Hello Brave Friends! This is story episode #177. And it features one of the many powerful stories we feature in our first ever Brave Together book! It’s an anthology of stories shared courageously by our community of moms and it’s called Becoming Brave Together: heroic, extraordinary caregiving stories from mothers hidden in plain sight. It is out as of today! So go get yourself a copy!!! The link to find it is in the show notes. 

Today’s story is from the Becoming Brave Together anthology. It’s a story excerpt from Jessica Baer who brings us into the raw emotions she felt the day she gave birth in South Africa, to a son with Down Syndrome. Welcome to today's story episode: A Down Syndrome Diagnosis in South Africa 30 Years Ago

Jessica Baer was born and raised in South Africa and immigrated to the USA in 1995. She’s been a speech language pathologist for 36 years and is passionate about helping children to communicate. She is a certified Auditory Verbal Therapist and enjoys working with young deaf and hard of hearing children and their parents to facilitate listening and spoken language at home. Jessica loves to cook and eat healthy food, garden, bird watch and travel. She has a love for family, fashion and reality TV. 

Jessica has been a member of We are Brave Together for 4 years and wrote weekly Facebook posts titled Wesley Wednesday for 2 years for the group. Jessica was recently honored to take on the role of leader for the We are Brave Together South Bay Connection Circle. Jessica lives with her wife Toni and son Wesley in Lomita, Los Angeles, where they have a vegetable garden and an outdoor pond with four fish.

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Brave Together Podcast is a resource produced by We Are Brave Together, a global nonprofit that creates community for moms raising children with disabilities, neurodivergence, or complex medical and mental health conditions. The heart of We Are Brave Together is to preserve and protect the mental health of caregiving moms everywhere.

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