Baby Shopping

Today I've been thinking about baby shopping. No, I don't mean shopping to buy things for a baby, I mean shopping to actually pick out a baby. Yup, that's what I've been thinking about today. I watched a show a couple weeks ago and the discussion topic was baby shopping. That's the name I gave it. They were talking about giving kids growth hormones, being able to select gender, physical features, etc and being able to have babies very late in life and also selecting babies that would have no diseases, disabilities or disfigurement all thanks to advances in science. So I quite casually conducted my own little survey and asked a few people if they would ever take advantage of any of these advancements for their own children, now or in the future. I was so very surprised to find that many many many people would!

I've thought about this a lot before and my own personal decision would be no. First of all, it really breaks my heart to look at a child and think of what he/she could have been instead of what he/she is. I know that there are so many awful diseases and conditions that a baby can be born with. I know that there are many cases when the child would have very little chance of life and even have very poor quality of life for whatever time may or may not be available. However, this just brings me to my second reason, I really do not like to play God. I'm just that kind of person, in big things and small, I generally do not like to know things I don't need to or shouldn't yet. I don't mind surprises, I actually like them a great deal. I do understand the importance in being able to find out certain things about a baby's health before the baby arrives so that the parents can make any necessary preparations. But I think this is much different than choosing ahead of time a child not prone to certain ailments. I believe that God has a perfect plan for each of us and for some that plan is many healthy children; others perhaps just one healthy child, while still others will have sick children or children that will never live a full and complete life according to society's standards. Some children will need care their entire lives, some will never make it past being a child before they go home to their Heavenly Father. And these latter situations truly make me grieve for the family and loved ones that will have to endure, but I must hold fast to my belief that God does not give us more than we can handle and will hold us through the most difficult of trials. We must remember this and trust Him to make these decisions for us. He sees everything, past present and future perfectly clear. We forget our past, misinterpret our present and guess about our future. How can we be the best ones to make such life-altering decisions?



On the show that I watched, a doctor came on as a guest speaker and said that these growth hormones have actually been shown to make bones weak and brittle and cause certain types of cancer! Yet there were multiple parents actually giving them to their children so that they would not be teased in school for being short. One was a high school boy who was around 5'5." That's not even that much shorter than our national average! What's wrong with just teaching our children to be proud of who God made them and how to cope with teasing in a positive way?

So hopefully this does not offend anyone and I truly am not trying to sound naive to the situations that many have had and will have to face with sick or disabled children. I just wonder where the line will be drawn. I think it is a slippery slope. Perhaps it will start with just making sure that your child will not have any life threatening ailments or disabilities but surely it won't be long before we are choosing to only have girls with blond curls and sparkly blue eyes, slender and petite and boys with thick brown hair and crisp green eyes, broad shoulders and perfect teeth. I really would be afraid to see how far this could go! What do you think? Am I way off? Am I just looking through rose colored glasses and not seeing this as the positive medical and science advancement so many are saying it is? Do tell, I'm eager to hear some other ideas on the subject!