If I had eyes

¿Que es un milagro? Un milagro es una situación, un fenómeno o una acción que no puede explicarse a partir de los principios naturales y que, por lo tanto, es imputado a la participación de una entidad divina. La definición del término, de todas formas, varía de acuerdo a las creencias religiosas. Bueno, y cuantos milagros tenemos la gracia de ver en nuestra vida? Por lo menos en la mía no demasiados, no esta en mi día a día encontrarme o toparme con uno, pero fue en la oficina de Brooklyn cuando una mañana caí en la cuenta de que en esa última semana a la que había podido ir casi a diario, había tenido milagros delante de mi, niñas o mujeres con miedo donde todo lo dispuesto en su vida estaba de su contra para que tuvieran a sus bebes pero entre un "counseling" y otro Él intercedía y entraba en el corazón de ellas para que pudieran comprender y amar el mismo milagro que ya ellas tenían dentro, que es la vida de sus bebes.

Unos tanto y otros tan poco

" Recuerdo que cuando llevaba poco tiempo en Nairobi un keniano me preguntó si era cierto que en mi país la gente sabía el sexo del bebé antes de nacer. Con una sonrisa a punto de convertirse en carcajada le dije que sí, que era cierto que en España y en muchos otros países es habitual saber el sexo del futuro bebé antes de que nazca. Le dije además que eso se sabía gracias a una técnica llamada ecografía. Me respondió que para él eso no era tecnología, sino un milagro. Este hombre africano tras asombrarse de este hecho tomo la iniciativa de extender el uso de las ecografías por los alrededores de su pueblo natal para que más y más mujeres con el tiempo pudieran participar del pequeño milagro que es poder ver el desarrollo de sus bebés"

Born again

“There was one family I always hated to visit because of what would happen behind closed doors. I was six years old, and my younger cousin was sexually violating me. I didn’t know what that meant; all I knew was that it felt wrong.”Childhood is supposed to be an innocent time. Little Joyce never had a choice.“I thought that I would be punished because of something I had done,” says Joyce. Since no adults knew, the abuse continued during summertime visits.

Though the abuse stopped, the damage was done. “The enemy began to whisper: ‘You’re spoiled goods. Your heavenly Father doesn’t love you. You know your earthly father doesn’t. If he ever found out this truth...’ And I believed that.”

A few years of that kind of thinking had its consequences. “Now I was no longer being violated, I was offering the invitation for sex at 13. Smoking pot, hanging out with the wrong crowd but wearing that mask.” By 15, Joyce was pregnant. Without a second thought, she made a phone call. Joyce says, “I knew the remedy. All I knew was that it was supposed to be quick, easy, and affordable. I had been babysitting, had enough money. I’d take care of it, didn’t tell the boy that I was pregnant, and life would just go on back to normal.” Joyce says. “What did I do? Next year, here we are, pregnant. I’m now a junior in high school, and I knew the way out.”

One abortion made having the second one easier. Four more would follow in the years to come. What about her relationship with God in all of this?“I thought He doesn’t love me anyway because of the sexual abuse. I did feel His presence at various times and knew in my heart that what I was doing was wrong but it was the answer.”

When Joyce was 25, she became pregnant and decided to keep the baby. Her thinking on abortion was starting to change, and she hoped her boyfriend would stay for the child. He didn’t.

Joyce soon met and married Ted. Though they were happy, she was afraid that he too might leave her. So when she found she was expecting, she reverted once more to her old pattern. Joyce says. “I had become something that I hope most people never choose to become -- to reject and denounce the true joy and love of your heart for myself.”

The next time Joyce was expecting, she went to a pregnancy care center for a free test and found so much more.“They offered help for me to carry that baby. I had never been in that environment before. It was always, ‘oh, when would you like to set that appointment for that abortion?’”

In time Joyce took part in their abortion recovery program.“I didn’t even know such a thing existed. I entered in as a very frightened young girl, but 12 weeks later, I left as a woman of God. Looking at denial, depression, and anger, women and men who have lost children to abortion live in the state of anger, and for me it was 10 years.

“He’s a God who has redeemed and given me strength to tell His story. If He can take this girl who made so many wrong choices, all these abortions…if He could forgive me, I know He can forgive anyone, because I thought I was the poster girl of wrong choices.”

