A Year Ago Today

It’s been a whole year since I nervously clicked on “publish post” and sent my first blog entry out into the universe. It began profoundly enough (ha ha) with the wise and original words of:

‘Well I am finally doing it.’

I only wish I had done “it” sooner.

I wish I had started a blog that August afternoon in 2004, just a few weeks after Leo was born. I had just hung up the phone after speaking with a clueless person at a national Down syndrome organization who had been unable to connect me to any local families of children with Down syndrome. Did I mention this was in New York City? I lay on our bed sobbing, feeling utterly alone, convinced we were the only couple in New York who had a baby with Down syndrome.

Little did I know they were every where. And there were moms out there leading lives not that unlike mine. If I had known, it would have saved me a lot of heartache. It’s not that I didn’t know, I knew of course there were others, but those “others” felt abstract. When I stumbled upon the blogs of Cate and Jen and Tricia I felt like I had found myself. And then there is Amy. I discovered her later but Amy, truly, where do I begin?

These were people that were searching and wondering and thinking and hoping and laughing and cursing, just like me. They too were trying to wrap their heads around this whole Down syndrome thing. I drank their blogs up. In fact I read Cate’s from beginning to end in one day while I was on my pumping breaks at work. I laughed a lot and I also bawled.

Without getting too weepy or maudlin here, I will simply say that starting this blog has been one of the best things I have ever done, hands down. And finding you all is right there with it. I can’t tell you how much it means to spout off one of my rants and to find your incredible advice, your humor (always especially appreciated), your wisdom, your doses of reality and your perspective.

I’m not going to wallow in regret with how I wish I had started a blog sooner (but I do!), instead I will just emphasize how glad I am to be here. Now. With you all. I thank you for putting up with me and listening and sharing your lives with me. I thank you for telling me my children are cute and that everything I’m feeling on a given day is normal. I thank you for encouraging me to be patient and strong, and perhaps most of all, for never forgetting to remind me that wine is good.

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