15 Months of Life Walking By Faith.

Our sweet baby Angela is 15 MONTHS old today! She was born with anencephaly a terrible birth defect where parts of her brain and skull are missing. Most babies with this condition are still born or live just minutes, hours or days after birth. But she has been here proving science that there is a LOT more to learn about this condition and that doctors all they know about this is what it is in the textbooks.  We can’t believe that she has made it to this far, she is happy and a healthy little girl.


  She is absolutely perfect and wonderful warrior with a BIG purpose to fulfill. 

I still remembered everything about the day when I got the diagnosis; I was there alone in a small cold dark room. I felt in my heart that something was wrong with my precious baby girl. More than 40 pictures were taking I was there waiting for the doctor to come to give me that terrible news. The doctor told me.  “I am sorry but your baby is open from the eyebrow to the back, she has no brain or skull, this condition is called anencephaly”. 

Nothing can be more terrifying than hear these words about your own child. I remembered asking myself, “how I am going to tell Rony or Elizabeth”. This day he was not able to come with me as he had to work, I went with my friend and Elizabeth was there also.  I remembered crying, crying seas. Elizabeth run to hug me as soon as she saw me walking out the  door.  Rapidly she asked “what happen mommy” and cleaned my tears. I couldn’t tell her, I just wanted a strong hug. I have chosen LIFE for her I declined termination twice. She was not a choice she was my beautiful baby girl.   The hard thing was to tell Rony, what a terrible day was that.

I went home with a piece of paper written “anencephaly” on it. I told Rony we are  having another girl we laughed and I busted into tears. He hugged me and asked “what it  is wrong? “Our baby will die at birth,   she has NO BRAIN” I said.  “And there is nothing we can do to save her”. I continued to explained to him what doctors had told me, “she is incompatible with life”. I told him the “options” for our daughter. He immediately told me “we will carry this baby to term; we will love her until she takes her last breath”. And our bittersweet journey started.  An Angel Was Born.

We can hardly believe what we have witnessed.  We have witnessed many miracles. 

DONT GIVE UP 

 MIRACLES DO HAPPEN 

 Angela is living and thriving 15 months outside the womb.  They said this day would never come. But she never stops defying the odds.  Angela continues to amaze doctors and doing things they said she would never do.  She eats everything by mouth no need of a support machine. No oxygen, no more surgeries.  Just the one she got almost two months of life just because she was still alive with her openeing in the back of her head. No infections, praise the Lord. 

 She is breathing on her own, she is a FIGHTER.  She is gaining weight, now she is not a baby anymore, she is 19lbs.  The weight for her age is in the 10^th percentile.  She is small size for her age, below 2^nd percentile. Her head is growing very slow. Her head is only 31cm and is below 2^nd percentile.  Angela is able to roll to her side, moves her legs and arms, and has some head control. She loves to eat fruits and vegetables; her favorite  is sweet potato, banana avocado and watermelon.  She started to eat table food, she loves what I cook.

Our miracle baby is 15 months old today.  She is a living prove that miracles happen everyday if you believe in God. That means trusting the Lord even when you don’t know His plan. Trust and accept His will always. She came to this world as perfect as she can be. God entrusted us this precious special gift.

This journey began with a sword wounding our hearts, we could not understand why so much suffering.Why so much pain? Why us? why our beloved daughter? Why? Why?

Now I understand why we had to go through this suffering to receive this reward, we are happy; our lives are full and fulfilling. We have it all, God has everything in control, and we are only instruments to His plan can be completed.

Angela has a wonderful life; her disability does not stop her for having a fulfilling life. She is happy so are we. We never had learned to love in this way if had it not been for her. They told us not to keep her and that we should let her go. They said we would be selfish to bring her to this world. But what it’s wrong to want to love her with all our hearts. Love her, and treat her with respect and dignity until her death. The world calls it selfishness I call it pure and unconditional love.

There are no words meaningful enough to capture how I feel about her.  Our Heavenly Father has rewarded us, with His grace, His strength, His unconditional love, His peace and His joy. I feel very proud to have a fighter daughter; her powerful testimony to the dignity of life is changing hearts and lives around the world. 

She is brave, mighty, fearful and strong.

Having Fun with Aunty Heidy 

The love for both of my daughters is so deep, I can do anything for them. But Angela is special, she healed the wounds and scars I had, the suffering we went through is NOTHING the joy we are experiencing now.  I believe  God knew we needed her. She has given to us more than we have given to her.   

I couldn’t imagine that a human being can love this way. Both of my daughters are the light of my life. I love them dearly I can feel it with every bit of my being.
But I believe God sent Angela to our home to create in us a depth of love that we never knew, the love that was missing; the love for my husband, my family or friends. She opened the eyes of my heart and soul, and showed me to love differently.

She opened my heart to a true compassion, not the same that the world show us, the false compassion and merciful. Compassion for disabled people who suffer illness or diseases, I don’t fill pity for them because now I know that they are more blessed than any other “healthy” person. Because the especial needs people have the heart of God, and that God always lives in them.

She has brought out incredible things in me that make me better, better wife, better mother, better human. Things that make me see the world in a completely different view. Wow I can write an endless list about all the things she means to my life. I love BOTH of my daughters but Angela is special, she made me special mother.  Her testimony to the dignity of life has brought so much unity and love. She has softened cold hearts, has help people to return to Jesus, has given hope to thousands of souls, and has restore faith, hope and joy.  She has spoken to the nations, over 50 countries; over 500K has read or saw her story. I have been told that her story has stopped abortions and restored faith. In total I know of 5 mothers who chose life for their babies, but sad I tell you that I also have seem parents choosing abortion.  The Lord IS working miracles in Angela's life. Because of God godness and grace we are celebrating Angela beating the odds and thriving. 

I dont know all the plans the Lord has for Angela, for Elizabeth, Rony and I. I cant picture what the future holds for us. But because God has showed himseft faithful to us, and because He has given us the strenght and healing, we are choosing to walk by faith and fully trust Him. He has and will always be our guide and strengh. He will provide for us what we need to walk this journey. Loving and taking care of our daugthers. 

I am thankful and a very blessed mom. 


Daddy, Mommy, and big Sister love you Angela and wish you 

HAPPY 15 MONTHS OF LIFE!!!!!

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

ANGELA in the News:

'Miracle Baby' Not Supposed to Live After Childbirth Celebrates Her First Birthday

Miracle baby with anencephaly celebrates first birthday after mom refused to abort

 ANGELA MORALES

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