This past month in a magazine article that featured one couple's infertility, the title described their child as the "Miracle Child". I can't find the article on line to reference to it, so I'll just leave it vague.

The article was somewhat typical, yet the cover title doesn't sit well with me. The magazine sits on my desk, semi covered with junk from my day and yet the title jumps out at me. Makes me notice it, and bothers me. I have left it there until I could write this post. I'm excited to put this issue into the recycling so I don't have to look at it anymore.

I suppose that mostly my discomfort is with the word "miracle" used because the child was conceived with considerable effort. It brings a lot of questions to my mind about what a miracle really is.

I have always believed that every child is a miracle. Once you begin to learn about conception, pregnancy, and birth, every step of having a child is miraculous and fragile. Is how a child conceived a factor in how miraculous that child actually is?

After my miscarriages when I finally carried Ivy to term and gave birth, I had some relatives describe her as our miracle baby. And she is. But so are each of my 5 nephews and my 1 niece. And each one of them were conceived without fertility problems.

Is Becken more miraculous than Ivy because of his survival in a country without prenatal care? Because he lived in an orphanage for a short time? Because he flew around the world to be a part of our family? Does this make him more miraculous than Ivy or anyone else born here in the United States?

I was prejudiced against the article from the title on. Another question, Would I have liked the article more if I could have stomached the title? The bottom line is this for me: we are all miracles.