A Treasury of Miracles for Women by Karen Kingsbury

had his first birthday. The boys were happy children and all had the dark eyes and dark hair of their parents.
    “You know what I wish,” Ben Bauer said one evening as he and Angie rested on the living room sofa.
    “What?”
    Ben placed his hand on his wife's abdomen. “I wish we could have a blonde, blue-eyed little girl. Wouldn't that be something?”
    Angie uttered a short laugh. She had dark hair and her husband's hair was even darker. Their boys had Ben's deep brown eyes as well. There were no blond, blue-eyed people in either of their families. “Good luck,” she grinned.
    “I know, I know.” Ben pulled Angie closer. “Just dreaming, I guess.”
    The first three months of Angie's pregnancy passed by normally. She was busy at home with the boys and Ben continued his work as a special education teacher in Akron, Ohio. Ben's students were mentally handicapped and each held a special place in his heart. Oftentimes he would come home and play with his sons, silently thanking God for their strong and healthy minds. On more than one occasion he had discussed his students with Angie and pondered how they would deal with such a child them selves.
    “It would be so hard to see one of my own children go through what my students go through,” Ben would say. “But I know I would love that child the same as any other.”
    Angie would agree and they would put the matter out of their minds.
    When Angie was four months pregnant, her doctor or dered a routine ultrasound to make sure the baby was de veloping normally. After the test, Angie's doctor ushered her into his office and closed the door. He looked at the re port on his desk and cleared his throat.
    “It seems we have a problem,” he said. “Something has shown up on the ultrasound and I'd like you to see a spe cialist.”
    “It sounds serious.” Angie shifted uneasily in her chair and searched the doctor's face for information.
    He nodded solemnly. “I won't lie to you, Angie. It is se rious. There's something developing at the base of the baby's neck and it looks like cystic hygroma, a rare condition involving fluid buildup in the lymph system.”
    “What does that mean for the baby?”
    He handed her the name and phone number of a spe cialist in Cleveland, forty miles north of Akron. “Get an appointment with him and see what he says about it. Then we'll go from there.”
    A week later, Angie and Ben drove to Cleveland, where technicians performed another, more sophisticated ultrasound on the unborn child. The diagnosis was the same.
    “She has cystic hygroma, which is a rare—”
    “She?” Ben interrupted.
    The doctor glanced at his notes once more. “Uh, yes. It's a girl.”
    The couple remained silent but Ben squeezed Angie's hand tightly.
    “What I was saying is that this is a very rare condition and almost always life-threatening for the baby.”
    He went on to say that the baby's lymph system was not redistributing fluids throughout her body. Instead it was gathering at the base of the skull and developing into fluid sacs that would eventually circle her neck like so many sections of an orange and choke her to death.
    “Can you tell how serious her condition is compared to others you've seen?” Angie asked. Tears spilled from her eyes and slid down her cheeks.
    “It's very serious. I don't usually see this much fluid buildup until the thirtieth week. I'm afraid she won't live more than a couple months at most.”
    “Isn't there anything you can do? Surgery in the womb? Something?” Ben was devastated. Angie was carrying their tiny daughter and now she was being given a death sen tence before she even had a chance to live.
    The doctor shook his head sadly. “No, I'm sorry. The only thing I can suggest is to terminate the pregnancy and try getting pregnant again in a few months.”
    Angie's eyes grew wide. “You mean abort the baby?”
    The doctor nodded. “Mrs. Bauer, your baby will die anyway. It'll be much easier if you go ahead and