26 weeks, 0 days: A Somber Sort of Week

This has indeed been a somber sort of week. There have just been so many deaths with people I am either connected with or interested in! I suppose that every week is that way for someone.

Anyhow, it started on Sunday morning when I woke up to the news that a baby whose mama's blog I had been following and praying for, baby Faith Hope, had died on Saturday. Her death was not completely unexpected, as she had a severe birth defect (anencephaly) that is 100% fatal. In fact, her survival to the age of 93 days was nothing short of a miracle - most anencephalic babies are either stillborn or die within minutes or hours. I don't know if she set any records, but she must have been close. However, she had been doing really well.

What made this story painful was really not the baby's birth defect or short life... It was the fact that the baby's mother received cruel hate-mail from internet sickos who thought she should have aborted her baby or not given her the care she needed to survive. Because anencephalic babies are born missing part of their brain, some people think that they are "not human" and therefore not worthy of either love, life or care. (How having a complete brain is a definition of humanity and a ticket to worthiness is beyond me.) She had to remove her email address from her site, shut down her Facebook account, and have her friends check her email to delete the hate mail from her inbox.

Never before would I have guessed that unconditional love was a qualifying characteristic for deserving the most despicable treatment possible. Hopefully these people have learned something from Faith's mama.

Anyhow, after that, on Monday we learned that an east valley midwife's client had lost a baby at 32 weeks. We are going to hold a bead ceremony for her tonight at birth circle, and we are organizing meals for their family. What a horrible grief. The odd thing is that I know that I know this girl by sight, as we attend the same birth circle chapter, but I don't know exactly who she is - I'll find out next week when I take them lunch. I keep running the list of pregnant mamas through my mind and wondering which one it is - a yucky feeling.

Then on Tuesday we learned that our Arizona Treasurer Dean Martin's wife had died unexpectedly in childbirth on Monday night and that the baby was not doing well. Today, after three days of prayers, we learned that the baby died last night. What an utter tragedy - to go from planning a family birth to planning the funerals for one's entire family.

And we can add to all of that the death of Mike Tyson's little girl in the news - something that makes all parents shiver with the possibility of in-home accidents for children.

So all in all, a somber week! I'll post about us later, and hopefully the rest of the week will be a bit more cheerful.