And what she says to women that want to abort is: “It may seem simple. It may seem like the quick fix and no one needs to know, but you’ll know for the rest of your life. It’s a devastating, destructive choice that impacts you as a mother, as a wife, as a sister, as a friend. It’s a grief, even when you know the Lord’s forgiveness, which you carry for the rest of your life. There is nothing I can do to fill my hands with my children again. Most pregnancy centers offer Bible studies. Come to know His truth, come to know His freedom, and those chains of guilt and shame can fall.”

Ser de luz.

Jimena. Su madre tenía 15 años y su padre 16, y nunca supieron que estaba enferma. "Su madre fue muy generosa porque tuvo el bebé y lo dio en adopción". Jimena tenía ya una familia adoptiva cuando su nueva madre empezó a notar que su comportamiento era extraño. "Un mes después nos la devolvió, porque no comía, lloraba, convulsionaba y ella no tenía dinero para hacerle las pruebas que le recomendó el médico". Los Carredano se la llevaron a casa y el neurólogo descubrió que tenía un problema: "Nos dijo que Jimena había nacido sin cerebro. Tiene el tallo y un poco el cerebelo, donde tiene toda la parte vegetal y animal, pero no oye, no ve... Es un caso raro porque normalmente los niños con ese problema no viven más de ocho meses o un año y ella ya tiene seis.

"Te garantizo que yo no he cambiado la forma de pensar de nadie y Jimena ya lo ha hecho. Una señora que quería abortar porque esperaba un niño Down leyó el caso de Jimena en el libro Seres de luz, de Gloria Conde, y al mes y medio -cuando vio que además de Down posiblemente vendría con otros problemas y que hasta se podría morir-, decidió que no sólo no abortaría, sino que si moría, adoptarían otro niño con síndrome de Down. ¿Cómo podría yo conseguir que una persona experimentara ese cambio tan profundo? Yo no podría, pero ella lo está haciendo -asegura su padre-. Esos seres que Dios creó, que para los ojos de algunos, por ser niños malformados, no deben nacer, son los que podrían estar haciendo los cambios en el mundo y nos los estamos cargando". Pepe y su familia han comprobado que, independientemente de las habilidades humanas que pueda tener, cada persona tiene un papel en este mundo: "Nosotros hemos visto con Jimena que cuando Dios permite que nazca una persona, que ha sido creada por Él, es porque tiene una misión específica que cumplir".

He saved her.

A story that is worth re-telling. It was from Dr. J A MacDougall. It happened right after World War II before we had any effective treatment for tuberculosis.Back in those days, when a person got active TB, we put them in a tuberculosis hospital and isolated them from the rest of the community, for they were contagious.

This story is about a 23-year-old woman. She was seriously ill with TB. She had literally no resistance

and now was rapidly losing ground as the infection took its toll. The lower lobe of her right lung had an enlarging tuberculosis cavity in it. She was weak and losing weight. The doctors had tried everything they knew and they had finally admitted that there was nothing to do. It was December. The doctor went in to tell her that medically there was no hope. The decision lay with God. She asked just one thing: “If I’m still alive on Christmas Eve, I’d like your promise that I can go home for Christmas.” She had

weighed 125 pounds (56kg), but was down to 87 (39kg), and her fever ranged to 40ºC. She looked terribly ill but always smiled. The doctors had tried a new method of injecting air into her abdominal cavity in an attempt to push her diaphragm up so as to collapse that part of the lung. The attempt to inject air, a so-called pneumoperitoneum, nearly killed her and they gave up for a bad try. With this, her last hope was gone, and they had told her that she was going to die.

But Christmas came, and a promise had been made, so, with great misgivings, they let her go home, instructing her to shield her mouth and her breathing from her loved ones. She came back to the hospital late Christmas Day. Every day thereafter her condition grew just a little bit worse and yet she didn’t die. To the doctors’ continuing amazement, she hung on. At the end of February, she was less than 80 pounds (36kg).

And then a new complication — she became nauseated, even without food in her stomach. And what did they discover?

It was ridiculous, but she had become pregnant when home on Christmas Day. But she was so ill, so weak, she couldn’t possibly have conceived — her body wouldn’t have been up to it. But she was pregnant. The test was positive. There she was on the very outer frontier of life herself, and she now held within her body another life!

Legally, medically, an abortion could have been done back then, for it certainly imperiled her life, but she and her husband were against it; the doctors were against it. Besides, the doctors thought her body would reject the baby.

But one week passed, and then another. Never once did the doctors doubt that she was dying. But, for some totally unexplained reason, she kept living and she stayed pregnant. March became April, became May, and became June. And then a totally unexpected and incredible thing happened. Her temperature began to go down.

