Because of the recurrent losses, I have spent a great deal of time on various message boards both on the giving and receiving ends of grief and loss support. My heart absolutely breaks into pieces every time I read about a mother losing a baby either late in pregnancy or shortly after delivery. I am not exaggerating when I say that I truly have tears in my eyes when I hear these grieving mothers share their tragic stories of losing those precious little lives that they barely knew but loved with every fiber of their being. I can't find words to describe how much pain I feel for them and their precious babies

It is for that reason that I can't seem to find much to say to women who electively terminate a pregnancy. I know that these decisions aren't made without a great deal of thought, research, and advice from doctors and other professionals. Doctors and professionals who won't be standing with them on Judgment Day. This is just my opinion, but I still think that to terminate a viable pregnancy is to decide to play God. If that baby is living in my womb, with a beating heart then that baby is who God chose to give me. I read a story of a woman who had a baby diagnosed with Trisomy 21 (Downs Syndrome) at approximately 20 weeks gestation. They were also told that he had an improperly formed heart that would need a transplant at birth despite being told that "they do not do organ transplants on trisomy 21" infants. She was also told that the baby would need a colostomy bag for the rest of his life. She terminated the pregnancy.

I am sure that any mother who heard this prognosis would be devastated. Utterly broken. Where I guess I differ is that I could never terminate that baby. If God gave me the gift of that beautiful miracle, it was for a purpose. Who am I to determine that his life was not going to be good enough? I have faith that God's plan is perfect. If He chose me to be the mother to a special needs child then I will embrace that role and love that baby for as long as God chooses to let his heart beat. For me to terminate a baby would be akin to me telling God, "Thanks. But no thanks. Your plan was good when it worked for me, but now that it inconveniences me, I am making my own plan." I am not going to judge the women who chose to terminate for that is between the mother and her Creator. I hope they make peace with God before they learn how long an eternity is.

I always knew that Doug was a deep thinker but I was almost intimidated by the fact that he had a daily reminder to think of eternity. But, this event was now on my PDA and I saw that line, "Think of Eternity," every morning. I challenged myself to do just that. At first when I thought about eternity it was almost overwhelming. At the risk of sounding like an idiot, an eternity is a really really long time! My 98 year old grandmother has been around longer than anyone I have ever known personally. I wonder if her life has seemed like an eternity. Ninety-eight years is a really long time but when I think of my 34 years of life I don't think of them as being that long. High school doesn't seem all that long ago. When I find myself reminiscing I often want to say that it was "like 10 years ago when..." then I realize that it was closer to 15 years ago. Sometimes 20. Actually, my life hasn't felt like a long time at all. Hopefully, I am still just in the beginning half of my life but even if I live to be 90 I don't think I will feel like I have been around for more than a blink in respect to eternity.