Eleven Months: The Power of Love

It is painful beyond belief to be told that your precious new baby in your womb has ANENCEPHALY.  Being told that your child has a disability can be as traumatizing as learning of a family member's sudden death. Instead of feeling that especial tremendous sence of joy, you may feel as if your world has been turned upside down.  Most likely, you didnt care whether you would have a boy or a girl, you just wanted a healthy child. But it seems that the baby you dreamed about has not arrived. Receving such a message from your doctor can produce overwheming emotions of shock, disbelief, anxiety, depression, fear, anger, resentment, acceptantance and some times rejection, yes rejection of the baby, because we often fear of the future, and wonder how  can we cope with this overwhelming change in our life.

My husband and I were stunned by such news. The first question that comes up after this diagnosis is  "Why Us?" or "What did we do wrong?" and conclude for a moment  that we are being punished for sins or bad acts of the past. It can't be real, you think. Something terrible  like this happens to other people , you hear or read about all the time, but to us? It cannot be true; the doctor made a mistake. All kind of emotions may well up at once: guilt, grief and shame. Often the first reaction to the news that your baby has this lethal birth defect is intense grief and sorrow. We were in shocked, I cried for the first two weeks after the diagnosis, Rony become dejected and sometimes we couldnt express our feelings to each other. You may grieve the loss of that perfect child you dreamed of. Sometimes you may not even know exactly why you are grieving. What you do know, however, is that sorrow sits there in your chest like a ton of sand.  This sense of grief is completely normal for us parents who have received such devastating news. Your grief will pass eventually, I promise.

But right now you may be feeling as if your heart will break any soon. How could this have happened? What I did wrong?  the unfainess of it is beyond comprehension.

How did we survived all the suffering and pain? We are NOT strong to walk this journey alone, we need to seek God's grace to continue. God never left us alone in this, from the beginning He was there lifting us when we broke and we couldnt walk more. How we did find joy despite the suffering?  Our Lord gave us the virtues to face everything, His amazing grace, His wisdom, His everlasting love,  and peace in our hearts. Only by the grace of God, we made it through. We can still find peace and joy during the time of suffering.

We made so many memories when she still was inside of me. If we only had 5 more months to enjoy and celebrate her life, we will make sure those were going to be the best of her short life. Doctors told me she was only alive because she was connected to me, so that means that I was her life support, so it is important for me to love her, and show her I was happy, even those days that my heart was breaking into pieces.

We prepared for Angela's funeral before she was born.  I only bought her 4 outfits, one for her Bautism, two to take pictures, if she would lived longer than few minutes after birth, and one she will wear for her funeral. What a journey we had to walk.  As my friend Kellie wrote Love may cost us dearly She gave birth a beautiful little girl, her name is Lily Frances . She is an amazing woman of God, full of God's grace.

Angela is ELEVEN (11) months today. Filled with LIFE!!! She is thriving and fighting. Angela was born with anencephaly and a brain encephalocele covering the opening, which resulted  in having a large portion of her skull missing. Angela's piece of brain and spinal cord were exposed due to the missing section of skull and spinal fluid leaked from the opening. Angela was discharged from the hospital without medical intervention at two days of life, Angela was not expected to survive. Upon my request Angela's head was bandaged prior to discharge from the hospital and the Hospice nurse visit us once a week. My husband and I were her doctors, changing dressings everyday 3-4 times a day .As Angela's bandages needed to be changed several times a day due to becoming wet from the spinal fluid leakage. How she survived all this? God is good, He really is the giver and sustainer of life.  He keep her alive to show that He is in control all the time. And all the sufferings that He allowed in our lives was to make us better people, better parents for our daugther, better wife and husband. Love suffers everything!!

“Love is patient. Love is kind. Love does not envy, or boast. Love is not arrogant, it is not rude. Love does not insist on it’s own way. Love is not irritable or resentful. Love does not rejoice at wrongdoings, but with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Love never ends.” First Corinthians 13: 4-8

She taught us life's greatest lesson. We have to choose to love. Blessed Mother Teresa said "love until it hurts".  True love causes pain. Jesus, in order to give us the proof of His love, died on the cross.  A mother, in order to give birth to her baby, has to suffer. We must have to love. If we love, we dont have room for the fear, anger or self-pity beacuse the result of loving is peace and joy. It was our choice to love Angela and love her until it hurts. If we love in all situations, only good will come of it. Nothing evil ever come out of love.  If at one point you start to have negative emotions, it is because we are not choosing to walk in love. Angela is love because GOD is love.

