Sometimes you read something that just makes you pause and appreciate life. This article, by military Chaplain Morris Burkes, describes such a moment:
Whatever you think of Republican presidential candidate, Rick Santorum, you might want to say a prayer for his 3-year-old daughter, Isabella, who was admitted to the hospital last month with complications from a chromosomal condition called Trisomy 18.
What little I know about Trisomy 18 I learned during an encounter with Sue and Mike Reed in 2004 while I was a chaplain for Sutter Memorial Hospital in Sacramento, Calif.
It was there I learned that Trisomy 18 is caused by extra material from chromosome 18. It’s three times more common in girls than boys. Half of the babies don’t survive their birth week while the remaining half experience serious developmental problems.
Sue and Mike learned about the deformity when Sue was 44 years old and pregnant with her second child. Because older mothers carry a greater risk of genetic deformities, Sue’s doctors scheduled genetic testing. When results showed they had a girl, they named her Gabriella Grace — or “Gi-Gi” for short.
A week after a genetic test, Sue recalls waking with a feeling that “something’s not OK.” That afternoon, a doctor told the couple there was a 95 percent certainty that Gi-Gi had Trisomy 18 and that most women terminate these pregnancies.
Since Sue had an abortion as a teenager, she decided that she “…wouldn’t do it again. “I knew in my heart of hearts that God made Gi-Gi exactly as intended because Scripture says, ‘Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I set you apart.’ ”
Here’s the rest of the story:
Lifetime can last only a momentFiled under: What I'm reading Tagged: | Isabella Santorum, Rick Santorum, Sue and Mike Reed, Trisomy 18
