She Brings Joy

Family: 

While I have a rather large family, these two are the ones I am most responsible for. The big one mopes whenever a camera is nearby, so getting a real photo of him is a rarity these days. The little one can't get enough of a camera nearby, so getting a candid shot of her is a rarity. 

I hate the whole selfie thing. When I do selfie, I have to filter and cover and all sorts of stuff, so this is what you get.

When I look at photos of myself, now, I see the difference in my eyes. I see wariness and age. In this photo I can also see that bit of me which has become hard to hearing other people.

Her twisted feet.

Her paralysis below the waist.

The idea seemed to be that if doctors were wrong she was worth carrying- except even if doctors were right, she was still worth carrying and saving. 

We aren't promoting this idea when we say, "maybe they are wrong."

We are expressing we believe a baby misdiagnosed is preferable to one who has been affected. We are separating babies with anomalies from those without.

It doesn't matter.

Or it shouldn't.

But everyone knows it's only common sense for a mother to prefer a healthy baby over one who is ill. That's logical.

But it's not, if you truly believe conception is the beginning of life. If you believe each individual has purpose and fulfills it on a timetable set for them.

If you believe we may not understand everything which will happen in this world, but we know there is One who does- and He understands far more about why my daughter was malformed then I ever will.

It doesn't matter if this child was misdiagnosed or not. If this child would have had all of these issues -- she would still have been the child she was meant to be.

Diagnosis doesn't matter, because she was a human being. The decision to continue a pregnancy should be focused on the fact that a baby in the womb is a human being. Killing human beings is wrong.

Always.

That's what we should focus on. Not the incremental steps. Not trying to convince people through small tugs in the correct direction.

I read this today, "'We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."'

My daughter was more than a diagnosis, yet every time we toss one of these articles out in the world, we remove the humanity of the small life involved.






As for the accuracy of the original article: 

Because one of Beatrix's birth defects was an omphalocele, I am intimately acquainted with the workings of the fetal abdomen. 

At 10 weeks- when this woman claims a physician told her that her daughter's organs were positioned outside of her body, and this was a sign of a lethal disorder, it would be completely normal for a baby's intestines to be on the outside of the abdomen. It's part of fetal development. The growth of the intestines outpaces the growth of the abdomen, and for a few weeks early in the baby's life there is a point when they are outside of the abdomen. This lasts until the baby is about 12 weeks GA. A physician would expect to see what would later be called an abdominal wall defect in a 10 week old fetus. 

We need to be cautious about sharing emotional stories, without clear details. They do not work well as a testament to our integrity.