No matter what situation you're in, preganant with a baby with no change at life or pregnant with a baby that will be disabled, remember that this child is a GIFT from the Lord! and every gift received with thankfulness does not come to hinder life but to enrich it. You might not seet it now, but he or she really is! For some reason God has chosen you for this sacred task. I am not saying it's easy, but so worth it. I guarantee that your life will be forever changed and you will be a better person for it. God only allows things to happen to us for the betterment of our souls.


We are very thankful for the months we have shared with this precious little girl. The future is still uncertain and the doctors are still in awe as we are- but one thing is for certain, we have our miracle babyand we are grateful for each day we have her. She is a gift from the Lord to bring honor and glory to Him alone and she is simply "on loan" to us until He calls her "home" and gives her a new body-- and in the meantime it is an honor to care for our little saint Angela.



I know that she has touched many lives and continues to link people to God's perfect will. People who dont pray, prayed and continue to pray for us. Angela got them talking to God. She continue to change my heart. I know that I am transformed because of her. Everything about the experience defines who I am. All the trails and sufferings we experienced built our chatacter and our faith in God. I learned that if you offer your sufferings to God, He uses to draw you closer to him.

Romans 8:28 – Know that all things work together for good to those who love God

 

I also learned that true love involves sacrifice towards others. Love by it's very nature is self sacrificing in that it involves giving and not taking. God himself has given us the beautiful gift, by providing his own son Jesus Christ as a ransom sacrifice for our sins. This involved enormous sacrifice on his part for our benefit. Love "does not look for it's own interests". We are very realistic of Angela's condition, we know that she might never crawl, walk or talk. She will always depend on us but we are more than happy to take care of this beautiful girl. Now we dont focus on the things she might never do or CANT do, we focus on the things she is already doing, lifting her head, rolling to her side, cooing, smiling, recognizing our voice, mom, dad and big sister.  She has already given us more than we could have given to her.  We just going to give our lives to make her happy and take care of her so she can have a best  quality of life.

Unconditional true love involves sacrifice, because it means making an extra effort for someone else-doing something that won't provide you any grand praise or recognition. Once you find that love, embrace it. Show your espcial someone how much you care and how much you love him or her. You never know when things will change. You never know when, in a moment, everything could be different.

True LOVE is unconditional, forgiving, understanding, caring and above all it continues to grow in the passage of time.

HAPPY ELEVEN(11) MONTHS BEAUTFUL ANGELA!!!
Mommy, Daddy, and big sister love you!!!

THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU FOR THE PRAYERS, THE LOVE AND THE SUPPORT

Follow her in FB Our Baby Angela and Our Journey With Anencephaly

Angela's GoFundMe Page 
PRAYERS AND SUPPORT FOR BABY ANGELA

An Angel Is Born

March 23, 2014 a little saint was born. We were saddened that our precious girl did have anencephaly, but yet happy that she was ALIVE!!! After reading so many stories with same diagnosis, I prayed to have at least few minutes or hours. But my greater prayer was a MIRACLE.  The miracle at that moment was that she was alive and breathing her own.

I remember everything about that day. I remember arriving to ER at 6am in the morning because my water broke.  At 2:20am I started to feel some contractions them every 20-30 were getting stronger. that was the day God has chosen for Angela to meet her parents and big sister. I remember  going to the room I would deliver her. The day was filled with so much joy and excitement but at the same time the deepest pain and sorrow knowing that day means saying hello and goodbye to my little princess. I couldn’t bare the thought of that because that means we will be leaving without her.

Three priests were told that our baby was going to be born. They were celebrating and offering Mass for us.  But Fr. Luft was the lucky one, he is a wonderful retired priest with a big love towards our family. He was going to meet the first tiny little beautiful saint.  We prayed, the room was full of so much peace and joy, the Holy Spirtit was there among us. 

