{"id":79,"date":"2014-10-02T22:07:20","date_gmt":"2014-10-03T03:07:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bound4lifestl.org\/wp\/?page_id=79"},"modified":"2014-10-02T23:15:41","modified_gmt":"2014-10-03T04:15:41","slug":"blog-news","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bound4lifestl.org\/?page_id=79","title":{"rendered":"Blog & News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every Life is beautiful.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today I got to hold 2 babies.\u00a0 One of them was so tiny she looked like one of my daughter\u2019s baby dolls.\u00a0 She has the sweetest nose, and she kept cracking these little smiles.\u00a0 Her twin brother was equally adorable.\u00a0 These babies are even more special because of a diagnosis made in utero for one of them.\u00a0 You see, this sweet baby girl was diagnosed in the womb with trisomy 18.\u00a0 At the time a selective abortion was presented to the parents.\u00a0 Many babies with Trisomy 18 don\u2019t live long on this earth.\u00a0 In this case the parents chose life for their baby girl.\u00a0 The pregnancy and birth were full of uncertainty.\u00a0 No know knew how long her life would be, or even if she would be born alive.<\/p>\n

I went to the store to pick up a gift for the babies and it was the hardest baby gift I have ever bought.\u00a0 How do you give a gift to the parents of a tiny baby when no one is sure how long she will be here on this earth?\u00a0 What kind of gift is appropriate in this situation?\u00a0 How do you honor her life and her brother\u2019s without seeming like one is more valuable than the other?\u00a0 As I searched the baby section of my local Target picking up things and walking around only to set them down again and pick up something else.\u00a0 I prayed.\u00a0 I prayed that God would lead me and that the gift would bring comfort to the parents.\u00a0 I also thought; what would I want as a gift if I were in this situation?<\/p>\n

My husband and I talked before I went to the store and he made a little remark that really stuck with me as I searched for the perfect gift.\u00a0 He said, \u201cI guess we don\u2019t really want to give them an outfit.\u201d\u00a0 I get why he said it, he was thinking of the parents and didn\u2019t want to give them something that would bring pain if she didn\u2019t live long.\u00a0 But as I stood there I thought, if I had a baby and no one was sure how long he\/she would live, and then if they did have an extremely short life, I would want something to remember them by.\u00a0 I would want an outfit or a little hat, something that I could set aside and look back on and touch and remember that life, and how beautiful it was even though it was short.\u00a0 A few years ago I went through a pretty difficult miscarriage.\u00a0 The hardest part for me even after the emotional and physical healing is that I never saw anything that would have said that was a life.\u00a0 The ultrasound screen was turned away from me, I didn\u2019t even get to see the life that was there.\u00a0 Because the miscarriage happened pretty early I didn\u2019t look pregnant at the time so most people didn\u2019t even know that there was life there.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to explain in words the emptiness my arms experienced after that.\u00a0 And how now 3 years later I still remember that precious child in my heart, but have nothing tangible to remind me that I am a mother of 7 children, not 6.\u00a0 How I long for something, a picture or a footprint, something to remind me that was life.\u00a0 It was life in it\u2019s very beginning form, but it was life none the less.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And so we went to the hospital to bring comfort to the parents but also to love on some so very precious babies.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t sure what to expect.\u00a0 We had been told she would be born with some physical deformities so I was prepared for that.\u00a0 What I was not prepared for was just how beautiful she is.\u00a0 I know she is not my own child; she is not even a part of our family.\u00a0 These parents are friends of ours, but I fell in love with that sweet baby girl.\u00a0 Even her little cry and her squeaks and grunts were like music.\u00a0 The fact that she survived after birth (at the point we went to visit she was 2 days old) and she is able to suck formula from a bottle is more than anyone was expecting.\u00a0 Even at 2 days old she has outlived any expectations doctors had for her.<\/p>\n

I cannot imagine this world without these children, the ones with physical limitations, or mental limitations.\u00a0 Are they the easiest children to care for?\u00a0 Probably not, but the reward for welcoming them is HUGE!\u00a0 What did Jesus say?\u00a0\u00a0 He said to welcome the little children and to let them come.\u00a0 I don\u2019t believe he was referring only to those born in perfect health.\u00a0 EVERY life is wonderfully and fearfully made.\u00a0 My God does not make mistakes.\u00a0 If I know anything it\u2019s that welcoming those who are created differently only enriches our own lives and makes our society better.\u00a0 This weekend my daughters danced in a recital with their dance studio.\u00a0 The studio makes it a point to offer classes for \u201cspecial dancers\u201d.\u00a0 When the Special dancers danced you could see it on their face, nothing but pure joy.\u00a0 At the end of their dance the entire auditorium stood to applaud.\u00a0 It brought tears to my eyes and does now just thinking about it.\u00a0 These gifts that so many would say are not worth having and should just be aborted; danced and brought praise to Jesus, joy to me, and add a depth of love to our society.\u00a0 Statistically 90% of all babies diagnosed in the womb with Down syndrome are aborted; some estimates say it\u2019s even higher for babies diagnosed with trisomy 18.\u00a0 This is a tragedy!\u00a0 What could we learn about pure love if our culture shifted to embrace these special children?<\/p>\n

Every life has value and a purpose.\u00a0 The length of a life lived is NOT what determines its value.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every Life is beautiful. Today I got to hold 2 babies.\u00a0 One of them was so tiny she looked like one of my daughter\u2019s baby dolls.\u00a0 She has the sweetest nose, and she kept cracking these little smiles.\u00a0 Her twin brother was equally adorable.\u00a0 These babies are even more special because of a diagnosis made … <\/p>\n

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Today I got to hold 2 babies.\u00a0 One of them was so tiny she looked like one of my daughter\u2019s baby dolls.\u00a0 She has the sweetest nose, and she kept cracking these little smiles.\u00a0 Her twin brother was equally adorable.\u00a0 These babies are even more special because of a diagnosis made … Continue reading \"Blog & News\"","og_url":"https:\/\/www.bound4lifestl.org\/?page_id=79","og_site_name":"Bound4LIFE - St. Louis","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/Bound4LIFEstl","article_modified_time":"2014-10-03T04:15:41+00:00","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":["WebPage","CollectionPage"],"@id":"https:\/\/www.bound4lifestl.org\/?page_id=79","url":"https:\/\/www.bound4lifestl.org\/?page_id=79","name":"Blog & News - Bound4LIFE - St. Louis","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.bound4lifestl.org\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-10-03T03:07:20+00:00","dateModified":"2014-10-03T04:15:41+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.bound4lifestl.org\/?page_id=79#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.bound4lifestl.org\/?page_id=79#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.bound4lifestl.org\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Blog & News"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.bound4lifestl.org\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.bound4lifestl.org\/","name":"Bound4LIFE - St. Louis","description":"A Grassroots Prayer Movement for the Ending of Abortion","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.bound4lifestl.org\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bound4lifestl.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/79","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bound4lifestl.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bound4lifestl.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bound4lifestl.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bound4lifestl.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bound4lifestl.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/79\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92,"href":"https:\/\/www.bound4lifestl.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/79\/revisions\/92"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bound4lifestl.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}