For the first time they noted some slight improvement in her condition, and then a little more, and a little more. She began to eat. She gained a little weight, and then chest x-rays showed that the enlargement of the cavity in her lung had stopped. More than that, another x-ray showed why. 

Her diaphragm was being pushed up against the lungs, collapsing the lower lobe. And who was doing the

pushing? The baby in her womb!

Nature was doing exactly what the doctors had been unable to do. It was pressing the sides of the deadly hole together — the baby was saving his mother. The baby did save her, and at birth the baby was normal and healthy. By then the tuberculosis cavity had closed and the mother was markedly better. A few months later she was sent home.

Dr. MacDougall, who told this story and cared for her, said, and let me quote him: “That child didn’t destroy his mother — he saved her. Call it the will of God, call it human love, call it the mystical quality of motherhood, the turning in upon her to fight still more because she still had more to fight for; call it what you will — it happened. I still wonder at what she did and at the unfathomable force it signifies.”

Smile.

Era este mismo lunes cuando llegábamos no sabemos muy bien como Sofia Fuente y yo a Washington. Tras situarnos un poco en la ciudad e ir a Planned Parenthood de la 16th St. empezamos con nuestra labor. Era ya media mañana con un ya acostumbrado calor sofocante y húmedo cuando llegó la increíble Caroline a la puerta de la clínica. Tenía esa cara tan sonriente y tan llena de satisfacción como cuando ves a un niño reír, y venia avanzando lentamente pero a paso firme por la acera con su cartelito que decía "Smile, your mum chose life", y tras presentarse comenzó a hablar y a hablar, contándonos anécdotas con las que íbamos aprendiendo, como una que nos explicaba las técnicas de PP para hacernos creer que no podíamos entrar en el recinto de su jardín cuando en realidad si podíamos, o como cuando un hombre desde la ventana del hotel Hilton la había visto y bajo para rezar con ella el rosario, y así muchas mas mientras que se reía de sí misma de manera contagiosa constantemente. Caroline tiene 78 años fue profesora y cada vez que la veo desde que hemos llegado que han sido dos veces, me hace plantearme varias cosas… ¿Qué cuesta una sonrisa? Me refiero a sonreír hacia los demás, nada, cero, gratis, palabras ansiadas a escucharse siempre hoy en día, y con lo poco que irónicamente cuestan, como llenan esas sonrisas!! Transmiten seguridad y tranquilidad a los demás que ya puedes estar en una

clínica abortista que ella al ver a las mujeres salir les preguntaría que tal están y les diría que contaran con sus oraciones con una gran sonrisa, esa que enriquece al que la recibe sin empobrecer al que la ofrece. Pero y por otro lado ¿es realmente justo que nos quejemos tanto como hacemos, o tan sólo la mitad de ello? ahí esta una mujer que nos cuadriplica en edad que tiene sus dolores, que hace menos de un mes tuvo neumonía, y ahí esta ella, no sólo, no quejándose pero con una gran sonrisa, que esas son las que cuestan, cuando tus ánimos se vienen abajo por cualquier minúscula la razón que solemos encontrar. Y de algo estoy segura, el gran secreto del cual viene su sonrisa y alegría y fortaleza, es de Dios, es como si estuviera desbordada de él y que haya donde fuere y pasase lo que pasase tuviese la firme convicción de saber que todo lo puede siempre que cuente con su ayuda, como para tocar corazones de las mujeres que entran en la clínica, como para ir diario a rezar allí desde hace 7 años, y como para sonreír al mundo maravillada. 

The mother comes first

One of the saddest things about this job is hearing about women who have had past abortions, and are now right back in the same situation that they started in. The reasons that they didn’t want to have a child are still the same, but they still had sex and they still want to be free of the consequences. Almost every woman with a past abortion experience admits that it effected her in some way. Many still think about the baby that they aborted. 

They know how old he would have been and they grieve each year on what would have been his birthday. They still cry themselves to sleep at night. They wake up at night and think that they can hear the baby crying. Most of them admit that the abortion that was supposed to be a “quick fix” made their lives muchworse, and they regretted the decision.
However, many of them put themselves through that pain a second time, desperate to believe societies lies that abortion will make it like there was never a baby in the first place. They want everything to go back to the way that it was, but it can’t. Whether they have an abortion or carry their baby to term, the baby changes things from the moment that it is conceived. Most of the women who have abortions believe that it is wrong; most of them acknowledge that the baby is alive. They cannot lie to themselves, but they choose to ignore the facts.
Almost worse, though, are the horror stories that women tell about the physical complications that accompany abortion. It is easy for some women to dismiss the possibility of emotional trauma, but it is much harder to ignore stories of women who have been there and experienced the horror for themselves. 