Receiving the Holy Eucharist

I will never forget the feeling I felt when they handed me my beautiful and perfect baby girl.  All the pain and worry suddenly disappeared and in that moment my life was forever changed. My heart knew a new meaning to fierce love it had never felt before. Looking into that beautiful face for the first time and hearing her beautiful voice is the most unforgettable moment of my life. My heart felt an overwhelming kind of love I had never felt before. I will never forget all the beautiful details about this day. 

Family gathered to celebrate her birth and baptism

My husband cut the umbilical cord and the nurse put a little cap on her before I held her. I cried and cried. This was the first time  that we truly wept. Rony and I cried together, she was the perfect child, the child who was created exactly the way our Creator designed and in His eyes and ours was perfect. She was "knitted in my womb" and was "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139, 13-17)

I held her, kissed her and hugged her. I told her how much we loved her. We were so happy to finally meet her and sad that this was the only time we would spend with her before she goes to Heaven.  We loved her so much. She was skin to skin with me  first, then Rony and Elizabeth.  She was able to nursed for less than a minute, after that she was not able to latch on. I pumped my breast milk, gave her the colostrum with a syringe, I was there trying to feed her .1ml every 20-40 minutes.  

Looking into that beautiful face for the first time and hearing her beautiful voice is the most unforgettable moment of my life

Here she was our amazing girl!! We wiped her and put her white dress, we prepared for a especial moment, her Bautism.  We felt very happy that our daugther was bautized to our Roman Catholic Faith 20 minutes after birth.

We took lots of pictures and videos because it was important for us to keep as many souvenirs as possible. A professional photographer from NILMDTS captured many beautiful moments that we will cherished forever. This is a great non-profit organization that provides the gift of remembrance photopgraphy for parents suffering the loss of a baby.  We took footprints and hand prints
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We were given a large room at the end of the hall and Inever hear any other babies crying. Many of our supportive family, friends and church members were there as well giving her all their love. Every person deserves to be loved this way, every child  deserves a lifetime. Every human has the rigth to a full life. Despite age, physical ability, or vulnerability, everyone should be given the opportunity to live and make their mark in the world. We sang to her, kissed her, held herand we were prapared to send her to her Eternal home with Jesus with dignity, respect and with so much love. Defend and take care of her from the moment of conception to her natural death.  Even strangers who follows Angelas's facebook page wanted to meet her. We received hundreds of messages of support, love, peace, comfort and hope. We started to feel the overwhelming love, peace and joy despite the suffering and pain. God gave us the child that we wanted, and we were going to love her despite her condition.

Everything in the entire world stopped at that moment. Icould not take my eyes off of her! She was the most beautiful girl Ihad ever seen in my entire life. God blessed us through Angela by giving us clearer vision to the importance of life, life is so precious that life is precious and we must live it to the  fullest, that life is the most beautiful gift God has given us and so we have to be thankful. Giving thanks in every moment at all times. We were grateful that God gave her to us.

Angela was not born as doctors had told me, she was not open from the eyebrow to the back. Her head was open only in the back with a encephalocele which is a sac-like protrusions of the brain and the membrane that cover it through openings in the skull .For doctors there was nothing else to do for her, just keep her comfortable but sophisticated treatments were not needed because she would not live. 

Angela taught both Rony and I how to "walk by faith and not by sight". ( 2 Corinthians 5, 7). We have learned to trust God even when we dont understand His plan. That God always has a better plan for our family and our lives and the lives of our daugthers.  Learning to trust that He is in the control all the times in every situation, even when our human hearts are pierced and broken.  If we look with eyes of faith, we know that our suffering is fashioned to draw us closer to God and secure for us eternal life with Him. This trust has the power to banish all fear, and all feelings of self-pity, and turn our weeping into rejoicing. We live every single day by faith, faith in out Lord we would get one more day. God gave us the grace to face everything , and if He is with us there is nothing to worry.

I thank God for allowing us and trusting us to be the parents of Angela. Our lives are irrevocably changed because of  our beautiful child. And for that, we are very proud. Her life brought such light into our lives as we could have never imagined. We just celebrated her 10 months birthday!!! God is always good. Praise be the Lord forever and ever. She is  a beautiful MIRACLE from the Lord. All Glory is to God!!!

