{"id":590,"date":"2008-04-28T10:20:58","date_gmt":"2008-04-28T10:20:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2008\/04\/to-life.html"},"modified":"2008-04-28T10:20:58","modified_gmt":"2008-04-28T10:20:58","slug":"to-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/04\/to-life.html","title":{"rendered":"To Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two stories:
\nJim Caviezel’s adoption of two older, ill children from China<\/a>
\nYou’ve probably already heard this, but it’s worth noting again – Alaska Governor Sarah Palin recently gave birth to her fifth child, who has Down Syndrome.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

She and her husband, Todd, showed their new baby, Trig Paxson Van Palin, to a few reporters and photographers and answered questions about his condition and the sooner-than-expected delivery.<\/p>\n

Trig has Down syndrome, a genetic abnormality that affects a child’s intellectual and physical development, the governor confirmed.<\/p>\n

“When we first heard, it was kind of confusing,” Palin, 44, said. She called the revelation “very, very challenging” and said she initially felt sad.<\/p>\n

But the family has worked through that. Palin said she and Todd feel blessed and chosen by God. With a big family including four older kids, grandparents, aunts and uncles, Palin said, they will have lots of support for what’s ahead. In their eyes, she said, “he’s absolutely perfect.”<\/p>\n

The oldest Palin kid, Track, is in the Army and texted his mother after learning the news with something to the effect of “This is just so cool — I finally got my brother.”<\/p>\n

In a letter she e-mailed to relatives and close friends Friday after giving birth, Palin wrote, “Many people will express sympathy, but you don’t want or need that, because Trig will be a joy. You will have to trust me on this.” She wrote it in the voice of and signed it as “Trig’s Creator, Your Heavenly Father.”<\/p>\n

“Children are the most precious and promising ingredient in this mixed-up world you live in down there on Earth. Trig is no different, except he has one extra chromosome,” Palin wrote.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two stories: Jim Caviezel’s adoption of two older, ill children from China You’ve probably already heard this, but it’s worth noting again – Alaska Governor Sarah Palin recently gave birth to her fifth child, who has Down Syndrome. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}