A friend, or I guess more of an acquaintance of mine, suddenly disappeared off FB soon after she announced her pregnancy. We will call her Kate. I didn't think anything of it until a couple months later I saw people posting on her moms wall about saying they were praying for Kate. I assumed it was just for the pregnancy but at the same time I could tell something wasn't quite right. Since we weren't close anymore I didn't feel it was my place to pry, at all. She didn't miscarry because her mom was still posting updates on how well she was doing. Eventually I just chalked it up to her wanting more privacy or being too busy.

Yesterday her mom announced she was at the beginning stages of labor and then today she was in full early labor "which is normal for babies with anencephaly ".... Whoa... Anencephaly? I can't imagine how hard that must be! I wish I could reach out to her but seeing as we haven't talked in years and her family is definitely not trying to play this off as a bad thing but rather an exciting thing that this baby is being born, which I think is amazing!

It not only makes me ache for her but also forces me to be great-full for all my miseries caused by my, so far, perfectly healthy baby.

And just for those who don't know, anencephaly is a disorder where babies are born with large portions of their brains that just never developed. It is terminal and usually within a few hours/days of giving birth, if the baby actually made it to birth.