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This is a book about a mother's experience adopting and bringing up a child with Down syndrome.
In 1986, Martha
Lev-Zion, a single woman in her 40s, heard about a TV documentary
regarding 22 children with severe birth defects who had been abandoned
by their birth parents in Israeli hospitals. Martha applied for one of
those babies, but was told that of the 65 applications received, hers
would be the last one considered. In the end, with only one baby
remaining, Martha took into her care a 14-month-old girl with Down
syndrome. This book relates the amazing journey of Martha's life
raising her daughter Tamar.
Interwoven with her
experiences fighting Israeli governmental authorities, school systems,
the birth family, and even the U.S. government, is her commitment to
bring up her daughter as normally as possible, and the incredible
accomplishments her daughter was able to achieve.
When she was 14 months
old, Tamar was tested and found to have an IQ of between 45-60. Today
she is a young woman of 21, living independently, with a job as an
assistant secretary at a university. She still has some of the
characteristics of a person with Down syndrome, but Martha’s
commitment to maximize Tamar’s potential is something Martha
feels any parent should do in rearing ANY child.
6" x 9" 208 pp. softcover $19.95
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Read sample from book
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Excerpts from book
“I was determined to make this a success and to give it all I
could so that this child, who had been abandoned since the day of her
birth fourteen months earlier, would know that she was loved, would
learn to be as independent as she possibly could, and would live up to
whatever potential she had inside her.”
“Every second of
Tamar’s wakeful hours was spent in stimulation. We didn’t
go down the stairs without counting the steps; I pointed out every leaf
form, color, texture; we smelled flowers and trees; we looked at soft
earth and cement; we looked at angles and shapes of every single thing;
we spotted different birds and listened to their various chirping
patterns…”
“He held it up in front of my
eyes and I read: the United States of America is not required to allow
visas to the following categories of applicants—ex-convicts, dope
addicts, or the mentally retarded.”
“Other parents, seeing Tamar
as she progressed, insisted that she was exceptional, and that their
children never could do as well as she. I am convinced that it is this
very attitude that hobbled their children. If you expect nothing, you
get nothing.”
“I bless the day that Tamar’s abandonment led to my taking Tamar.”
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