When my Grandson was born, there was a tree in the lobby of the maternity ward covered with butterflies..not real ones, of course, but the decorative kind you buy at the local craft store. I didn't count them but there must have been 50 in all colors of the rainbow and I thought what a pretty decoration..Then I read the inscription..It was in memory of babies who were "born asleep". Then my heart plunged to my stomach. In this day of medical miracle, there were still thousands of childless mothers..They waited in anxious anticipation when they would welcome God's last great miracle into a life of hope and joy, only to find tragedy and unbearable sadness. I cannot even imagine what that feeling must be. Life is fragile enough, but to not even have a chance at that life must be the most horrific pain anybody can feel.
I know a number of women who have put their career first, or decided that having a child would destroy their figure. That is selfishness in it's highest order. Very simply, you adapt. In my own situation, my wife and I were master jugglers of time. She was an accountant who served on the board of Blue Cross/Blue Shield of NEPA and was going to school at night to earn another degree. When my daughter was born, after at least two earlier miscarriages, I had to step up to the plate and was able to juggle my work schedule so my daughter was in day care the least amount of time. And as she got older, she wanted to stay in day care so she could play with her friends. We maybe overcompensated our guilt by doing everything we could to give her the best of everything from the piano, (She didn't want to learn then, now says she wished we had forced her to learn..Response..Music is something you want to learn and learn well) to ballet (she stunk up the joint but it was fun to watch..and expensive) to Karate which she excelled in but quit while working on her black belt. My wife and I made sure we made every lesson, every ballet recital which we hated as the kids were held captive backstage until everybody on the planet danced, usually about 3 hours of torture. Christmas was presents piled to the ceiling and the best toy was the box they came in. Trips to Disneyworld, Hershey Park, several times to Knoebels Amusement park, and every festival known to man..Or at least Northeast Pennsylvania. It was probably a lot out of guilt, but I wouldn't trade one moment of it. It would have been nice to have a stay at home mom, but there are choices to make. I think we made the right ones.
I especially feel sadness for the women who can't have children. There are far too many of those. Some go through excruciating tests and procedures and, in the end, all fail. I have known a number of those, one in particular where we chose a name, not if but when, we had our first child. She would have been a wonderful mother but that wasn't meant to be. I don't know if it was career or inability but I see in the eyes of others the sadness many of the childless have when they see a baby in another mother's arms.
In the days after Roe v Wade I was very pro-choice. I foolishly believed that a woman had a right to choose. But that changed when I realized life is life, whether at conception or at birth. A baby in the womb does everything a baby does outside the womb. It sucks it's thumb, plays with it's toes, yawns, and sleeps in the love of it's mother. It makes faces shows displeasure when annoyed by a doctor's prodding and poking. New 3D ultra-sounds show with great detail that is true. I wish the pro-choice crowd would show a lot more lean more towared adoption. For many, adoption is cost prohibitive to the point where people go to the former Soviet Union to adopt, rather than adopting the tens of thousands of children waiting in their own back yard. Laws need to be changed as well, along with anythin else that can speed the process and lower the cost substantially.
In short, Friday many will celebrate "Baby's first Christmas", which is more for parents and grandparents as the baby has no clue except that there's this big tall green thing with a bunch of colored lights. But it's something that is easily in the top 5 of the greatest of life's moments. And do go overboard on the gifts..I did...
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