Stunning pro-life witness: “In choosing life, we chose sorrow. But we also chose joy.”

Treasa and George Matysek rest their hands on their unborn baby, Georgie, when he was still in his mother’s womb. (Courtesy Matysek family / Catholic Review)

This comes from my friend George Matysek in the Catholic Review of Baltimore. If you read only one pro-life story this day, this should be it. Pass it on.

His account of life, and loss, and love: 

The ultrasound technician who gently swept a probe across my wife’s gel-covered belly spoke hardly a word as she collected flickering images of our wriggling 20-week-old unborn baby.

“The baby definitely doesn’t like fireworks,” I offered, recounting how just a few weeks earlier our little one had demonstrated his disdain for pyrotechnics by giving some forceful kicks during a Fourth of July show.

The technician remained quietly focused on the monitor, analyzing tiny hands and feet, measuring limbs and listening to the beating heart.

A few minutes went by.

Then another two or three.

Then maybe five more.

The silence was excruciating.

“Have you had genetic testing?” the woman finally asked, not looking away from the screen.

“No,” I said, my heart sinking.

The technician excused herself and was replaced by a fetal medicine doctor who stood at the foot of Treasa’s bed.

Our baby’s heart was not properly formed, the doctor said, and there were other anomalies. Trisomy 18, a genetic condition that occurs in one of every 2,500 pregnancies in the United States, was the suspected culprit. If the baby made it full term, the doctor said, he would likely live only a day or two after birth.

The weight of the pronouncement was crushing. I wept as I embraced Treasa, looked into her eyes, and repeated again and again a phrase I felt more intensely than ever: “I love you.”

My tears flowed not only for our baby, but in anticipation of the pain I knew would be Treasa’s constant companion in the months to come.

In a reference to abortion, the doctor told us we had to make a decision.

No further discussion was needed. Treasa and I knew that life is a gift from God – and that it begins at conception. We would go forward with the second half of the pregnancy despite the many challenges we would likely encounter. We were determined to give our son every opportunity at life and not extinguish it because others may have deemed it less-than-worthy.

In choosing life, we chose sorrow.

But we also chose joy.

Read more.