KIDS is co-sponsoring a Conference

Council on Poor Prenatal Diagnoses

& Therapeutic Intervention

Founding Partners:

Medical Students for Life, Family Research Council,

Keep Infants with Down Syndrome & Jérôme Lejeune Foundation USA

First Annual

Conference on Medical Advances in Prenatal Diagnoses

Saturday, January 21, 8:30 am – 5 pm

Family Research Council, 801 G Street, NW , Washington DC

Register at http://www.frc.org/events or watch webcast @www.frc.org

 Presenters include:

Alberto Costa, MD, Ph.D.

Byron Calhoun, MD

John Bruchalski, MD

David Prentice, Ph.D.

Gerard Nadal, Ph.D.

The Conference will bring together professionals from many different specialty areas, including genetic researchers, ob/gyn physicians, developmental pediatricians, hospital nursing staff, medical genetic counselors and medical students.  Other invited participants and guests include peer ministry providers, social service support professionals, advocates for persons with disabilities and public policy specialists. 

The goals of the Conference are:

·       affirm the life and dignity of all persons, especially those diagnosed prenatally with a disability or lethal condition

·       review how information about prenatal diagnoses of disability or lethal condition is currently delivered

·       consider how this information might be delivered more comprehensively

·       consider the impact of a new blood test for Down syndrome in obstetric care

·       explain the work of the Council and its year-long engagement on prenatal diagnosis issues

·       review best practices for postnatal care of infants with disabilities in perinatal hospice and in hospital, home and medical daycare settings

An agenda for the day will be available soon. Our host for the day, the Family Research Council (FRC), has limited space, so this first Conference is by invitation only.  However, FRC will be webcasting all general sessions that day, which can be viewed viawww.frc.org.  For more information, contact Jeanne Monahan at Family Research Council, jfm@frc.org ( 202- 225-4008) or Peg Kolm, at mkolm@adw.org (240-994-0603).  We welcome your interest and expertise in this effort, and hope you can join us on January 21.

Fourth Annual KIDS Event at March for Life

We are excited to announce plans for the fourth annual KIDS event at the 2012 March for Life in Washington, DC! Once again, we will be meeting at the headquarters of the National Right to Life Committee, just a few blocks from the start of the March. See details at the end of this note for time and location.

We are honored to have Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgersas our special guest for the third year in a row. Cathy is from the state of Washington and has a 4-year-old son, Cole, with Down syndrome. She is a champion for children with special needs in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Participating in the March for Life is like nothing that can be expressed in words; it just has to be experienced! Seeing and being part of the sea of pro-lifers that swarm up Constitution Avenue is so inspiring. Last year it occurred to me that out of all the thousands and thousands of different organizations, parishes, faith communities, high schools, colleges, and pro-life groups that have a presence at the March, our KIDS group may be one of the only, if not the only, group to represent a class of people who are specifically targeted for abortion--those precious unborn babies with Down syndrome.
Now that the new prenatal maternal blood test, MaterniT21, is out on the market, making it even easier to detect Down syndrome earlier in pregnancy, it is even more important for families (and friends) of children with Down syndrome to come together and have a presence at the March for Life, to show the world what a blessing our children (young and adult) are. Please, please, come if you are able! It can be overwhelming to think about driving or taking the Metro into DC with your children, but really, I think sometimes the anticipation of doing it is more overwhelming than actually doing it. If your children are not up walking the entire March, you can do just part of it. But we would so love to see you at the KIDS event!

Here are the details:
Date: Monday, January 23rd
Time: 10:30 - Noon
Location: National Right to Life Committee, 512 10th Avenue, NW, Washington, DC

Special Guest: Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who will arrive at 11:00 a.m.

The National Right to Life Committee generously invites us to use space in their offices and also provides sandwiches and refreshments. So you can have a nice lunch to give you energy for the March! Thank you NRLC!

Please spread the word to anyone you know who has a family member with Down syndrome, or anyone who has a heart for individuals with Down syndrome. If there is another Down syndrome group who will be participating, we invite them to join us. We hope to see you in a few weeks! (It would be helpful to let us know if you are coming, just so we can get an estimate of how many to expect. Also, we would like to give more details (cell phone numbers, parking directions, etc.))

Eileen and Leticia

http://keepinfantswithdownsyndrome.blogspot.com/

Here's my post from last year's event.

