Here Comes the Sun
— Joelene Wand

Prior to receiving our son Jude’s diagnosis of Angelman syndrome last April, when he was just 16 months old, we beamed with pride that he was a social butterfly who brought joy to everyone he met. Jude’s cheerful personality has always drawn attention. Passersby, checkout cashiers, and waitresses often…

In September, my husband and I marked a year since my son Jude, then 9 months old, started early intervention therapy, the standard of treatment for managing speech, movement, and balance disorders in those living with Angelman syndrome. A doctor who’d been treating Jude for sleep…

At 11:12 a.m. on Christmas Eve last year, I sent a text. Our son, Jude, had just turned 1, and over the past four months we’d become increasingly worried that he wasn’t meeting his developmental milestones. He was a month away from being assessed for cerebral palsy (a common…

Nothing can prepare you for the beautiful and chaotic roller coaster of raising a child. For a brief moment, we felt as though the path we’d expected to follow went completely off course when we learned our one and only child would live a life of significant disadvantage. My name…