Sarah Palin and Down Syndrome

By Rebecca Talley

This is not a political post. Rather it is an examination of what Sarah Palin’s candidacy may mean for the 350,000 Americans who have been diagnosed with Down syndrome, and their families.

Each year about 5000 babies are born with an extra 21st chromosome. Shortly after an egg is fertilized, it begins to divide and change. Normally, each person has 23 pairs of chromosomes resulting in a total of 46. Individuals receive one chromosome per pair from the father and one from the mother. In the case of Trisomy 21, or Down syndrome, a developing egg may have divided incorrectly or something else caused it to receive extra genetic material on the 21st chromosome. The result is 47 chromosomes instead of the normal 46. How this extra genetic material affects people can vary greatly and much is still unknown about what genes are actually replicated. It is the most common chromosomal abnormality and the chance of it happening increases with maternal age. However, most births are to women under age 35.

A statistic that I personally find appalling is that 90% of all women whose babies are diagnosed with Down syndrome choose to abort that baby. 90%. Why? I believe it is because there are still so many misconceptions about Down syndrome. After the announcement of Sarah Palin’s candidacy, one such commenter blamed Palin for causing her son to have Down syndrome because she didn’t receive adequate pre-natal care. DS is a genetic condition and has nothing to do with pre-natal care, yet this misconception survives.

I’m hoping that Palin’s candidacy will shed light on the truth about Down syndrome. I know I was completely ignorant when my son was born. I expected him to be a blob. I was so wrong. He is so not a blob (some days, though, I wish he would be a blob for just a few minutes). He constantly keeps me chasing after him and trying to stay a step ahead of him, though I always seem to be two steps behind him.

He has his own distinct personality and knows what he likes and doesn’t like. He’s a tease and loves to torture his older sister. He loves to “play” the piano and as soon as he hears the pianist begin at church, he raises his hand to “lead” the music. He performs for anyone who will watch. His favorite song is “The Wheels on the Bus” and he will do the actions, always making sure we’re watching him.

Will he have challenges? Honestly, I don’t know. In a sense, don’t we all have challenges? He may have to work harder to learn to read, but I don’t always understand, nor can I recall, what I’ve read in my scriptures and need to constantly reread and supplement my scripture study. He may have challenges expressing his feelings, but after all these years, I express my feelings far too frequently because I still haven’t learned to be patient. He doesn’t say many words, but I sure have to work hard to bridle my tongue especially when I think someone deserves a good tongue lashing. He might not understand his own needs or the needs of someone else, but I rarely think about others’ feelings because I’m not very compassionate. We all have our struggles, his may just be more apparent; though it’s likely his struggles won’t keep him out of the celestial kingdom while mine will.

I often wonder why Heavenly Father chose me to raise such a son. I feel so unworthy to be blessed with this child. It’s like Christmas every day with him, he’s a gift I can enjoy repeatedly. Of course, all children are gifts, but the world seems to shun that gift when it’s wrapped a little differently.

Will Sarah Palin change attitudes? I hope so. The world needs to realize that every life matters, every person deserves a right to live, and every child deserves respect even if he or she has an extra chromosome.

In My Heart Forever

By Stephanie Abney

This is a tender time to be blogging ~ tomorrow would have been BJ's 24th birthday and I know he would have grown up to be such a fine man. I miss him all the time. Some times are harder than others... but I had the sweetest experience that I would like to share. If you've read anything anywhere that I've posted lately: on this blog, my blog or via email then you know I'm teaching full-time this year (after many years of substitute teaching). I'm 57 years old and a little nuts to boot. But I do love it. The kids are great and they crack me up... not that there haven't been a few "moments" when I wondered why I wanted to do this. But, mostly, it's been truly gratifying... but also, OVERWHELMING as I have such varied abilities in my class of 6, 7, 8 and even a 9 year old. I've tried so many approaches to reach all of them from where they are at so we can build on it and keep on going. Some things have worked out well and others, well... not so much.

Seems no matter how hard I've tried (and no matter how many HOURS I've spent preparing, or how much $$$$ I've spent) I have felt frustrated that I just am not getting there yet... so on Sunday, I asked Jim for a priesthood blessing. He gave me one after church and although he was the only other person in the room and the only one with his hands on my head as he pronounced the blessing, he continually said, "WE bless you... and WE bless you..." (with this and that...). I felt like someone else was there but no one was physically. When he was done (and the blessing was very sweet and helpful - but I'm still trying to figure a lot of stuff out), anyway, I asked him about saying "we" throughout the blessing" and he simply said, "None of it was my own words, Stephanie... I just said what the Lord told me to." And then I realized, that it was BJ who was helping him give me the blessing and I asked him what he thought. Jim agreed; it must have been BJ. I felt even more comforted by the blessing and Monday was quite good... but I'm still figuring things out.