People want to believe that abortions are safe and quick, but the truth is that woman are being hurt every day. It is not only the babies who are victims of abortions, but the women who are never told what may happen to them.

An exception to the exception

"In 1964 a fifteen-year-old girl was raped, became pregnant, and decided to carry her unborn child to term. Five months after the baby girl was born, in an act of courage and love the young mother provided her child a better environment by giving her to an adoptive family. That child was Pam Stenzel. She is the oldest of 8 children… 7 adopted…1 biological, and her extended family includes 38 adopted children in all." 

It was this week in Brooklyns office when I saw the video of a conference that Pam Stenzel was giving to college students, while she was talking to them she inspired me with her words, the way she wanted to be understood was so clear and so close at the same time. She counseled so many girls and always talked to them with opened-heart and experience taught her all the things she was telling about to the students, true things, true life. And watching her talk it also came to my mind the importance of good communication with others, with the world, because we can have great ideas, or values, or thoughts but the words in our lips are the ones that can talk from soul to soul.

This case like any other of the thousands that exist that are different from each other, but we can say about it that many people use to say that they could think that the only exception to let abortion happen could be in cases of rapement, the explanation is that is such a complex situation that could be an excepted abortion, and here she is, a great woman that could have changed in all this years the lifes of hundreds of people, and she was the exception of an exception, that also not only taught something to the people who talked but me, that within a video she made me think.

Every person is so unique, so important, such a gift, that we have to transmit the mothers that want to abort about the amazing act of love and courage that involves what the mother of Pam did, and how their baby needs to be the exception of exceptions, because in society nowadays more and more people find excuses to justify abortion as an exception in a moment of their lives.

Nowadays

When we visited Washington d.c we could be able to visit the Holocaust Museum that is a living memorial to the Holocaust, and inspires citizens and leaders worldwide to confront hatred, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity. Well, how can we not think for a moment after seeing such horrors represented in this museum, in which we remembered that once humanity was lead to losing the path of respect and caring about the dignity in human life and that ended in a huge tragedy. But now, that we speak and think of progress, like really sure we have approached it since then and were people of importance sit down to discuss how can be the needs and respects of live of people improved... but the reality is that in 2008, approximately 1.21 million abortion took place in the U.S., down from an estimated 1.29 million in 2002, 1.31 million in 2000 and 1.36 million in 1996. From 1973 through 2008, nearly 50 million legal abortions have occurred in the U.S. (AGI). And based on available state-level data, an estimated 1.16 million abortions were performed in 2009, 1.13 million were performed in 2010, and 1.06 million in 2011. How can this be a progress for humanity, have we not learned about the meaning of life and the importance of protecting it? And not only once the little boy its running wild throw the park playing with his friends its when we realize thats a life, no, because that boy was conceived and carried in the woom for nine moths before that, and he could be able to do that because he was born. 

Holocaust

When we visited Washington d.c we could be able to visit the Holocaust Museum that is a living memorial to the Holocaust, and inspires citizens and leaders worldwide to confront hatred, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity. Well, how can we not think for a moment after seeing such horrors represented in this museum, in which we remembered that once humanity was lead to losing the path of respect and caring about the dignity in human life and that ended in a huge tragedy. But now, that we speak and think of progress, like really sure we have approached it since then and were people of importance sit down to discuss how can be the needs and respects of live of people improved... but the reality is that in 2008, approximately 1.21 million abortion took place in the U.S., down from an estimated 1.29 million in 2002, 1.31 million in 2000 and 1.36 million in 1996. From 1973 through 2008, nearly 50 million legal abortions have occurred in the U.S. (AGI). And based on available state-level data, an estimated 1.16 million abortions were performed in 2009, 1.13 million were performed in 2010, and 1.06 million in 2011. How can this be a progress for humanity, have we not learned about the meaning of life and the importance of protecting it? And not only once the little boy its running wild throw the park playing with his friends its when we realize thats a life, no, because that boy was conceived and carried in the woom for nine moths before that, and he could be able to do that because he was born. 

Life teachs you everyday

Después de algún tiempo aprenderás la sutil diferencia entre sostener una mano y encadenar un alma, 

y aprenderás que amar no significa apoyarse, y que compañía no siempre significa seguridad. 

