{"id":183281,"date":"2018-06-06T11:41:03","date_gmt":"2018-06-06T15:41:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=183281"},"modified":"2018-08-08T09:26:20","modified_gmt":"2018-08-08T14:26:20","slug":"pearl-joy-parents-chose-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/pearl-joy-parents-chose-life\/","title":{"rendered":"AMAZING: Parents choose life for baby with rare brain malformation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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UPDATE: On March 28, 2018, Pearl Joy passed away just a few months before her sixth birthday.<\/em><\/p>\n

Eric Brown calls his family \u201cordinary.\u201d However, most of us would disagree, because the strength, love and wisdom they have displayed in the last few years have been nothing short of extraordinary. Brown and his wife Ruth were parents to son Brennan and daughter Abigail when they learned they were expecting their third child. At their 20-week ultrasound, doctors found a concern and baby Pearl Joy was diagnosed with alobar holoprosencephaly – the most severe form of holoprosencephaly \u2013 a rare congenital brain malformation in which there is no separation of the cerebral hemispheres. It is considered a fatal condition and doctors advised abortion.<\/p>\n

\u201c[\u2026] we were advised on that day [of the diagnosis] to induce labor, say goodbye and try again,\u201d Brown said in a speech for Evangelicals for Life. \u201cIt was a belittling conversation trying to convince that doctor that if Pearl was alive, but she was having troubles, that we had no interest in taking her away from the provision that Ruth\u2019s womb was giving. We knew very well what would happen if we did and there was no way that Pearl\u2019s body had developed enough to survive outside of Ruth\u2019s body. She was being sustained in there and God was still knitting her together and it seemed cruel to us to take away the very system that was helping her broken body do what it was incapable of doing on its own.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Before long, people who have entered the valley of humility feel themselves back in the uplands of joy and commitment. They’ve thrown themselves into work, made new friends, & cultivated new loves. They realize, with a shock, that they’ve traveled a long way since the first days of their crucible. They turn around & see how much ground they have left behind. Such people don’t come out healed; they come out different. They find a vocation or calling. They commit themselves to some long obedience & dedicate themselves to some desperate lark that gives life purpose. -David Brooks (The Road to Character) We’ve come a long way, baby girl! #PearlhasHoPE #SpecialNeeds #Fujifilm #x100s<\/a><\/p>\n

A post shared by Eric Brown<\/a> (@ebrown_photo) on