Thursday, March 10, 2011

Is a Fetus a Baby?

No.

No more than a child can be an adult can a fetus be a baby.

 Embryo, fetus, baby, child, adolescent and adult are all stages of human development.
You and I were once fetuses, we looked exactly like a baby (infant) but we were not technically, a baby.
We had hair (well some of us did:) perfect fingers, toes, and teeny fingernails. We sucked our thumbs and kicked our legs and loud noises startled us just like a baby.

Is a fetus a baby?

No

Is a fetus a person?

 Yes.




This, my dears, is a perfect 10 WEEK OLD person. This is not a cluster of cells. Or a photoshopped creation. This is a real, untouched photo taken by a medical student in India.
(Source here http://www.flickr.com/photos/74896762@N00/3166520949/in/photostream/)
The mother had cancer in her uterus and it had to be removed while she was ten weeks pregnant..... a ten week old human is already so perfect.

A closer pic.



I have a little cousin, Portia, who was born waaay premature she weighed about a pound. You could put your ring around her leg .  I remember how perfectly her eyelashes curled (she was Black and Caucasian and I LOVE how black people's eyelashes curl) and I remember seeing her heart beating through her translucent skin. I was in awe of her. 
She looked just like this.
She was a 6 month old fetus when she was born. We prayed and prayed that she would live.
She did, and she is perfect.
Portia should have been a fetus for the next 3 months. 
But she was born.
She couldn't breathe, eat or stay warm on her own like an infant should.
Developmentally, Portia was still functioning as a fetus.
Did we call her a fetus? No. That would be weird.
Did the doctors call her a fetus? No.
What freaks me out is that if Portia hadn't been born early and her mom wanted to have an abortion Portia could have been killed. The beautiful girl with dark hair, tiny hands and beating heart. Gone.
Her birthday would have been a very different day.





By the time the average gal finds out she is preggers, her fetus' hands and feet already look like this! So cool. When I found out I was pregnant I imagined that my baby looked like a little blob with my husband's features! But...she looked like baby!



Not my baby but just as purty:)

If you want....talk to me.