A cold March wind danced around the dead of night in Dallas as the doctor walked into the small hospital room of Diana Blessing. She was still groggy from surgery.
Her husband, David , held her hand as they braced themselves for the latest news.
That afternoon of March 10, 1991, complications had forced Diana, only 24-weeks pregnant, to undergo an emergency Cesarean to deliver couple's new daughter, Dana Lu Blessing.
At 12 inches long and weighing only one pound nine ounces, they already knew she was perilously premature.
Still, the doctor's soft words dropped like bombs.
'I don't think she's going to make it,' he said, as kindly as he could.
'There's only a 10-percent chance she will live through the night, and even then, if by some slim chance she does make it, her future could be a very cruel one'
Numb with disbelief, David and Diana listened as the doctor described the devastating problems Dana would likely face if she survived.
She would never walk, she would never talk, she would probably be blind, and she would certainly be prone to other catastrophic conditions from cerebral palsy to complete mental retardation, and on and on.
'No! No!' was all Diana could say.
She and David, with their 5-year-old son Dustin, had long dreamed of the day they would have a daughter to become a family of four.
Now, within a matter of hours, that dream was slipping away.
But as those first days passed, a new agony set in for David and Diana. Because Dana 's underdeveloped nervous system was essentially 'raw', the lightest kiss or caress only intensified her discomfort, so they couldn't even cradle their tiny baby girl against their chests to offer the strength of their love.
All they could do, as Dana struggled alone beneath the ultraviolet light in the tangle of tubes and wires, was to pray that God would stay close to their precious little girl.
There was never a moment when Dana suddenly grew stronger.
But as the weeks went by, she did slowly gain an ounce of weight here and an ounce of strength there.
At last, when Dana turned two months old, her parents were able to hold her in their arms for the very first time.
And two months later, though doctors continued to gently but grimly warn that her chances of surviving, much less living any kind of normal life, were next to zero, Dana went home from the hospital, just as her mother had predicted.
Five years later, when Dana was a petite but feisty young girl with glittering gray eyes and an unquenchable zest for life.
She showed no signs whatsoever of any mental or physical impairment. Simply, she was everything a little girl can be and more. But that happy ending is far from the end of her story.
One blistering afternoon in the summer of 1996 near her home in Irving , Texas , Dana was sitting in her mother's lap in the bleachers of a local ball park where her brother Dustin's baseball team was practicing.
As always, Dana was chattering nonstop with her mother and several other adults sitting nearby, when she suddenly fell silent. Hugging her arms across her chest, little Dana asked, 'Do you smell that?'
Smelling the air and detecting the approach of a thunderstorm, Diana replied, 'Yes, it smells like rain.'
Dana closed her eyes and again asked, 'Do you smell that?'
Once again, her mother replied, 'Yes, I think we're about to get wet. It smells like rain.'
Still caught in the moment, Dana shook her head, patted her thin shoulders with her small hands and loudly announced,
'No, it smells like Him.
It smells like God when you lay your head on His chest.'
Tears blurred Diana's eyes as Dana happily hopped down to play with the other children.
Before the rains came, her daughter's words confirmed what Diana and all the members of the extended Blessing family had known, at least in their hearts, all along.
During those long days and nights of her first two months of her life, when her nerves were too sensitive for them to touch her, God was holding Dana on His chest and it is His loving scent that she remembers so well.
14 comments:
A fetus becomes a person the moment it breathes with its own lungs and is separated from its mother. It's a heart-warming story. But the photo you attached to it, God only knows where you got that from; it certainly isn't the baby in the story.
From what UNGODLY stone did you crawl out from under.
Sorry you were offended bu the truth, Pamela. Ms. MoreLies asked "try to tell me this isn't a child" and I did. That's what the law says, too, so I guess you think the entire legal system crawled out from under a rock?
I appreciate America more than that, I guess. So where'd you come from?
DiogenASS: try using spell check or maybe just learn how spell, you're become an embracement to the teaching profession.
Yea, Pamela poses a good question, what rock did you crawl from under?
If I'm an "embracement" to the teaching profession, I think I'm honored, AnonyMouse.
Leave it to you to call me out on a one-letter typo by creating your own word which doesn't remotely mean what you intended. You must have graduated from Yogi Berra Elementary School and finished your education at the Casey Stengel Middle School for the Ungifted!
Still waiting for your explanation of where you got that phto, ms. MoreLies, and what correlation it has to the article you cut & pasted. A little "bait & switch" deal, perhaps?
The photo came with the email.
And what is its significance? Was the writer of the email and/or you trying to deceive your readers into believing that this was Baby Dana Blessing?
If you read the story criticially enough, you'd realize that it couldn't possibly be Dana.
So what is it? An actual baby? A Photoshopped Religious Rightwingnut special?
You drew our attention to the photo, Ms. MoreLies, so please explain:
What is it (the photo)?
Where did it come from?
Has it been altered?
Have you ever heard of the concept of "criticial thinking"? Since you're pretty much a lost cause at this point, the more important question is, since you chose to homeskool your kids, have any of them ever heard of critical thinking, much less engaged in it?
You're raising some great little acolytes there, Ms. MoreLies.
The photo came in the email. That's the only info I have. A little paranoid about it, are you?
To Pamela:
Diogenes specializes in the ungodly and then poses as a Christian.
To Pamela:
Diogenes specializes in the ungodly and then poses as a Christian.
I'm not paranoid, Ms. MoreLies. I'm doing what you asked.
You drew attention to the photo with the insinuation that it was Dana Blessing -- which it clearly cannot be, since the story says they couldn't cradle the baby -- and that it's a 24-week-old "baby in utero" -- which it is also clearly not, since it's what appears to be a baby being held in a human hand. Is it a living breathing baby? Is it a stillborn fetus? Is it all a photoshopped fake?
YOU asked us to look at it, Ms. MoreLies -- so what is it?
Or you can admit that you don't have any idea and that you were just trying to mislead people.
Your choice.
As I said before, the photo came with the email and I assumed it was legit. Perhaps, it's not; I don't know.
But, the real point which you have missed is that a baby was born 16 weeks early. In your sick mind, she was only a "baby" because she exited her mother's womb. If the baby had remained in utero, she would not have been a "baby" in your warped mind.
Sorry, it doesn't work that way. And you have the nerve to call yourself a Christian when you bend over backward to defend this evil. I don't know how you could be more deceived.
I'm sorry but it certainly DOES work that way.... EXACTLY that way!
the law is about drawing lines, to delineate approved conduct from prohibited conduct. I understand that you don't personally agree with where the line has been drawn in this issue, but it has been drawn, and you are wrong.
Sorry.
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