Choose Life, Hope, Faith - Feb 12

Didn't make it to San Antonio today because of the orthodontist appointment (yay braces!!!) but I did call to get an update - no changes, no surgery date. The physical therapist talked to me and said her thumb already looks 100% better so she thinks Baby Girl had just pulled her thumb in too tight and it got irritated. She cut the holes in her casts larger when she made them into splints so it won't be an issue again. The plan is to do 3 days feet, 3 days hands with the splints to give her a little bit of a break with both.

I had a conversation yesterday with one of the nurses about raising a special needs child, and then this morning I read this article / post that I came across on Facebook because one of my friends commented on it. There have also been a couple of other posts recently about abortion that I've read (this being a really good one no matter your beliefs) that have really got me thinking. The comment the nurse made yesterday was that she "applauded us for not aborting" when we found out Baby Girl might have some issues. Her son has mental handicaps and she was talking about the times that she had wished that his were physical instead, for purely selfish reasons, but then she wouldn't have the same "forever child". She said it was tough, but that she was glad we didn't make that choice. I told her abortion wasn't an option for us which takes away the choice part of it. 

After reading the article about abortion being an argument of when you should humanely end life instead of when life begins I was heartsick. I couldn't imagine not giving Baby Girl a chance to fight for her life - and it's been a fight, but she's winning. Every day she proves that God is bigger and that doctors can be wrong. In our case, they were wrong seven times. Four of those times would have given us "justifiable" reasons for an abortion according to the article. One of them would have spared her a majorly invasive surgery. Two of them aren't nearly as critical (she was supposed to come up to 2 weeks early, not a week late; and she was supposed to be between 9-10 lbs, not barely 7) but they were wrong. Their instruments and scientific guesses were wrong. They were "almost positive" four times on what her diagnosis would be - three of them that they told us gave her a prognosis of not living more than a year IF she was lucky; the fourth would have made her my "forever child" because of the mental capacities she would have had. Was I devastated as I read and researched and absorbed all that I could about their guesses? Absolutely. Was I terrified that I was going to wake up one day and have to tell my husband that I didn't feel her moving anymore? Or even worse, that I would have to go through the pains of birth after she was already gone? Or worst of all, have her die in my arms seconds, minutes or hours after being born? Every day. Did it ever once cross my mind that it wouldn't be worth it to continue the pregnancy? Not a chance.

I chose hope. I chose faith. I chose life. I prepared myself mentally as much as I could for the worst case scenario knowing that anything else that happened would be a relief. I chose to hope in our families ability to love her no matter what. I chose to have faith in a God that loved my Baby Girl even more than I did, and knew even better than science did what His plan for her life was. I chose to give her a shot at life - no matter how brief or long.

My husband said it best the day we were leaving the hospital after holding her for the first time: I think she's perfect just like she is.