{"id":162830,"date":"2017-02-24T15:00:48","date_gmt":"2017-02-24T20:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"\/news\/?p=162830"},"modified":"2017-02-26T09:55:33","modified_gmt":"2017-02-26T14:55:33","slug":"samuel-wasnt-expected-live-beyond-months-now-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/samuel-wasnt-expected-live-beyond-months-now-11\/","title":{"rendered":"Samuel&#8217;s mother refused abortion. Now, at 11 years old, he&#8217;s &#8216;full of joy.&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.specialbooksbyspecialkids.org\/about-us\">Special Books by Special Kids<\/a> is an organization that believes everyone deserves acceptance. It&#8217;s founder, Chris Ulmer, travels the world meeting children with different abilities and shares their stories with the world via social media. His goal is to &#8220;normalize the diversity of the human condition.&#8221; In a Facebook video, he introduced the world to 11-year-old <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/amiraclemann\/?hc_location=ufi\">Samuel Mann<\/a>,\u00a0who wasn&#8217;t supposed to live more than a few months after birth.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\u00a0<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none; overflow: hidden;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fspecialbooksbyspecialkids%2Fvideos%2F944000415701939%2F&amp;show_text=1&amp;width=560\" width=\"560\" height=\"464\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Samuel was born with a rare form of dwarfism called Thanatophoric Dysplasia. His mother Ellen said it means &#8220;death brain&#8221; in Greek and his father said that doctors offered them little hope that Samuel would survive.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">&#8220;I suspect you probably heard from my wife. She was offered an abortion multiple times,&#8221; he said in the interview.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">&#8220;The first time it was actually proposed, the term therapeutic abortion was used,&#8221; explained Ellen Mann. &#8220;We were being told that Samuel would only have a little time possibly after he was born, and even if I had just that little time I wanted that with him.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none; overflow: hidden;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Famiraclemann%2Fposts%2F1773391842917197%3A0&amp;width=500\" width=\"500\" height=\"682\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Samuel is working on verbal communication\u00a0but otherwise uses some sign language. He has a brilliant smile and his father is amazed at how he can light up a room. The first time he said &#8220;mom,&#8221; his mother said she &#8220;just about fell over.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">While he weighs just 25 pounds, he is defying the odds and brings joy to those around him.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">&#8220;There&#8217;s definitely some people out there that think he should just die,&#8221; said his father. &#8220;This is a terrible diagnosis that can&#8217;t be survivable. The point is it <em>can<\/em> be survivable. There&#8217;s probably a lot of other diagnoses similar that can be survivable. And I think it&#8217;s actually &#8212; from my point of view &#8212; the work you put into it is worth it because you get this beautiful, happy child that surprises you every day.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Special Books by Special Kids is an organization that believes everyone deserves acceptance. It&#8217;s founder, Chris Ulmer, travels the world meeting children with different abilities and shares their stories with the world via social media. His goal is to &#8220;normalize the diversity of the human condition.&#8221; In a Facebook video, he introduced the world to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":162834,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[9455,9459],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Samuel&#039;s mother refused abortion. Now, at 11 years old, he&#039;s &#039;full of joy.&#039;<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Samuel uses some sign language. 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He has a brilliant smile and his father is amazed at how he can light up a room.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/samuel-wasnt-expected-live-beyond-months-now-11\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Live Action News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveaction\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-02-24T20:00:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-02-26T14:55:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/14317391_1773391842917197_5605201224394547008_n-e1487963297399.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"731\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"506\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nancy Flanders\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@liveaction\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@liveaction\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Nancy Flanders\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/samuel-wasnt-expected-live-beyond-months-now-11\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/samuel-wasnt-expected-live-beyond-months-now-11\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Nancy Flanders\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/d61ca3dd1aacf12635bdf71d75c328ef\"},\"headline\":\"Samuel&#8217;s mother refused abortion. 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