What It Means to Be Loved

We recently learned of this Artist (Mark Schultz) and in particular the song: What it means to be loved and wanted to share it. The words are so beautiful, so inspiring and really touched our hearts.

Here's the link to his website:

http://www.markschultzstore.com/comealive/
Once on his site click listen, then click on song #4 - What it means to be loved
*you can click on the title of this post and it will take you directly to his website.

After listening to this song it sparked a conversation between Branden and I that I wanted to somehow document. We want to ensure that Annabelle knows that we love her unconditionally and have loved "the baby in my belly" since the moment we found out I was pregnant. Yes, it was a very sad day in March of this year when we were told that our daughter would be born with Spina Bifida, a very serious birth defect, however, it never entered our mind that she wouldn't be born. She is our gift from God and we would never consider terminating the pregnancy. I'll admit the pregnancy was very difficult - the worrying, the fear and all of the unknowns. However, that is gone now and has been replaced with happiness and joy for this amazing little girl who completes our family.

We continue to be saddened when we think about how many times we were asked if we wanted to terminate the pregnancy. We look at our beautiful, sweet, bright eyed daughter who is so full of life and can't even imagine that someone would consider not bringing her into the world. It was primarily the doctors who asked the questions, not friends and of course not family. Anyone who really knows us, knows that as a Catholic and as a mother, an abortion would never be a consideration - regardless of how bleak a picture the doctors might have painted.

We didn't and still don't fully understand why we were chosen to be Annabelle's parents, but we are so thankful we were. We are so thankful for the opportunity to show her what it means to be loved.