At any rate, we usually have a family party on BJ's birthday and even get a cake that says, "Happy Heavenly Birthday" or something like that... however, tomorrow night is the 50's dance at school and I guess that's where we are headed and Saturday is our ward talent show... maybe Sunday we can do something special for his birthday.

So, tomorrow, I'll think of BJ but I'll be at school most of his birthday. I thought I would share a little cinquain poem I wrote a year before BJ passed away and then I'll head to bed. Take care.

Children
A gift from God
Grace our lives for a time
Remain in our hearts forever
Precious

Stephanie Abney ~ © 1999

Terrifying and Beautiful

by Terri Wagner

There are things in our lives that exemplify the universal law of opposition. I experienced one such event this past weekend. Gustav came to visit. While he made landfall many miles away, his feeder bands as they are called, visited my Gulf Coast region. In fact, even today, we are still having some wind and rain.

Yesterday, a friend and I went down to Gulf Shores. It was wonderful and scary at the same time. The wind was blowing so hard, the sand literally stung you; the waves were awesome (particularly since our little piece of the Gulf of Mexico is usually too tame and too warm this time of year to be considered anything but bathwater); the sky was blue, black and white all at the same time; and several people were out with cameras; and yes, a few actually at the edge of the water.

It was breathtaking to watch and hear and see and smell the pounding waves and know that somewhere out there was danger. And that danger had an element of excitement to it. Just how far could you go before putting yourself in literal danger.

My friend and I had such opposite reactions as well. She was very upset over people taking pictures of children against the backdrop of the surf, while I was thinking what an awesome picture and why didn’t I bring my camera.

Do some of us walk on the edge of the abyss even when we know we shouldn’t? Or do we sometimes walk not really knowing? As writers do we sometimes wonder how far is far enough? Should we kill off that character so gruesomely? How far should the sexual scene go? If our character uses profanity, should we actually write the words?

Gustav hit my brother’s area (near Baton Rouge) much worse than he hit my area. And yet in the danger was excitement for him and his family; in the terror was beauty; and in the storm was protection.

The Logic of Emotion

Valerie Ipson is Guest Blogging for Joyce DiPastena today. She will join us as a regular member of the Blog Team on September 9th.

By Valerie Ipson

Thank you, Joyce, for the opportunity to substitute blog here on ANWA Founders and Friends! As it turns out, I have recently been selected to fill an every-other-Tuesday spot with the group, so this will be the first post of many to come.

I taught a lesson last week in our ANWA chapter meeting called The Logic of Emotion. Okay, so I really didn’t have a great title like that for my lesson, but the things I taught were taken from an article with that name by Eric M. Witchey. It appeared in Writer’s Digest magazine in July 2005. (Did you know you can check out past issues of this magazine from the library—very cool!) Mr. Witchey wrote about character-driven novels and the fact that “they sell faster and haunt the reader longer.” He says, “It’s because you’ve engaged the reader in the emotional reality of your characters.” He goes onto explain, and I did, as well, in my lesson, that characters need an emotional foundation for their motivations, this emotion drives decisions, the decisions lead to actions and the actions create conflicts—or new situations, but not always something negative. When these are resolved, the character enters a new emotional state—and from there makes new decisions…and the process repeats itself.

We discussed how employing this pattern in our stories would serve to pull our reader along to the end just so they could find out what the character does or what happens to them. They will be emotionally connected to the character. Well, as often happens when you get a group of like-minded sisters together, the lesson took a magical turn (not magical as in “magic,” but as in “sweet” and “goose-bumpy”) as one sister related this same pattern to our spiritual lives. Go back and reread the pattern…isn’t this a pattern for reality? We have an emotion, it drives us to decide something, then to act on that decision, then a situation or conflict arises, then we make it through and then experience a new emotion. Knowing this pattern, then, will serve us as we realize that conflicts (trials, challenges) are only a part of the whole. We can resolve them, and by doing so will go on to new emotional states and new decisions and new action in our lives.