The Perfect Storm now faces those with Down syndrome

My eloquent friend and co-founder of KIDS, Keep Infants with Down Syndrome  Eileen Haupt has really nailed it on this opinion piece for the Burlington Free Press.
Here's the heart of her piece;

There has never been a better time -- in the history of mankind -- for babies with Down syndrome to be born. There is better recognition of their potential, greater knowledge about this genetic condition, supportive laws, inclusion in schools, exciting new research that may lead to treatments for cognitive challenges, and in general, more understanding. In particular, advanced medical technology has significantly improved the quality and longevity of their lives.
But it seems advanced medical technology is a double-edged sword. For it has also enabled the development of more-accurate methods of prenatal testing to diagnose babies while still in the womb, thereby making them targets for abortion. Dr. Brian Skotko of Children's Hospital in Boston estimates that a shocking 92 percent of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome in utero are aborted.

Why is the moment just BEFORE we are about to have a scientific breakthrough in treatment for the cognitive delays of Down syndrome, are we also preparing to "eradicate the disease"? Are we deliberately turning a blind eye to science or so determined to form "the perfect race" that we don't care if things have never been better for those with extra chromosomes.
It makes me very sad and angry this Culture of Death. Oh Lord, we stand in need of Your grace!

KIDS in the March for Life

Gabbi, Bella and Christina arrive at the Mall. 

The event after my EWTN interview with Teresa Tomeo (one of our group recorded it and posted it on Facebook, you can view it here) went very well, thanks be to God.

The EWTN area where Leticia filmed her KIDS interview. 

Leticia discussing Dr Lejeune with Valerie Guilloux and Rep McMorris Rogers. 

Gabbi filming the presentation of "Life is a Blessing"

 I came in ten minutes late, huffing and puffing, after having walked rapidly the entire 9 blocks between the EWTN interview location and the National Right to Life Headquarters, but I was thrilled to introduce Rep McMorrisRogers to Valerie Guilloux of the Lejeune Foundation. she presented the Congresswoman with a copy of "Life is a Blessing", some brochures and a press kit. I hope that this is the beginning of a fruitful relationship between the founder of the Congressional Down Syndrome Caucus and the Jerome Lejeune Foundation in the US. 



The KIDS marchers with Rep McMorris Rogers
We videotaped the entire event, and will be producing a short documentary on the KIDS participation in the March, so you can see it and share it with that big homeschooling group when its done. I would love to meet Dr Bruchalski after my back is recovered. My doctor, Dr Judith Mascolo, who was with me in the interview has put me on travel restrictions for three months. She said my back is completely stress related! Wonder where she got that idea?!

 After Rep McMorris Rogers left, I had some down time to eat and chat with Valerie Guilloux. She and her husband, Jean-Marc, are the contact people for the Jerome Lejeune Foundation in the USA. 

Eddie Sloan on dad Neil's shoulder. 

 By the time we marched, we were only Dr Judtih Mascolo, and her two daughters, Neil and Melissa Sloan and their two kids, and me and my three girls, and one of Gabbi's college friends. The six young men from Catholic University's branch of the Order of Alhambra (Catholic fraternal order which cares for the intellectually disabled) had begun to march already. My Christina refused to join the March as it was too noisy and congested, so we walked on the sidewalk alongside, with me coaxing her block by block. I miss the days she used a stroller!

Rep Cathy McMorris Rogers (center) with Leticia and family.

We didn't want to get stuck in the bottleneck in front of the Supreme Court, so, after interviewing the Neil and Melissa Sloan for the documentary, and meeting Monica, a contributor to my book A Special Mother is Born, we filmed a few minutes of the thousands of young marchers surging up Capitol Hill,  we headed for the Hyatt, and met many old friends and new ones. I got to chat with recent convert to the pro-life cause and the Catholic Church, and author of "Unplanned", Abby Johnson, and her husband. He shared how happy he was when his wife left her job at Planned Parenthood, and she shared how it was the loving, prayerful pro-life protesters who touched her heart. "The harsh ones, carrying bloody signs only hardened my resolve to keep doing what I was doing," she said. 

 I was able to tell  Terri Schiavo's mom Mary. Schindler how sorry I was for the loss of her beloved daughter and husband, Robert, who died this year, and how, as the mother of a special needs child, her daughter's murder was personal to me. I told her how we made a three foot by 12 foot sign saying "Save Terri" and held it on the Supreme Court steps while praying the rosary in her final days. Mary was moved by this, and came over to meet Christina.

We also met our friend, Good Counsel Homes Director Chris Bell and his sister-in-laws who wrote "The Caterpillar who Went to Church": series. I told them how their book was instrumental in helping me catechized Christina regarding the Blessed Sacrament, preparing her for her First Holy Communion, and Susan Brindle gave me a book which compiles all there sacrament stories into one. The Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, who run Morningstar Camp and the Franciscans of the Immaculate from Airmaria were also with us. Such saints among us!

