Public Enemy Number One

On PostSecret today, there is one where someone says that a mom suffocated her baby so she could go start a new life with a guy she met on the Internet. And she did it in a way that made the cause of death look like SIDS.


To a mother who is of sound mind, SIDS is public enemy number one. It is THE scariest acronym in all the English language - in ANY language, actually.

Sudden, unexplainable death. Are you serious? I just spent 27 hours in labor. I lost innumerable hours of sleep caring for you. I fed you from my breast. I saw your smile. I looked into your eyes and now you are just gone?! And no one will ever be able to tell my why?!

There are no words that could ever describe the grief the mother of a SIDS baby must feel. (And fathers too, of course.)

For someone to choose to take their child's breath from them is atrocious. But to add it to the SIDS numbers is HEINOUS.

While I was pregnant, I went through a brief period of watching A&E's Intervention. I eventually had to stop. On March 19, 2011, ten days before my Daelen Jon was born, I wrote this:

I have seen two shows today with moms who chose addictions over their children. It makes me cry, It makes me just want to hold my baby. I want to hold him and love him and protect him and teach him and love him some more.

And numerous times in the last six weeks, I have done just that - just held him, hugged him, kissed him, loved him.

I never had a ticking biological clock that demanded I have a baby. But now that I have one, you can your bottom dollar I am going to do everything I can to be the mom he deserves.

I can only pray that the Lord looks upon my efforts favorably and chooses to let us both be alive and well for many decades.