(Note: I got this note after yesterday’s Hope for Henry Superhero Party at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore.)

Dear Laurie and Julie,

On behalf of the pediatric patients and staff of Sinai Hospital, we would like to thank you again and again and again for the wonderful Hope for Henry Super Hero Party that you held today for the children. It was such an incredible success!  The patients ranged in age from 18 months to 20 years, and we can truly say that everyone had a great time. Not only did the patients enjoy it but so did the staff.  We think that it was because you are such wonderful people with whom to work.

Please keep up the great work.  What you are doing through the Hope for Henry Organization is truly making a difference in the lives of many children and their families. You really are bringing a lot of hope and joy into this world. You are truly our idea of what real super heroes are meant to be!

Sincerely,

Laura Cohen, CCLS

Kristen Mylotte, CCLS

This piece ran today in the Jewish Daily Forward.

By Laurie Strongin

Ten years ago, the first-ever bone-marrow transplant was performed using the umbilical cord blood of a baby deliberately selected and implanted through a combination of in-vitro fertilization and genetic testing to save the life of his older sibling.

The embryo-screening procedure known as pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD, had previously been used to enable parents who were carriers of deadly childhood diseases like Tay-Sachs to knowingly get pregnant with healthy babies. But the birth of Adam Nash in August 2000 marked the first time that the procedure was used to produce a disease-free baby who would also be a perfect bone-marrow donor. Adam saved his sister Molly’s life through the risk- and pain-free donation of stem cells from his umbilical cord, which would otherwise have been discarded as medical waste.

Reaction to the news of the first so-called “savior sibling” was swift and wide-ranging. Doctors, bioethicists and religious leaders, as well as families facing the premature death of their young children, voiced opinions ranging from enthusiastic support for this life-saving medical breakthrough, to concern over the potential for its abuse, to calls for it to be banned. Mine was among the voices of support. But it wasn’t the first time I had advocated for PGD.

My son Henry was born with a rare, inherited Jewish genetic disease, Fanconi anemia, which neither my husband, Allen Goldberg, nor I had ever heard of before. Among the first things we learned about FA was that it had the impossible-to-accept label “fatal.” The only hope for Henry was a bone-marrow transplant, which he was expected to need before he reached kindergarten. In 1995, when Henry was born and diagnosed with FA, transplant survival rates were dismal. In fact, no one with Henry’s type of FA — the type that occurs in the Ashkenazi Jewish community — had ever survived a transplant without a perfectly matched sibling donor.

Henry’s diagnosis was a shock. Like many Ashkenazi Jews, Allen and I underwent genetic testing prior to getting married to determine whether or not we were carriers of Tay-Sachs. We both tested negative. Since neither of us had any history of genetic disease in our families, we were unconcerned about passing along anything deadly to our children.

But that is exactly what we had done. We had unknowingly given FA to Henry at the same time we gave him brown hair, brown eyes and the absolute cutest dimples I had ever seen. Because Allen and I were both carriers, we had a 25% chance with each pregnancy that we would pass along the same death sentence. We wanted to have several children, but Fanconi anemia made family planning about a whole lot more than love and sex. All of a sudden, it was a complex puzzle of genes, statistical probability, prenatal testing and life-or-death decisions. It wasn’t just about creating life, but about avoiding certain death. Keep Reading

(Note: For context, please read the blog post from August 1 and August 4, 2010 first.)

On March 2, 2010, my book hit the shelves in bookstores around the country. Friends in a variety of cities did what friends do. They took, and emailed me, photos of my book in DC, Maryland, Virginia, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles. You get the picture. That night, I had a beautiful book launch event at the Motion Picture Association of America in my hometown of Washington, DC. Within days, I had the incredible good fortune to appear on Good Morning America with George Stephanopoulos. Within days of that, The Washington Post ran a two-page spread on Saving Henry in its “Style” section. I was on The Bob Edwards Show, The Diane Rehm Show, USA Today, and many more outlets. My book was selling. I was busy. My high hopes and perhaps higher expectations were being met. I forgot all about the message I did or didn’t get on February 28 when I dared ask Browseabout Books if they had ordered a shipment of my book. Until…

On Sunday, March 21, at 16:26:31 EST, I got an incoming email from my sister Abby. I happened to be at a rest stop on 95 South, on my way home from a special book party that had taken place earlier that day at the home of my friend Lisa Belkin. I opened the email as my sister had noted that it was important. Not urgent, but important nonetheless. The email was short and to the point, “this is a photo of laurie’s book front and center at browseabout books in rehoboth!!! Attached to the email was a photo of Saving Henry, front and center at Browseabout Books. There was a red piece of paper taped above the book which read, “A story of hope and love. Part of this story takes place in Rehoboth Beach.”

My husband Allen responded to the email, not by immediately writing back to Abby, but rather by picking up the phone and calling Browseabout to see if they would be willing to invite me for a book signing later in the summer. Which brings me to Saturday, June 19, also known as later in the summer.

(Note: For context, please read the blog post from August 1, 2010 first.)

I paid for Jack’s and my books at Browseabout. We headed toward the door. I hesitated. I turned around and walked back to the register. I feigned interest in the HEXBUG, a cool, new toy bug that crawls all over the place. I actually got interested in the HEXBUG. The book seller asked me if I’d ever seen them before. I told her I hadn’t. I started to turn away to leave but before I committed to walking toward the door, I turned toward her and asked if they were expecting copies of Saving Henry. The book seller checked her computer. I held my breath. She clicked buttons. I continued to hold my breath. She nodded. I took a breath because I had to. She explained, “I don’t see that we have any coming in, but I’m happy to order one for you.” “That’s OK,” I replied as I slowly walked toward the door in search of Jack, whose beautiful smile was sure to wipe away my disappointment in a flash. The Candy Kitchen red licorice bites I had purchased for my dining pleasure on the road trip home didn’t hurt either.