Road Map to Holland: How I Found My Way Through My Son's First Two Years with Down Symdrome

by Jennifer Graf Groneberg

Book Overview

An exceptional memoir that provides emotional insight and practical advice. It's like planning a trip to Italy, only to get off the plane and discover you're actually in Holland. You need a new road map, and fast... When Jennifer Groneberg and her husband learned they'd be having twin boys, their main concern was whether they'd need an addition on their house. Then, five days after Avery and Bennett were born, Avery was diagnosed with Down syndrome...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0451222954
• ISBN13: 9780451222954
• Release Date: April 2008
• Publisher: Berkley Books
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.3"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Must Have for New Parents

This is the book that all new parents (or those with a prenatal diagnosis) should be given. So many texts are full of scary facts and overwhelming information. Road Map to Holland is an honest and heartwarming look at the roller coaster of emotions that come with being a new parent to a child with Down Syndrome. It's a wonderful story of falling in love with your child and seeing past a diagnosis.

Beautifully written; an honest look into an extraordinary experience

I received this book yesterday afternoon and finished it today. What can I say--I was completely and utterly entranced by the honesty and realness of what I read. Having a child with DS too, I could feel her pain, feel her raw emotion, feel her fear. But as I turned each page, I felt myself being forgiven along with her, and it's been a long time since I've felt so much relief and joy. Thank you Jennifer for sharing your story and your experiences with Avery. May you someday know how much grace and dignity you've brought to my own outlook on my future with my son. God bless you and your wonderful family.

Stunning

If you are an expectant mother of a child diagnosed with Down syndrome, or the new mother of a newly diagnosed child, or a friend or a family member, get your hands on a copy of this book. You will find no better guide to your journey than Groneberg, who is a gifted writer: honest, loving, self-aware and simply the finest company a reader could ask for.

An incredible journey...don't get left behind!

It is almost impossible to give fitting praise for this superb book by Jennifer Graf Groneberg. I don't know where to start. Groneberg has been blessed with the rarest of gifts as a writer: She is a brilliant wordsmith, an accomplishment in and of itself; yet she is also so beautifully human in her story telling. She is strong, vulnerable, scared, hopeful, flawed, honest, loving, doubtful, humble, and confident. She is all of us. We are with her in the NICU, as she receives the news that her middle son has been diagnosed with Down syndrome, at home with her as she adjusts to her new future, in the lake with her as she imagines that "nothing good" will come her way again (she of course proves herself gloriously wrong), at Avery's physical therapy appointments where her heart breaks and rejoices at the same time as she observes how extra hard her toddler son must work for the smallest of victories. She is not above sharing with us that among some of the unwelcome comments and feelings offered by strangers about her son are also some of her own. She exposes herself so honestly; the lows as eloquently described as the highs. Her style is spare but not simple, without an ounce of pretension or preachiness. You will finish the story with joy and hope in your heart, and a deep sense of admiration and love for this family who, at the end of the day, isn't so different from yours or mine. Don't pass up this ticket. Groneberg has invited us along for this extraordinary part of her journey, and I can only hope that there will be many more stops in the future where we can climb aboard and join her.

Stellar!

This book was just stunning! Jennifer has a way of infusing the reader into her life. I felt like I was there, experiencing it with her. She lays it all bare, herself, her perceived faults and how she dealt with the premature birth of her twins and Down syndrome diagnosis of Avery. What comes across is a very spiritually put together person, a woman who truly knows what matters most at the end of the day. This book is a gift to the world.