This is the Shameless Mom Academy, episode 58.

Welcome to the Shameless Mom Academy. I'm your host, Sarah Dean, and I'm here to give you

and other passionate, dedicated moms the tools you need to bridge the gap between motherhood

and living the life of your dreams. I'm also here to help you be a little more shameless every day

because if you aren't building a life you're extraordinarily proud of, what kind of legacy are you

building? So let's dive in. On today's episode, I'm talking with Amy Blair. Amy is a former

elementary schoolteacher who is currently a stay-at-home mom of three unique girls. She lives in Connecticut with her husband Jason and daughters Julia, age seven, Angelina, age five, and Sonia, age two. Her oldest daughter, Julia, is a friendly, imaginative little girl who likes to play, read, dance, eat pizza, and also happens to have Down Syndrome. Amy and her husband first received Julia's

diagnosis when they were 13 weeks pregnant. Amy worked hard to be an advocate for her daughter

and for all members of the Down syndrome community. She's particularly passionate about reaching

out to expecting mothers who are experiencing the emotional rollercoaster of prenatal diagnosis.

Amy sent me an email a while ago, complimenting me on the

podcast and saying all sorts of nice things, and then also just mentioning that maybe sometime I could

do an episode on a family who has a child with special needs or where the parents received a diagnosis

prenatally, as that was Amy's situation. She didn't really share much about herself

in the email, just kind of a suggestion of this might be an interesting topic. And I sensed that

maybe she had a story to tell. So we corresponded a little bit more and I asked her if she would share

her story and she agreed. And so we sat down and did this interview and Amy was so lovely and

graceful sharing her story

and sharing just some of the most emotional challenges of her life, I'm sure, but definitely

of her pregnancy and learning about Julia's diagnosis early in her pregnancy, what that was

like, what the doctor's recommendation was, the first doctor that told her something was not right in her pregnancy, what that was like, what the doctor's recommendation was, the first doctor that

told her something was not right in her pregnancy, immediately suggested terminating the pregnancy,

...