Aggregated News

For George Estreich, the decision to write a book about his daughter, Laura, and her diagnosis of Down syndrome came naturally.

A college writing professor and former poet, Estreich started documenting his life with Laura in 2001, when she was 3 ½ months old, shortly after she had undergone heart surgery.

This month, he released his book “The Shape of the Eye,” in which he aims to change the negative connotations associated with Down syndrome. When Estreich looks at Laura’s face, he doesn’t see her disability, he sees his lovely daughter – and wants others to see the same thing.

Laura wasn’t diagnosed with Down syndrome until she was 2-weeks-old. At the time of her birth, doctors noticed that she had almond-shaped eyes, which are often a characteristic of Down syndrome. But Estreich brushed off their concerns, attributing the feature to his  Japanese ancestry. Still, doctors wanted “peace of mind.”

“For those first two weeks, we just didn’t know,” Estreich, 48, told FoxNews.com. “We were just waiting for the results.”

Estreich, and his wife Theresa, had an older daughter, Ellie...