Vivian Marie

We learned yesterday morning that the baby my wife Genece carries in her womb has a fatal condition known as anencephaly. Parts of our daughter’s skull and brain have not formed and will not do so. She is still alive, kicking and squirming, especially after my wife eats sugary foods, but her life will be very short. If she lives until term and through the delivery, she will be with us for only a few hours, perhaps a day or two. My wife is due in September, so we may have a long road ahead of us as we prepare simultaneously for our daughter’s birth, baptism, and burial. I admit a part of me wants this to be over sooner rather than later, but I also desire, hope, to hold my daughter, to listen to her newborn cries, to hold my wife as she nurses our hungry child, and to share as family those few precious moments of her life before we must say goodbye.