Feeling Good at Week 29.7

My belly is super huge, I didn't think that being pregnant could hurt like this.  It never did before.  As each one moves I am falling in love with these twins just like their siblings.  I suspect these pains will be forgotten just like the pain of labor once I have the babies in my arms.  We had a busy week with kids running around everywhere and J and Maggie out of town.  I wish I had a day to sit and rest but so far I am still moving right along. 

I feel so blessed to have had a situation brought to me for the sake of conversation.  I have a friend that is in the baby business.  She met a woman that was earlier in the pregnancy and found out that she had the MODI twins like I do.  Unfortunately they also discovered that her baby babies were suffering from twin to twin transfusion.  Mom and dad have struggled with this knowledge for several weeks.  They were informed last week that the situation was extreme.  The were told that there is no possibility of both surviving.  I can't imagine hearing that both twins will pass soon.  The few techniques that exist to stop the TTTS would not work with this set of twins.  I don't know the details but I do know that this mom was encouraged to "selectively reduce" aka abort the baby that was not getting nourished. 

I admit that this story through me for a loop.  I didn't mind discussing it with my friend.  My twins are far enough along that if we had to take them today they would survive and probably do really well.  I am taken back by this because,  this other woman has been given the worse case scenario I feared when I first read about it.  I spent hours thinking about this and I still can't say I know how I would react or feel. 

I am thankful that I am a proud member of the Roman Catholic Church.  As I sat a debated in my mind every aspect of this case I got very confused.  My 16 year old son heard me questioning what I wold do and he said, "Well you would check with the church right?"  Duh, yeah I would but to be honest I wasn't even sure if I would find an answer in the catechism.  I did a small Internet search to known sources and found an answer that was in union with all other things I had read and knew. 

The church considers each fetus to have the status of a full human person. Thus, they are all considered to have full human rights, including the right to life. Fetal reduction is a form of selective abortion. Pope John Paul II stated:

"Therefore by the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his Successors, in communion with the Bishops — who on various occasions have condemned abortion and who in the aforementioned consultation, albeit dispersed throughout the world, have shown unanimous agreement concerning this doctrine ‐I declare that direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being. This doctrine is based upon the natural law and upon the written Word of God, is transmitted by the Church's Tradition and taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium"  

Then I saw these words and it all made perfect sense to me . . . " It is never licit to do evil, even in view of attaining a good."  I knew all this but the situation was so close to my heart that I grew so confused as to what was right and wrong.  Now I just ask that you pray for all mothers and fathers that are caught up in these tragic situations.  I pray that they can have the courage to let God work his own miracles and for us to stop trying to take control over life and death.  We ask God to grant his wisdom to the woman and men that face the worldly side of these situations.  I pray that God continues to remind us each and every day that Heaven is the goal so nothing else matters.