Aprenderás que con la misma severidad conque juzgas, también serás juzgado y en algún momento condenado.

Aprenderás que es uno mismo quien debe cultivar su propio jardín y decorar su alma, en vez de esperar que alguien le traiga flores.

Comenzarás a aceptar tus derrotas con la cabeza alta y la mirada al frente, con la gracia de una mujer y no con la tristeza de un niño y aprenderás a construir hoy todos tus caminos, porque el terreno de mañana es incierto para los proyectos, y el futuro tiene la costumbre de caer en el vacío.

Después de un tiempo aprenderás que el sol quema si te expones demasiado. Aceptarás incluso que las personas buenas podrían herirte alguna vez y necesitarás perdonarlas.

Aprenderás que hablar puede aliviar los dolores del alma. 

Aprenderás que las circunstancias y el ambiente que nos rodea tienen influencia sobre nosotros, pero nosotros somos los únicos responsables de lo que hacemos. 

Comenzarás a aprender que no nos debemos comparar con los demás, salvo cuando queramos imitarlos para mejorar.

Descubrirás que se lleva mucho tiempo para llegar a ser la persona que quieres ser, y que el tiempo es corto.

 Aprenderás que no importa a donde llegaste, sino a donde te diriges. Aprenderás que si no controlas tus actos ellos te controlaran y que ser flexible no significa ser débil o no tener personalidad, porque no importa cuan delicada y frágil sea una situación: siempre existen dos lados. 

Aprenderás que héroes son las personas que hicieron lo que era necesario enfrentando las consecuencias... 

Aprenderás que la paciencia requiere mucha práctica.

Y en definitiva que madurar tiene más que ver con lo que has aprendido de las experiencias, que con los años vividos. 

Share love

Hello! My name is Angela Cinelli I come from Madrid and I just finished my first year of business and marketing. I am nineteen years old and I arrived here a week ago and in only the two days before leaving to washington I learned more than I could have ever expected. I thought I knew moreless what I would see and hear while counseling, but I had no idea of the dosis of reality I was going to find. Mothers are the ones that have the absence of learning to love herselfs and we have to make them feel they are worth and so are their childs, always supporting them, and trying to show them the incredible gift each of the childs can be for their mother, families and the world.

"The happiness of giving is unmeasurable"

Great strength of a little life

"Casi no hay esperanzas de vida para los bebés nacidos antes de las 22 semanas de gestación, sin embargo estos pequeños grandes luchadores que vienen al mundo precipitadamente a menudo logran sorprendernos. El bebé más prematuro del mundo, una niña alemana nacida a las 21 semanas y 5 días, ha salido adelante y ya está en casa junto a sus padres.

Frieda nació el pasado 7 de noviembre con 28 centímetros y 460 gramos de peso. A pesar de que han nacido bebés con peso más bajo que han sobrevivido, ella es el bebé con menos edad gestacional que ha logrado salir adelante sin ningún riesgo de secuelas, al menos por el momento.

La pequeña tenía un hermano gemelo que murió a los pocos días de nacer, mientras que ella ha permanecido cinco meses y medio ingresada en el hospital en un ambiente totalmente aséptico, con asistencia respiratoria y siendo alimentada por el ombligo hasta que alcanzó los 3,5 kilos de peso y 50 centímetros. Según los médicos, la niña se desarrollará normalmente como cualquier otro bebé.

Cada vez hay más bebés prematuros extremos que logran salir adelante, con secuelas mínimas o incluso sin secuelas como el caso de Frieda. Pero lamentablemente hay muchos otros casos con menos suerte que no salen a la luz.

El porcentaje de supervivencia de los nacidos antes de las 24 semanas de gestación es de apenas el 10 por ciento. Entre las principales dificultades a las que se enfrentan estas pequeños se encue

ntran la inmadurez de sus pulmones, la dificultad para regular la temperatura corporal y la escasa capacidad para asimilar los alimentos del sistema digestivo, además de complicaciones severas como hemorragias intracraneales, anemia o infecciones.

En el supuesto de salir adelante, lo más probable es que queden secuelas como complicaciones respiratorias, psicomotrices, retraso del habla y problemas de audición, entre otras.

Frieda ha desafiado todas las estadísticas y con apenas 21 semanas y 5 días de gestación, lo que la convierte en el bebé más prematuro del mundo ha conseguido salir adelante. Podemos imaginar la angustia por la que habrán pasado sus padres, pero afortunadamente la historia ha tenido un final feliz."