Seasons of Grace
Four-month-old Melinda Star Guido is going home!
When she was born in late August, baby Melinda weighed only 9½ ounces and was, according to the Associated Press, the third-smallest baby in the world. Most infants her size don’t survive; in fact, doctors didn’t really expect her to live. But Melinda received excellent care in the NICU at the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, where she received nutrition through a feeding tube and was hooked up to a breathing machine.
Melinda’s mother, 22-year-old Haydee Ibarra, suffered from high blood pressure during her pregnancy. Because of a problem with the placenta, the developing Melinda did not receive proper nutrition, oxygen and blood. Doctors feared for both mother and child, and so delivered the infant by cesarian section at 24 weeks gestation.
Baby Melinda has faced some crises during her short life. She was treated for an eye disorder, and recently underwent surgery to close an artery which usually seals after birth.
But God seems to have a plan for Melinda’s future. Doctors are planning to release her before New Year’s Eve, and Melinda—now over four pounds—will go home to her parents’ waiting arms.
Unfortunately, not all of baby Melinda’s peers fare as well: According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, each year 1,032 babies like Melinda, who reach 24 weeks or more in the womb, are aborted. Are they, as the abortion industry would have us believe, just a “bundle of cells”?
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