Then, completely exhausted, we took the Metro to our hotel. The Metro was thick with priests and leftover marchers, and two lovely Virgina gentlemen gave up their seats for my young daughters. Southern hospitality at its best!

 The girls went out with Judy for pizza near the hotel which was buzzing with fraternity and sorority events (we were on the campus of George Washington University) I remained behind in the hotel with Christina, with a cold compress on my swollen feet, on my bed, trying to relax a back strung tighter than a violin, while trying in vain to find news coverage of the March on TV. Maybe that wasn't the most relaxing thing to do!

The next morning, we got a mistaken wake-up call at 7AM, tried to shower with limited hot water (the hotel had a boiler crisis) and at 9:40 got on the road. We picked up our camera equipment at National Right to Life Committee Headquarters, and some coffee, and made our last DC stop at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, where a new president was being installed in a Mass. The girls toured the Basilica while I interviewed (by phone) Fr Gary Thomas on whose experience the new film "The Rite" is based. See the interview here. 

We installed new windshield wipers on the van since my husband advised us we were heading towards snowstorms up north, and Gabbi my 18 year old was driving  ecause of my back spasms. I am in awe of her steady nerves, and common sense. Near the end of our trip, my back was feeling better and I offered to drive, however she insisted, saying, "I want to say I drove the entire journey in both directions".

Leticia and Abby Johnson, author of "Unplanned"

She did it, however we were disheartened that we arrived at the Charter TV studio too late to tape an interview on the March, because of our many stops. 

We promised to do a show for "The Face of Pro-life" next month, including our film clips. We will be sharing links to it here. 

It was a fruitful and blessed trip to the March for Life. 

Leticia, Friar Roderic Burke, FI, and Good Counsel Homes Chris Bell. 

Mary Schindler, Leticia and Christina

My EWTN interview will be aired tomorrow at 4:30

I was interviewed with KIDS member Dr Judith Mascolo
by Teresa Tomeo as part of the live EWTN coverage of the March for Life on Saturday, January 29 at 2PM.
Our interview, which was very brief, was done immediately after the Verizon Center Mass. I estimate that it will be aired between 4:30 and 5PM EST tomorrow, Saturday Jan 29.

Go here to watch EWTN on your computer if you do not have the channel on TV.

KIDS events in DC on January 24, the March for Life

Agenda for National Right to Life Committee Headquarters at 512 10th Street, Washington DC

• 10:45 - Melissa and Neil Sloan will be at NRLC by 10:45 to greet KIDS families.
• 11:00  KIDS families may start arriving. at 512 10th St, NW Washington, DC
• 11:00-11:30 - Leticia is meeting EWTN for an interview behind the stage of the March for Life at the Mall and 4th Street. 
• ALL KIDS members are welcome to join us and hold signs for the interview. 
•  Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers will arrive at 12:15  for a brief update on her work on behalf of our children
• Madame Valerie Guilloux of the Jerome Lejeune Foundation will address the group and present Congresswoman McMorris Rogers with a copy of "Life is a Blessing".
• After a brief brunch, KIDS families will march!

KIDS will be marching in the March for Life this year!

Let us know if you'll be joining us, and spread the word.
 Eileen Haupt: 802-899-4882
Leticia Velasquez: 860-336-1835

FAMILES WHO HAVE CHILDREN WITH DOWN SYNDROME
TO MARCH TOGETHER IN THE 2011 MARCH FOR LIFE in D.C.
TO RAISE AWARENESS ABOUT THE HIGH INCIDENCE OF ABORTING
BABIES WITH DOWN SYNDROME

KIDS (Keep Infants with Down Syndrome), a group comprised of families who have children with Down syndrome, will meet for the third year in a row and walk together in the 2011 March for Life in Washington, D.C.

DATE & TIME: Monday, January 24, 2011, 11:00 a.m. to Noon

LOCATION: National Right to Life Committee, 512 10th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C.

PURPOSE: Meet for refreshments prior to walking together in the 2011 March for Life

This event is open to individuals with Down syndrome and their families and friends.

KIDS aims to raise awareness about the tragic 90% abortion rate of babies prenatally diagnosed with Down syndrome, to challenge the misinformation that often leads mothers to abort their babies with Down syndrome, and to proclaim the joy their children bring to their families and communities!

Through the generosity of the National Right to Life Committee, we have a convenient location to congregate, just blocks from the start of the march, and sandwiches and refreshments to enjoy before we join the march.

For more information please contact Eileen Haupt or Leticia Velasquez.

