Sarah Palin of the South

Miracle Baby

When is the right time to talk about the very personnel side of the abortion issue? And what is the proper forum? I’m not sure.

Abortion is a very personal thing – for two very real human beings; a mother and her child.

To me, the Focus on the Family ad featuring former Florida Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow and his mother is more than just an ad – it gives a voice to the other side of the abortion issue that is usually silent.

This is my story.

We have always called my daughter Benjamin, who was just named the Sun News ‘Toast of the Coast – Runner of the Year’ for High School Girls Cross Country our miracle baby.

(See Benjamin: http://www.thesunnews.com/2010/01/28/1285023/improving-with-age.html)

Anyway, when I was well into my pregnancy with Benji – I was told us that there were serious development problems and that if I tried to carry the baby to term it could endanger my life.

I was a student at Coastal Carolina University-USC and had already been named to the NCAA Track & Field Big South Conference in 1994 and had stopped my training for the Boston Marathon right after I found out I was pregnant.

Any woman who heard what the doctor told me knows how those words cut right to the bottom of everything. You never forget that day. At the time I had a two year old son, Christian.

I’m not saying I was brave or even principled or even smart; I just know that I couldn’t go ahead with what the doctor strongly recommended. I was a mom – and my baby was my baby.

Week-by-week then day-by-day until the morning Benjamin was born I prayed and I promised things and I was very scared. It wasn’t the last time – I now have four children.

But, after all of these years I know that I would have to do it that same way all over again – and it wouldn’t matter if Benjamin was Runner of the Year or just a teenage girl doing math homework in after school detention – she was and always will be my baby. And that’s how I saw her from the moment she was alive inside of me.

Like I said, I’m not sure when and where the right time to talk about abortion is.

Here is what I do know; all four of my children are miracle babies.

Every baby is a miracle baby.