogue’ about parents being forced by grandparents to give away their newborn with Down syndrome. How blessed am I and my family that our memories of our children’s grandparents zichronom livracha, are filled with love, longing and genuine warmth.

60% of children with Down syndrome have ophthalmic conditions that need to be identified and treated in a timely manner in order to prevent long-term visual disability. Optical rehabilitation must be considered especially important in people with Down syndrome to ensure physical and mental well-being and optimize self-dependence. The majority of typical children are born far-sighted, but most will not require glasses long term as their prescriptions commonly decrease to zero, as their eyes grow.

Nine months of a blissful and perfect pregnancy. Then came the day when our precious baby was born, which changed our lives forever! But seconds after birth they whisked him away, and there was a lot of whispering around our baby. Yes, it seemed like our worst fears were confirmed. Down syndrome. That was our introduction into the world of special needs. The main question was, how and what do we tell our other children? How were they going to deal with this information? Our oldest son was 18 years old and living in his own world of “perfection”.