Eileen Haupt Leticia Velasquez

802-899-4882 860-336-1835

vteileen@comcast.net marysjoys@yahoo.com

More photos from St Louis

With Eileen and I it was truly a case of "meet me in St Louis", as we came from Vermont and Connecticut to meet in the middle of the country. We traveled in different planes amidst dire storm warnings and managed, thanks to the prayers of our friends, to meet in plenty of time to collect our thoughts and prayers, and do a good job on the interview.
We'll let you know when it airs next spring.

In St Louis filming "Faith and Culture" interview

Eileen Haupt and I were invited by Colleen Carroll Campbell, the host of "Faith and Culture" on EWTN to do an interview about KIDS Keep Infants with Down Syndrome. Here are some photos taken the Cardinal Rigali Residence in St Louis during the filming. Colleen gave us a warm welcome, and made the interview seem effortless, despite the fact that she is a nursing mother of twin babies; whom we met after the taping.

 I gave Colleen a copy of Michelle Buckman's compelling novel, "The Death Panels" , and we got into a discussion about the March for Life. The producer invited us to stop by the EWTN tent at the March for Life this January 24, to be interviewed by Teresa Tomeo about KIDS. Look for us in their live coverage of the March. Our "Faith and Culture"  episode will be aired sometime around Easter.

We passed a portrait of Cardinal designate Ramond Burke who presided over the Archdiocese of St Louis until his appointment to the Vatican.

We said a rosary of the Mysteries of Light in thanksgiving in the breathtaking chapel.

 We celebrated afterward by touring downtown St Louis to see the magnificent 'new' Cathedral, which is not a Basilica, and the the Mississippi River and the Gateway Arch.
The National Park Service has a fascinating museum about the Lewis and Clark expedition. Lewis and Clark passed St Louis while exploring the Louisiana Purchase.

KIDS at the March for Life 2010

Here is a link to my  latest inteview on "The Face of Pro-life" television show.
I discussed my experience in Washington DC as an advocate for children with Down synrome, as co-founder of KIDS (Keep Infants with Down Syndrome).

Meet me at the March for Life

My group Keep Infants with Down Syndrome will be hosting a reception with Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rogers (R-WA) who is on the Congressional Down Syndrome Caucus
at 10:30 AM at:



National Right to Life Headquarters
512 10th Street, NW
Washington DC 20004

(202)626-8800

At noon, after an hour's worth of inspirational speeches, free refreshements and fellowship, we will take up our signs, don our signature blue and yellow scarves and take KIDS to the streets. We will join the March for Life, a short walk from NRTL headquarters, and march together in solidarity for the unborn child with Downs yndrome 90%of whom are being denied life through abortion.
Join us!

KIDS is on the March again!

FAMILES WHO HAVE CHILDREN WITH DOWN SYNDROME

TO MARCH TOGETHER IN THE 2010 MARCH FOR LIFE in D.C.TO RAISE AWARENESS ABOUT THE HIGH INCIDENCE OF ABORTING BABIES WITH DOWN SYNDROME

KIDS (Keep Infants with Down Syndrome), a group of families who have children with Down syndrome, will meet for the second year in a row and walk together in the 2010 March for Life in Washington, D.C.
KIDS wants to raise awareness about the 90% abortion rate of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome, to challenge the misinformation that often leads mothers to abort their babies with Down syndrome, and to proclaim the joy their children bring to their families and communities.
DATE & TIME: Friday, January 22, 2009, 11:00 a.m. to Noon

LOCATION: National Right to Life Committee, 512 10th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C.
Meet for refreshments prior to walking together in the 2010 March for Life

This event is open to individuals with Down syndrome and their families and friends.
For more information please contact Eileen Haupt or Leticia Velasquez.

Eileen Haupt
vteileen@comcast.net
Leticia Velasquez
marysjoys@yahoo.com

Welcome "The Face of Pro-life" Viewers

Last night, on the live program of "The Face of Pro-life" I discussed the warm reception KIDS received in Washington, DC at the March for Life, meeting with Sen Sam Brownback and Rep Cathy McMorris Rogers, and our thoughts on where we might serve our children from here. We had several callers who wanted to know where parents expecting children with Down syndrome could find support, and I made reference to my friend Monica Rafie's website
Be Not Afraid. I also told viewers that the links on the sidebar of this site offered resources and blogs of families who had positive stories to share about life with Down syndrome.
So, if you saw me on "The Face of Pro-life" welcome and please don't be a stranger! Drop me a comment below and make my day.
I'll keep you posted about the amazing reaction Eileen Haupt and are finding as KIDS is becoming known out there. Only God knows where this will lead us, but we are 'riding the wave of the Holy Spirit' open to whatever comes.

KIDS at the March for Life

A preview of my coverage of the March is at Causa Nostrae Laetitiae including a dozen members of the group Youth with a Mission who were with us. They posted their photos here.