16 February 2008

Modern-Day St. Gianna

Jeff Culbreath links to a heartrending story in the Daily Mail:
Four months into her pregnancy, Lorraine Allard was devastated to learn she was in the advanced stages of cancer.

Doctors advised her to have an abortion and start chemotherapy straight away.

Instead, with steadfast courage, she insisted on waiting long enough to give her unborn son a chance to survive, telling her husband Martyn: "If I am going to die, my baby is going to live."
Lorraine gave birth to her son Liam when he was only 25 weeks old (infants born then only have a 50% chance of survival). She was able to hold him a handful of times before she died two months later, at the age of 33. Liam is still in the hospital but responding well to treatment.