Day 26: 31 for 21----Unworthy

As we are winding down the 31 for 21 challenge this week, I wondered what I would blog about using the letter u.  (Just decided to do the alphabet to make it easier to find stuff to talk about.)

Do you know the stigma that still surrounds our children?  Do you know that some people still find our children unworthy of life?  Do you know that some people see our children as having no value in society?  How can that be?  Have they ever really opened their eyes as to what this world is made of? 

I know that I have talked about how fortunate our children are to be born here in the United States.  If they are put up for adoption, they have parents waiting to take them home to love on them.  This isn't the case in many other nations, where they are put in orphanages to live out a bleak, miserable, lonely life.  No, this isn't an exaggeration.  There is so much stigma surrounding their diagnosis, that families do not take these children home.  They are seen as not worthy of a normal life.  In Eastern Europe they are transferred to a mental institution at age 5 and if they live to be 18, they are then put out on the street.  Literally put out on the street.  How can this be?  I don't know what the next 18 years of my Katie's life will bring, but I know that if I am not able to provide for her, she wouldn't be put out on the street to fend for herself.  Yes, someday she may be able to live unassisted, maybe in an apartment that we have attached to our house, maybe in a group home, maybe with other family, who knows.  But I have no doubt that she will be cared for.  That she is worthy to be here on this Earth. 

I can't imagine that someones heart would be so cold as to not being able to accept someone that is slower mentally than they are.  How many times have we heard that if you know early enough in your pregnancy that your baby has Ds, then you can abort?  People say to me, I don't know how you do it, it takes someone special to raise a special needs child, etc.  What else would I do?  First, all I have to do is love my child.  The rest will work itself out.  I feel that sometimes I am not worthy of being trusted with such a  child.  Are any of us more worthy than the other?  No, we all breathe the same air, we all need water to survive, we all feel the same types of emotions, we would all bleed if cut, we are all more alike than different.  So why does one person act like they are better than another?  "If you judge people, you have no time to love them." Quote from Mother Teresa.  She loved the "least of these".  She cared for those who society had deemed unworthy.  Wouldn't this world be a kinder, gentler place if we could all find the worth in every life born.  My daughter's life is worth every breath I take and every breath she takes.  My hope is that in my lifetime we will see the changing of how other countries view their children with Ds.  That they will be changed in their hearts and will see all the value of their child's life.  I don't think that is too big of a dream!