Spina Bifida Awareness Day 12 Abi's Story

Dear Life,

This family is a new SB family to me...and I am so excited to share this mommy's words.  They come from South Africa...SO far...and yet the story is so similar.  Isn't Miss Abi so beautiful?

Abi is 3 years old 

 

12 May 2009, was a day filled with a lot of excitement and expectation, we would find out whether or not we were having a boy or girl!  Family, friends and colleagues waited in anticipation for a phone call or text message…

However it was not the message they had all expected: “Please pray for our unborn baby, there is something wrong with her back…” After that I couldn’t bring myself to answer the phone, my husband and I sat in shocked numbness on our drive back home. Replaying the words that the Doctor had just said, “I’m sorry, this isn’t the news you were expecting, but it appears to me that your baby has Spina Bifida. In cases like this 50% of people decide to abort. I will refer you to the Foetal Assessment Centre to confirm my diagnosis…” I was 20 weeks pregnant, how did a perfectly normal healthy pregnancy boil down to this, all blood tests and scans previously done were perfect and now, what now?!  At home we were faced with a beaming older brother wanting to know “brother or sister”; he had waited 17 years and now…. Teary grandparents arrived, missed calls piled up, what were we to do?  Were we supposed to be angry with God, shout at him, ask him why us, or should we ask: “why not us”?

 

Surprisingly during all this uncertainty and inner turmoil, a peace started to come over us, we can only put this down to one thing as is written in 

 Phil 4:6-7:

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God. And the peace of God which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

I often replay the words in my mind “your baby’s back has a defect”…  I then take a step back to view what the world sees as perfect and defective.

The Dictionary states:

Defect:

1. The lack of something necessary or desirable for completion or perfection; a deficiency: a visual defect.

2. An imperfection that causes inadequacy or failure; a shortcoming.

 

Perfect:

1. Flawless or Faultless.

 PS THAT IS DIRT...NOT CHOCOLATE

My conclusion is that we as a family have learnt more through defect and have been much closer to "perfection" through the parents and families we have met with so  called "defective children" then those with "flawless children“.

 l am humbled and in awe of the wheelchair bound Spina Bifida Child that still has a love of life and a broad smile amidst the pain they have had to endure. The mother and father that have not seen the outside of a hospital in weeks...

My prayer is that we will be an encouragement to others; as we have been encouraged by so many.

Never let the diagnosis given by the doctors be the life you speak over your child, whether your child rolls, walks or runs; you will love him/her all the same!