Our children had Down syndrome, seizure disorder, holes in the heart, premature birth, deafness, and cerebral palsy. I hated the repeat surgeries, but one mother wished her child had a condition that doctors could fix. I struggled with how to respond to strangers, but another
mother wanted her child’s condition to be visibly obvious so strangers would understand why
she wasn’t doing what other six month-old babies did..It was powerful to simply congregate
with other mothers whose babies had special needs, hear the variation in stories, see the
experience refracted through the crystal of multiple identities.