by Kristi Burton Brown | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com 

I first heard about the Peterson family in what you might call a “chance meeting.” (Of course I don’t believe in chances; I believe that there is Someone who has a plan and a purpose behind the random occurrences in our lives.) And I firmly believe that this amazing family’s story needs to be told. It’s scary. It’s shocking. And its implications are dangerous. How many other hospitals starve babies to death, simply based on a “defect”? How many other doctors instruct new parents to leave their newborns to die or wallow in an institution for the rest of their lives?

We’re aware that many doctors in the United States recommend abortions for babies whose potential disabilities show up on ultrasounds or in prenatal testing. We’re also aware that, sadly, all too many parents choose abortion in these cases. And all too often, their babies are discovered to either be perfectly “normal” or the parents later on discover that the disability or defect was one they definitely could have lovingly dealt with, had they only been given accurate and complete information.

Our society has become consumer and product focused in an ultimately dangerous way. When we, the consumer, discover the news that our child, the product, is not quite up to par with our expectations, we are given the choice to end an innocent life. Perfection – though impossible to define – is the standard demanded. And who among us truly meets it?

Aidan was born with a bilateral cleft lip and palate. This affects about 1/700 children. We had no family history of this condition. All babies at some point in their early development have a cleft, but it spontaneously “knits” together (bringing to mind the Scripture, “You knit me together in my mother’s womb”), unless there is a genetic issue, if the mother is deficient in folate and from certain ethnic groups, or if the mother suffers certain viral illnesses at the time of gestation. In our case, Jodi had contracted the flu very early in pregnancy with a high fever.

The day after he was born, Aidan was taken into the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) because he was unable to breastfeed, and was becoming dehydrated and weak. The hospital did not have the type of bottles babies with a cleft use to feed. The hospital pediatrician called my husband into the nursery and advised us to sign Aidan over to the hospital. He told us that we were still young, we could still have other children, and that these kids (kids with cleft lip and palate) tend to have neurological problems, he would require many surgeries that could bankrupt us, and that if we were foolish enough to ignore medical advice and take our baby home he would end right back at the hospital as a “failure to thrive.”

The “treatment plan” the doctor told us was that they’d give our son pain medicine, and let him die (of starvation and dehydration). Jodi began to cry and refused, at which point the doctor turned to Quentin and said, “Get her out of here, she’s being irrational.” He thought he would have a better chance at convincing Quentin to leave the baby.

He was wrong. Quentin also refused to sign the papers. We didn’t have a plan, and didn’t know where to find help, but we could not fathom abandoning our son to a certain death alone. It had to be the grace of God, to give us courage to choose life when the hospital authority was telling us otherwise. It was for both of us, the absolute scariest time in our lives.

We chose to fight for our son and love him, and we never regretted that decision.

We couldn’t believe they were giving Aidan this death sentence, but we would not abandon him. We could not imagine anything more heartbreaking than to have a helpless child left alone for the brief entirety of his life. Even if he had one day to live, he would spend that day being loved by us.

Then God’s providence stepped in. A nurse contacted a woman who herself was born with a cleft lip and palate who ran a local support group. She brought us the cleft palate nurser bottles. (These are supposed to be in every hospital, and all nursing and medical staff are to be trained to use them since it’s a fairly common birth defect.) This meant that our baby was finally able to eat. That hungry baby took his first bottle and rested in our arms. This was an unbelievable blessing. We did take him home, and he thrived. He has had eight surgeries to correct his lip and palate and associated difficulties like ear tubes, bone grafts, and scarring, and we’re anticipating a few more in the future.

Aidan is now 15 years old and in his freshman year of high school. He is a big brother to 13-year-old Devin (brother) and 10-year-old Kiera (sister). They’re homeschooled, and his studies include Latin, logic, literature, and math. Aidan’s a typical teenager and an avid reader, and his interests include animation, writing, history, the military, and aviation. He’s involved in his church’s teen group, and is a member or 4H. He loves going out and playing paintball with his buddies. His pets include a dog and eight chickens.

Read the whole thing via Doctor Insists Parents of Baby With Cleft Lip Starve Him to Death | LifeNews.com.

Categories: Pro-life news