Week 24

Maybe I shouldn't do this to myself...with all the extra hormones coursing their way through my body it doesn't take much to get me crying...but I was looking for pictures of Week 24 fetuses today and stumbled upon these. I don't know if you all have seen these before, but I remember them from high school right after the event happened. When there is a little one growing inside you, though, it means so much mroe to see them and read the story.

Samuel Alexander Armas' parents found out they were sucessfully pregnant after several miscarriages but early on an ultrasound showed he had spina bifida. Of course, the doctor suggested they abort and try again, but thankfully they did a little research before they made their decision. New surgery techniques were beginning to be practiced at one of the college research hospitals where they were performing surgery in-utero with successful results.
Surgery was performed on Samuel at 21 weeks. The doctors take out the uterus, drain the fluid, and then bring tiny flaps of skin across the baby's exposed spinal cord. At the end of the surgery, the doctor was moving the uterus and out popped Samuel's hand and he grabbed ahold of the doctors finger.

Trying to get the hand back inside the uterus, only caused it to come further out of the uterus so that the entire arm was exposed. Thankfully because this was a new surgery technique, there were a reporter and photographer present to capture the beautiful moment. And even more importantly, the photographer resisted money to destroy the photos and instead decided to get them maximum exposure!

Ever since Alex and I went in for my 20 week ultrasound where we found out we were having a boy, we've been calling him by name and spending time talking and interacting with him everyday. He's become so much more real to us because of that ultrasound. We could see his personality and began to imagine what its going to be like to have him on the outside everyday! I can't wait!

There is no way that after seeing these photos of Samuel's hand and getting to see my own little man through ultrasound that I could ever deny that these are children. Precious children that need our protection and love.