N is for National Down Syndrome Adoption Network

The National Down Syndrome Adoption Network (NDSAN) is a great resource for parents who have just received a diagnosis of Down syndrome and are making a decision whether to parent their child or place their child for adoption. Many times after receiving the diagnosis it is thought that the parents will immediately decide to end their pregnancy but they aren't told about the option of adoption - and adoption is a very real and valid option.

For years I've heard that there is a waiting list of hundreds of parents who want to adopt a child with Down syndrome but are left waiting because either a) more parents are ending the pregnancy and/or b) more parents are deciding to parent their child with Down syndrome. I've often repeated that

Stephanie Thompson is the director of the NDSAN and in a recent Q&A on the blog Ni Hao Y'all she clears up the oft-repeated and common misconception of a 'waiting list of families.'

Read the blog for the full details, but basically what they have is a registry of families who are home-study ready for adoption. The hope is to have 4 such families for every state and this they do not have.

I was surprised to see 18 states, plus D.C. don't have any families in the registry and many states have less than four families registered.

Learn more about the NDSAN and what they do here.

N is also for the #neveralone campaign from Lettercase; where the goal is to make sure expectant parents are #neveralone after receiving a Down syndrome diagnosis.

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