(Photo: Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
It was perhaps the last thing Carissa Thilgen had expected — to learn the child she was carrying inside her would be born with Down syndrome. Then she found Down Syndrome Connection of the Bay Area and its support group, Early Connections.
“My husband and I felt the gamut of emotions in the wake of our prenatal diagnosis,” she says. “Walking into that first support group meeting, admittedly I had my stomach in knots. I was nervous about what I’d see, what I’d hear and how I’d feel about it all. The unknown can be frightening.”
But Thilgen says their fears “melted away” as they listened to other parents share their experiences and watched their adorable children laugh and play. Their fragile hearts, she says, were buoyed.
