Holding Silvan: A Brief Life by Monica Wesolowska

I am in the stage of life where I am being invited to baby showers and birthday parties for young kids (Just for the record, I don't attend baby showers, but thanks for inviting me!!). Birth announcements take up about a quarter of our fridge magnet space. And now friends are having their second and third kids. I'm in charge of remembering the kids' names since my husband claims that he can only remember the name of the firstborn of each family. The rest of the names is up to me. Why I know all of the names of his college friends' kids seems funny to me.

Anyway, I think that we forget what a miracle it is for a full-term, healthy baby to be born. So many things have to go right and there are so many things that could go wrong.

Weslowska has a normal pregnancy followed by what seems like a normal delivery. However, her son, Silvan, is given a very grim prognosis in terms of his life expectancy and quality of life. Monica and her husband decide to remove all life support (include nutrition) from Silvan.

A heartbreaking, difficult, and loving memoir about quality of life and the love a mother has for her baby. The content of this book sounds awful, but I loved this book and read it in a day. It addresses issues that we don't talk about and is frank and honest in telling how and why this set of parents decided to do what they did.