I held my new baby brother closely and kissed him as I remembered the first few weeks of his life.

It is well known by physicians and families that Down syndrome (DS) is associated with the development of autoimmune diseases, particularly thyroid dysfunction, diabetes mellitus and celiac disease. Children with DS regularly undergo screening for these diseases, often in specialized clinics.

Yisrael, my 7-year-old son with DS, was born a healthy, beautiful baby. His nice development excited us every step along the way, promising a bright future! Years later, however, we found ourselves standing in the dark. We couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong. Gradually, his development slowed down. What did Yisrael need?

As soon as we settled ourselves into our car 8-year-old Shia’la asked for a snack. It was after a full lunch and he was told he couldn’t have any snack food. He wanted it really badly so he first tried, “I’m so hungry that it’s making my stomach hurt.” When that didn’t work, he resorted to, “My eyes are really hungry!”

Six months ago our family was forever changed by the loss of our beloved brother, Yehuda A”H. Yehuda was in the hospital for just five short weeks, not nearly enough time to say goodbye, to tell him how much we loved him and to process that he was leaving this world for a better place.

Two years ago, when Burech turned twelve, he started talking about his Bar Mitzvah. He has not stopped since. This milestone was going to be celebrated the right way. Burech’s Bar Mitzvah was going to be a gala event.

Greeting cards seem to be a relic of the past and maybe that’s a good thing. After bringing our precious baby home from the hospital and getting her all set up in her new crib, I put my feet up and started going through the mail that had arrived during my extended hospital stay.

It was a difficult pregnancy which I attributed to my advanced age of forty-four, and that my innards had not carried a baby for fifteen years. Being bed-ridden as a preventative measure for slowing the contractions gave me plenty of time for reading pregnancy books as well as baby books.

After Moishey was born and subsequently diagnosed with Down syndrome, lots of advice poured in. Most was unsolicited, but not necessarily all bad (some of it was really out of line…). We learnt fast how to grow Teflon skin and just let most of it slide off…

My son Shmuli was born via repeat C-section after an uneventful pregnancy.  I was not considered in a high-risk category (whatever that means…) and there was nothing unusual noted throughout the term.  Needless to say, we were in a state of shock when we were told our son had Down syndrome.