I want to say thank you to all of you who support Tepeyac OB/GYN through Divine Mercy Care. You’ve done more for me than you could ever know.  Sometimes when we write a check or pledge funds to an organization online, it feels impersonal. What good have we done? I want to tell you a little about my daughter, Margaret, and in sharing her story, assure you of the great works you may not even know you are doing in your generosity to DMC.

In 2013, my daughter Margaret was diagnosed with a rare abdominal birth defect when I was 14 weeks pregnant. The doctors said she was incompatible with life. They said I needed to terminate. They told me the merciful thing to do was to stop her from her suffering. There were no printouts of sonogram pictures for me at my weekly appointments. In fact, the doctors sometimes told me to close my eyes when they would do my sonogram. Close your eyes, they’d say. This will only upset you.

I called Tepeyac OB/GYN.  The doctors there had already delivered several of my children. But this time I was calling them for a different reason. I had a dying baby, and I knew Tepeyac has an incredible program I’d seen nowhere else. The Kristen Anderson Perinatal Hospice Program – a program to support families with babies facing grave illnesses.

The Tepeyac doctors didn’t tell me to close my eyes.

At Tepeyac OB/GYN, the doctors wanted to know what my baby’s name was – none of the other specialists I’d seen had ever asked me that before.  Dr. Bruchalski told me that while I was pregnant, Margaret was in the safest place she could be.  Dr. Anderson explained that if she died, we would cooperate with God’s plan for Margaret, but we would not send her back.  They did a sonogram. They gave me pictures. Dr. Anderson made me a recording of her heartbeat. They allowed me to be a mother with her child, rather than a woman with a problem to be solved.

I want to be clear that the Tepeyac doctors didn’t offer me false hopes. They didn’t say the grim diagnosis for Margaret was wrong. And my gratitude to them didn’t depend on the outcome of this pregnancy story.

My Margaret was born on the Feast of the Assumption on August 15, 2013. She spent her first year in the hospital. She came home on life support – on a ventilator and with a trach and a feeding tube. But I am happy to report, Margaret started school. She is alive today in no small part because of Tepeyac OB/GYN. And she is here in no small part, because of your support of Divine Mercy Care.

Tepeyac taught me that “life-affirming” medicine is possible even in the midst of suffering and death. I thank God for these doctors and for Margaret. And I am so grateful to you for supporting this incredible work.