Every now and then when I’m doing this, I come across a video that I just know I have to write about early in the day. Having to do this later on in the day, when I’m tired, would just make the emotional punch this piece delivers even more devastating. I know I’ll probably dream about this tonight, but I think it would be worse if I had done it before going to bed. What we see here is a video about the worst decision a pregnant woman has to make – buying a casket for a soon-to-be born baby.
Let’s rewind for a second. This video chronicles the journey of T.K. and Deidra Laux. Deidra was pregnant with their first child, but then at an ob/gyn appointment, they learned that their boy had a Trisomy 13, a rare genetic abnormality. Babies who have it rarely live more than a few days after birth, if they even survive. They were given the choice of terminating – they refused. We see them in a funeral home picking out a casket while she’s still carrying. Then she gives birth.
It’s immediate that Thomas, their baby boy, is deformed. He has an enormous cleft upper lip. Despite that, he’s still adorable, and his parents shower him with love. He’s sent home with pain medication and oxygen to live in hospice care. I’ve dealt with hospice care – my mother was in it. It’s painful for everyone around and they had to watch Thomas’ organs fail and his breathing eventually stop. After grieving over his body, they bury him. There was an addendum that they had tried again and it looked like their baby girl was progressing normally.
A video like this was sure to elicit a flood of comments, some taking the Laux’s side while others decried their decision to brig Thomas to term and then watch him die, slowly. To the naysayers, my response is that it was their own private decision. They wanted Thomas to feel like a human being, loved and cradled, even if only for five days. The whole humane death is a topic that I could write for about 1,000 pages and still not scratch the surface. I’ll just say – don’t say anything unless you’ve walked in their shoes.
What a moving video. I was getting the box of tissues by a third of it. What do you think? Tell us all about it in the comments section – though this is a sensitive topic. Be respectful.
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