Posted on 10/05/2004 10:43:27 PM PDT by Mr. Silverback
My wife and I are currently seeing a doctor and spending thousands of dollars to have a child. ANY CHILD NO MATTER WHAT IS A GIFT FROM THE ALMIGHTY AND SHOULD BE TREATED AS SUCH!!!!!!!
Ditto.
My husband and I are doing the same thing. Good luck and God bless.
"This doctor would be singing soprano through missing teeth if he so much as spoke one word of that to my wife."
yep
It's wonderful to see God's church responding in this way. Colson is right on: it's the Church being the Church. And, we need to see more of it. I'll resist the urge to get on my soap box and simply say that as the parents of a special needs child, we've so rarely found any support as to make it non-existent. Sadly, I know others in the same boat. This is a real need in God's church, not only for the tired, stressed parents, but for the children, special needs and their siblings, who also need to see His hands at work.
Thank you, Good luck and God Bless.
Mine said the same about the amnio and AFP. We did neither for that same reason. (BTW, neither would have identified my son's special needs)
Almighty God and Father. How can it be that these precious ones so discounted by society are exalted and praised by their families? How great Thou art. YOUR compassion, YOUR love and YOUR very breath of the Spirit flows through us to overflowing. Surely you are the light of the world. Let the enemy tremble as your faithful make their stand, for he is defated and you oh Lord reign.
www.preparetoleave.com
Just a clarification on the amnio issue. In our case, my wife decided to have the triple screen test done, even though we did not do it for our first child. To this day, she does not know why she decided to do it. The triple screen came back positive for DS - merely meaning that there was an elevated risk (1 in a 100) that our baby had DS. We discussed the option of an amnio with the OB-GYN - someone who is definitely pro-life, along with others whose wisdom we valued.
In the end, we chose to have the amnio for one simple reason - we assumed that the results would come back negative and it would therefore make the remainder of the pregnancy that much easier. And, my wife was far enough along that the risk to the baby was minimal - nowhere near the risk numbers someone posted above (particularly given the skill and experience of our OB-GYN). We concluded that it would be far better to find out that everything was OK, as this would greatly reduce the stress on my wife, which of course puts stress on the baby.
Did it help us knowing ahead of time that our baby had DS? You bet. Sure those first few weeks were hard - harder than anything I have ever had to deal with. But, we were able to be better prepared, and the additional level 3 ultrasounds throughout the pregnancy helped in identifying potential health concerns. And, having dealt with the grief long before made the joy of our son's birth that much more special (particularly given the fact that he had no significant health issues when he was born).
One other thing - when we had the amnio we could have found out with 100% certainty the sex of the baby. We chose not to. Some find that odd, but it did help make our son's birth a bit more exciting. Likewise, we have not found out the sex of our third child, even though once again the amnio would tell us with 100% certainty.
So we didn't bother with the amnio.
Mine, too. A friend did point out to us that identifying a potential problem could allow us to have the appropriate specialists on hand as the baby was being born.
Thanks for your comment on amnio. We are also prolife. Our 8th child has Downs. We didn't find out about the Downs until 3 hours after birth. Noone knew whether or not to congratulate us or to extend condolences. The whole birth experience was sad, overwhelming, and emotionally exhausting. I had no clue we would have a special needs child, and I wasn't on God's sign-up sheet that I knew of! LOL Today she is a rambunctious, delightful, tiring six-year old. She does add a lot of strain, and she does add a lot of joy. When I get overwhelmed and weary, I just think about "when you do it for the least of these, you do it for Me." Not that she's least in my sight, mind you.
However, on our tenth child, I had an amnio. I just couldn't face another delivery day surprise. I wanted to be emotionally prepared, ready to welcome whoever God sent. I'm so glad I did it! We moved a month before delivery, and in the midst of that upheaval, the peace of mind helped a lot.
Ten kids are a piece of cake, but a special needs child is the icing. We are all grateful that God chose us.
=== One other thing - when we had the amnio we could have found out with 100% certainty the sex of the baby. We chose not to.
Aw, that's so cool! I understand perfectly. My sister instructed her physician and his staff to withhold from her the sex of their childred through the pregnancies. It IS more exciting that way.
While chances are extremely slim at this point I'm going to meet a man interested in marrying and impregnating me while I still can have kids, I do also understand your wanting to know so as to be better prepared in a way. I could see going that same route even if I have absolutely no intention of ever terminating a pregnancy.
My aunt and I always have been tight but grew even moreso during the almost-year I spent caring for my grandparents and getting them over a hump of sort. I think one reason I'm so determined to find a way to support myself by working at home is because I want to be in a position to have her come live with me if she chooses once her folks are gone.
