Year My Son and I Were Born: A Story of Down Syndrome, Motherhood, and Self-Discovery

Kathryn Soper

Apr 2010 · Rowman & Littlefield

About this ebook

A brutally honest yet beautiful journey of how one mother learned to bond with her disabled son and gained a new perspective on life.

About the author

Kathryn Lynard Soper is the author of Gifts: Mothers Reflect on How Children with Down Syndrome Enrich Their Lives (Woodbine House, 2007), which has sold 12,000+ copies since publication. She is the president of The Segullah Group—a nonprofit organization that produces personal writings for a variety of outlets. She is also a coordinator of the Gifts Outreach program, where resources relating to Down syndrome are heavily promoted, and she is a public speaker for the National Down Syndrome Congress and the Down Syndrome Association of Atlanta.

Patricia E. Bauer is a journalist who has served as senior editor of the Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine; special assistant to the publisher of the Washington Post; reporter and bureau chief at the Washington Post, and pundit on public affairs television in Los Angeles. Her articles have appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and many other publications.

Bauer is a former member of an Institutional Review Board (IRB) at UCLA, where she participated in the ethical review of federally funded medical research on human subjects, and has addressed national and regional conferences on the rights of patients and people with disabilities. During the Carter years, she worked in the White House press office as editor of the White House News Summary.

She is a member of the President's Leadership Council at Dartmouth College, the Pacific Council on International Policy, and the board of trustees of the Riverview School in East Sandwich, Massachusetts.

Bauer and her husband are among the founders of the Pathway Program at UCLA, a post-secondary program for young adults with intellectual disabilities. They are the parents of two young adults, one of whom has Down syndrome and is a survivor of leukemia.