I loved this

I was reading a blog of someone i met through the UDSF, and she had this article that i really wanted to share!
thanks sealbark....


"This is part of an essay on Down syndrome that appears in the Spring 2008 issue of The New Atlantis.
In storage at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is the secret to what one professor calls “the first Down Syndrome Association in the history of the world.” In 1982, Dr. Brian Stratford, a specialist in developmental disabilities at the University of Nottingham, suggested in the journal Maternal and Child Health that the Italian Renaissance painter Andrea Mantegna used a little boy with Down syndrome as the model for his Christ child. Stratford made a “clear characteristic diagnosis” of the baby based on his distinctive facial features and the shape of his hands and toes. The Gonzaga family of Mantua, Mantegna’s sponsor, had a boy with an unidentified “sickness,” she said, and one of the artist’s own fourteen children shared this condition—a not insignificant factor in Ludovico Gonzaga’s choice of Andrea Mantegna as his court painter. Gonzaga and Mantegna appreciated the humanity of these children whom some might have preferred to hide away or let die, and that shared sensitivity gave them a “sense of purpose” with respect to disability which Stratford regrets has been all but forgotten by our society: “Perhaps Mantegna saw in this child something beyond the deficiencies which now so occupy our attention and perhaps then, the qualities of love, forgiveness, gentleness, and innocence were more readily recognized. Maybe Mantegna saw these qualities as more representative of Christ than others we now regard so highly.”“Wouldn’t it be wonderful,” another proud big brother asks in Gifts, “if every family had a kid with Down syndrome?”That question, of course, does not express the wish that more children would struggle with disabilities, but rather that more families might find within themselves the means to understand, and to transmit to future generations, the profound truth that every life is filled with meaning, and every child is a source of joy."

This story reminded me of the process i went through, when i went from wanting every one's condolences when we received 4 of 5's diagnosis, to realizing that the congratulations, were a gross understatement. I feel a surge of compassion and joy and hope and sympathy (not for the birth of a baby with DS, but because i know how they are feeling, and at that moment, it is sorrow) when i talk to parents with a new DS diagnosis. I have the opportunity to meet and talk to many new parents in UT because i am working as the new born contact for the UDSF. Although i can't 100% understand their struggles. Most have different heart or lung or liver problems, 4 of 5 didn't have, many don't live. But i do know that whether your new baby has DS or not doesn't matter at the moments when you are sitting in the NICU with them. We did sit there. There is a point after you bring them home and realize they are just another one of your kids, some take longer than others. I wish i could take the pain of that process from them. But it is one of the most unique experiences that they will ever have, and one that will force you to grow, and love more than you would ever think possible. And that is the process that i wish everyone could experience. Although i know this experience is not unique to DS. This was mine.