It is a hard journey but our babies are more than worth the effort. We don't look back in regret and continue to look up in faith. By sharing our story, God will be glorified for all He has done for us. No matter what they tell you, always choose to do good. CHOOSE LIFE no matter how little time the baby can live. Worth living and knowing true love. We will not be manipulated by the culture of death, the God we serve is a living God and love.

 THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU FOR THE PRAYERS, THE LOVE AND THE SUPPORT


Follow her in FB Our Baby Angela and Our Journey With Anencephaly

Angela's GoFundMe Page
PRAYERS AND SUPPORT FOR BABY ANGELA

Celebrating 10 Months of LIFE!!!

Ten months ago today, I gave birth to a beautiful miracle. I'll never forget the fear of losing my baby. I couldn’t hear a cry not a noise, but for our surprised she was breathing in her own, she was ALIVE!!! The moment they put her tiny fragile body in my chest, that’s the moment that I will never forget. I took one look at her perfect face; she was so wonderfully made by God. I was overwhelmed and completely captivated by her beauty. 

My husband and I felt very strongly about our decision of carrying her full term. We felt that we had signed on to be parents to this baby right from the beginning, and if being her parents meant that our only job was to see her through her short life and make sure that she went with peace, dignity, respect and love, then we have done our job as parents. 

 The news was devastating for us but we did our best to cling to our faith in God. We turned to prayer, concentrating on devotion to the Chaplet of Divine Mercy and praying for the special intercession of the Child Jesus and Virgin Mary. We started to feel the overwhelming love, peace and joy despite the suffering and pain. God gave us the child that we wanted, and we were going to love her despite her condition. Love her and giving of our lives to protect her. 

We also began to feel that this was a very special child with a very special purpose for coming, although we did not know what the reason was.  We did, however, know that God had chosen us from all the parents in the world to be her parents and for that we were honored. We knew that we had a very big job to do, and we were going to make sure we did it right. We felt that God had a mission for us to be [voices] for the life of our baby and all the others like her.

Today I can say that we have made the most important decision of our lives. Babies with deformities have the same right as any of us. Babies with disabilities are not toys that are thrown away when not used; they are wonderful human beings. I believe life should be protected and defended from the moment of conception until natural death. I believe grace, compassion and understanding are essential to protecting life. Abortion must be prevented at every stage of development. Every human has the rigth to a full life. Despite age, physical ability, or vulnerability, everyone should be given the opportunity to live and make their mark in the world. 

Today she is 10 months of life!!! Glory be to God forever. Angela in her short time here on earth has inspired the lives of many people. She has been a great example of perseverance , love and hope for each of us. It shows that miracles happend if we believe . She shows us that God is the one in control at all times . If we have Faith we will see His Glory. She taught us unconditional and pure real love, a kind of love that sacrifice for the other. 

Our hearts are full of this immense love, peace, joy and happiness. Our lives are full, we have been blessed, we have Jesus living in our house, because Jesus said that what we do for the most defenseless of His children what would we do to Him. She is not suffering, she is always happy, she smiles when hears our voice, she loves to be touched, coos, make noises, she knows she is loved, she interact with us, and she show us affection. We love her so much and we will defend her life until she takes her last breath. I pray is that God change the heart of our culture, that more children like Angela will be brought to full term, that we will stop aborting children in the womb for any reason, especially simply because they have anencephaly. 

She is 10 months today and filled with LIFE!!! She is thriving and fighting.  She has thousand of people who constantly shower her with love and prayers. She is speaking to the nations. So far by sharing her story I know of 3 babies who have been saved from abortion. Glory is to GOD!!! I can't even put into words how honored I feel to be the mother to this precious little miracle. 

Easter Vigil 2013 at her Comfirmation

Angela is the greatest gift that we could have ever received and our lives are so much better now that she is a part of our life.  Angela continues to amaze and inspire us on a daily basis and that baby that doctors told us that wouldn’t survive is proven then wrong, and living a happy and full life with her loved ones.  I thank God every day for this gift of love. 

she was 10 days old!!!

HAPPY 10 MONTHS BIRTHDAY BABY ANGELA!!!!

Follow Angela's journey in FB www.facebook.com/ourbabyangela