Day 1 Giveaway: Gifts

The first of the 21 Days of Giveaways is a book that is near and dear to my heart.

In 2006 (goodness has it been 6 yrs already?!) I had the opportunity to submit a story for the book Gifts: Mothers Reflect on how Children with Down Syndrome Enrich Their Lives. It is a compilation of stories mothers submitted on the topics pertaining to Gifts Of: Respect, Strength, Delight, Perspective, and Love.

My story, Birthday Guilt, is in the Gift of Love section and it based on this post I wrote as Kayla's 3rd birthday was approaching.

Each story is accompanied by a black and white photo of the subject of that story. A photo slideshow was made to incorporate all the photographs and is set to a song with such beautiful lyrics. (How could anyone ever tell you, you are anything less than beautiful... by Libby Roderick) Kayla's picture shows up at :44.


I'm pretty sure I would have appreciated having this book after Kayla was born; it would have been a nice resource for support...just to put a human facet on the diagnosis to counter all the medical information you're given. It would have been comforting to read all these different stories on love and acceptance and the journey that families were on. I'm sure it would have made me feel less alone.

This book was so successful that Gifts: Volume II was written. This second book includes stories written by family members, friends, and professionals. The chapters are based on Acceptance, Courage, Friendship, Awareness, and Joy.

There will be 2 winners for this drawing - one for each book.

This is my first time using Rafflecopter.com for the giveaways, so crossing my fingers that I've got this figured this out!

After you leave a comment please click on the +1 Do It button on the Rafflecopter Widget (just below) for your entry to be counted. I'm keeping track of all entries on the Rafflecopter site. If you select the option to Tweet about it, once you click on that just click on the Twitter logo and it will automatically pop up with the pre-written Tweet to send.

(Refer back to 21 Days of Giveaways throughout the month to see all of the giveaways.)

a Rafflecopter giveaway