Beginning of the 31-for-21 Challenge 2015!

This is it!  The month of daily writing to raise awareness about Down syndrome is here!  In Canada, most people know what Down syndrome is; I like to think of my goal in participating in this monthly blogging challenge as taking 'raising awareness' to the next level.  My hope is that we are moving from knowing that Down syndrome exists and what it means, to respecting and accepting people with Down syndrome for who they are, and fully including people with Down syndrome into our society.  We are not there yet.

I began to build my understanding of Down syndrome just over three years ago, about 21 weeks into my pregnancy, when we discovered our daughter would be born with Trisomy 21 (aka Down syndrome) - characterized by a third copy of the 21st chromosome in each cell of her body,

I find the beginning of the 31-for-21 Challenge can be an emotional time for me, as memories of those early days come flooding back.  The first time I participated in the challenge I was mid-pregnancy with Elyse.  All that I couldn't have known then, but thankfully do know now.  How that knowledge and allowing acceptance to rule my life has forever changed the person I am for the better.

And I wonder:  what would have happened if Elyse had never been born?  She has brought so much joy and love into our lives.  Her being has illuminated all the possibilities, giving my life new meaning, purpose, passion, and the desire for change.  But her life has value in and of itself, without ever having changed me at all.  Elyse is who she is, and I respect her for that.

It is to her, my sweet little almost-three-year old Elyse, that I dedicate this challenge and each blog post to come over the next month (and into the first week of November).  It is for her, and my family, and for all of our families, that we should each examine our own lives, and see how we can make things just a tiny bit better.  Small steps can lead to big change.

I invite you all to join me on this writing path, on this journey over the next month, by reading in, telling a friend about the challenge, liking or sharing my blog posts on Facebook; or, if you can manage it, writing your own daily blog to help raise awareness about Ds - it doesn't have to be all about Down syndrome.  My daily posts most likely will not be.  The important piece is to get people taking and thinking about Down syndrome.  Thank you for reading!

Here we go!

Elyse leads the way