March 6, 2026 
by M. Regina Cram
Moses was nearing the end of his long life. Standing on the brink of the Promised Land, he begged the Israelites to follow God’s laws, which lead to eternal life. “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse,” Moses pleaded. “Therefore, choose life.”
Choose life. It sounds simple. Who doesn’t want life?
It may be simple, but it’s not always easy.
Adoption may be the best solution for a teen pregnancy, but it’s not easy – not when you’re alone and terrified of telling your parents. Chastity sounds simple too, but not in a world of pornography and ‘safe sex,’ of chat rooms and hooking up.
But God still tells us to choose life.
Years ago, a woman in Hartford chose life, and it changed my world forever.
It was a rainy morning when my husband and I arrived for the ultrasound. We had two small children at home, and I was pregnant again. At least, I used to be pregnant. I had signs of a miscarriage, and the doctor couldn’t find a heartbeat. A previous ultrasound revealed no sign of life either.
It came down to this final ultrasound. I was fretful and afraid, and my gaze kept sweeping across the ultrasound monitor, desperate to see our baby. But the screen looked like a snowstorm. There was nothing to see.
After what seemed an eternity, our fears were confirmed. There, on the screen, was the lifeless image of our child. The doctor expressed his condolences and instructed the technician to schedule me for post-miscarriage surgery.
Our baby had died – this child whom we loved even though we’d never cradled him in our arms, never whispered his name. I turned away and wept, longing to flee the sanitized hospital walls so I could grieve in peace.
To my dismay, the technician resumed the ultrasound. “What are you doing?” I asked dully. “You found what you were looking for.”
“I just want to look a bit more,” she replied.
It made no sense. What could the ultrasound show that would make any difference now? I stared at the rain on the windows, pondering our tiny son whose fingers would never curl around our own.
Time passed and still the technician searched. It was agony.
Then the woman spoke. “Do you see that?”
I turned. There, almost hidden in a sea of static, was a tiny blip-blip-blip-blip. “What is it?” I asked cautiously. I was afraid to hope.
“It’s a heartbeat,” the technician whispered. “It’s your baby’s heartbeat.”
“No, it can’t be,” I said, confused. “My baby died.”
“He did,” the technician explained gently, “and I am so sorry. This is a second baby.”
Months later, that blip-blip-blip was born amidst much rejoicing. She’s alive today because the technician chose life. She was criticized for making other patients wait, but she refused to end the ultrasound without absolute certainty. She looked past the emptiness until she found life.
“I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse,” God says tenderly. “Therefore choose life.”
Please.
M. Regina Cram is a published author and a parishioner of SS. Isidore and Maria Parish.