In the same way, if ever I did end up with a handicapped child, I'm positioned to take care of him or her myself. It's sad but true that many marriages don't survive that sort of blow -- I know of a couple women on this forum, in fact, who ended up alone in charge of fulltime care for a special needs kid.
All the best to you and your family. You certainly can never go wrong doing the right thing. And, just as beloved Sister Mary Jude comforted my Mom after the loss of her firstborn son -- "he shall be in the flower of his manhood when you meet with him again in Heaven" -- I've no doubt that you and folks like you tending little angels on earth will be in heady company in Heaven once Christ has made all things new and each reaches the perfection for which he was originally intended.
I know my aunt suffers greatly at times. I can remember watching a show about an autistic child once and, as the parents were being informed their kids would always be different and have problems, I heard my aunt murmur on the window seat above: "Like me."
It's time with her and kids at the Children's Medical Center and such that have taught me to look past appearances as a rule and seek always the little telltale signs of the miraculous which give us hope and surprise us with joy.
All the best, Mr. Noodle.
=== We are all grateful that God chose us.
I suspect He's pretty pumped you chose Him and His will.
MotherofTen - how on earth could a mother of ten children not be prolife? Just out of curiousity, did you receive immediate support from a local DS organization??? We have a great association here in Cincinnati, and the immediate support they provided to us was overwhelming. IMHO, the support they provide to expectant parents often can be the difference in whether or not the family decides to abort the baby. And for parents like you that have the ton of bricks dropped on them shortly after birth, the local DS organization is also a Godsend.
For those of you that are also prolife, if you're ever looking for a worthy cause to support, check out your local DS organization. I believe that they are often responsible for preventing the abortion of DS babies. Speaking from personal experience, abortion may sometimes seem like an appropriate option to parents that learn their baby has DS - even for parents that would otherwise not consider abortion and/or desparately want a child. But, the intervention of the local DS organization can often show them that their child will still be the light of their lives, and that they can indeed handle the additional work it will require. Also, in many parts of the country there is a waiting list of parents willing to adopt children with DS.
I think wanting to be prepared -- particularly when you know you are at high risk for an abnormality -- is a perfectly legitimate reason to proceed with the test.
It's just that I don't think most these days have that mindset going in and are particularly at risk for being counseled to kill the child when taken by surprise by the sudden Crisis situation.
I find it extremely heartening that many in the medical profession are so upfront about the pros and cons of taking the test in the first place. Mostly you just hear from those who -- as in this article -- think it a selfish mistake to bring forth a potentially deformed or imperfect kid.
This is one thing the attorney and I used to discuss. I never quite understood him, really ... how he could be of the mindset that preparation was key (he'd have definitely proceeded with the pregnancy even if testing had revealed another Tay Sachs situation) but one reason he was such a proponent of genetic screening and such is that he felt others who weren't up to handling such a situation ought to have the option of terminating the life of the unborn child in the womb or sifting out the unfit siblings in the lab.
I can't think in those terms anymore, I guess.
And, like you both, understand only too well that appearances often are deceiving where God's blessings are concerned.
As they say down here in Louisiana ... it's not What you Know it's Who you Know.
I don't know if you're aware of him or not but Doctor Jérôme Lejeune, R.I.P. was the Parisian geneticist who discovered the gene for Down's Syndrome.
A brilliant man and premiere geneticist, he also was an ardent defender of Human Life from the moment of conception. In the New Jersey Loce case, wherein even Mother Teresa submitted an amicus curia brief to no avail, he actually appeared in court to testify.
His accomplishments, works and defenses of Life from conception to natural death make for an excellent read ... particularly when you consider that most in his position (studying defects) might come to the opposite conclusions entirely.
Anyway ... here's an interesting excerpt from his testimony in Loce, as printed in The Human Life Review: Doctor Jérôme Lejeune, R.I.P.
One more point to all - there are indeed some wonderful and amazing doctors out there. I wish I had time to tell more of our story. In brief, a friend that has a daughter with DS pointed us to a new pediatrician whose office was about 2 miles from our house. Turned out he has a teenage son with DS, is a grad. of Harvard med. school, and is active in DS research and our local organization. Heck, he is one of the people responsible for establishing separate growth charts for children with DS.
Even though we had met him on only one occasion (when we interviewed him to see if we liked him), he went out of his way to visit us and our son in the hospital, twice. Another pediatrician from his office (actually, a large medical practice of 50+ docs) also stopped by to visit us. We had never met this pediatrician before, yet he spent an hour with us in the hospital room, mostly just talking - not about anything in particular, but just a friendly visit to let us know that there were people in the medical profession that cared about us and our son, and understood what we were going through. At the end of his visit, he told us the story of The Snow Goose (the short story by Paul Gallico). By the end of the story, he had tears in his eyes - and so did we.
There are indeed many, many special doctors out there. Don't stop looking until you find one.
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