A Gift of Time
by Dia Boyle
Continuing your pregnancy when your baby’s life is expected to be brief.
“When you discover that you are pregnant, you expect a certain kind of journey. You wonder if your child is a boy or a girl and begin searching for the perfect name….But now prenatal testing has revealed serious problems, problems so serious that your baby is not expected to survive. This is not the journey you planned. It isn’t even on the map…” (p. 1)
This particular journey is relatively new in human experience. Certainly it has happened throughout human history that babies have been conceived with fatal medical conditions, but until recently these problems seldom came to light before birth. Most problems would not have been known until miscarriage or birth revealed them to parents and doctors alike. Accurate prenatal diagnosis was, for the most part, not possible until diagnostic ultrasound and fetal testing became routinely available in the 1980s. With rapid developments in fetal diagnosis in the past 30 years, it is now very possible to know early in a pregnancy there are “catastrophic problems” which will almost certainly result in the baby not being able to survive after birth for more than a few minutes, days, or weeks. It is for this journey, the journey through the remaining months of pregnancy and the birth and death of a child, that A Gift of Time can serve as an experienced and compassionate travel guide and companion.
The capacity for fetal diagnosis has coincided with the legalization of abortion, and this book acknowledges that the medical recommendation in these cases has often been an abortion (or “early induction”). In A Gift of Time the authors choose neither to condemn nor support the choice of abortion. They direct their book to those who, having received a devastating diagnosis, have decided, or are still in the process of deciding, to continue their pregnancy knowing that their baby’s life is expected to be brief. Yet their positive and encouraging approach to these heartbreaking realities paint the choice of abortion as a sad mistake and a missed opportunity for emotional growth and healing.
Author Amy Kuebelbeck herself experienced this journey with the birth and death of her son Gabriel (Waiting with Gabriel: A Story of Cherishing a Baby’s Brief Life). With Deborah L. Davis, PhD, an expert in perinatal bereavement, Ms. Kuebelbeck, a former reporter and editor for the Associated Press, gathered the experiences and insights of more than 120 mothers and fathers who had traveled this path. These experiences and insights are shared in the parents’ own words, organized in chapters such as “Waiting with your Baby,” “Welcoming Baby,” and “Saying Goodbye.” This book is directed to parents who have received a catastrophic diagnosis, and it is offered as an aid to help them think about and prepare for the coming months and years. How do we reveal this news to the people at work? Do we want to take photographs…and how? What about my other children? A Gift of Time offers practical advice and many resources for these parents, along with a great deal of support, affirmation, encouragement, and consolation. It is also a great source of insight for those involved in the care and support of such families: medical personnel, family and friends, clergy and counselors.
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