Hope for the weary

I always look forward to Sunday mornings -- that big fat Sunday paper, a cup of coffee (decaf these days of course) and pancakes. Yum.
This morning was no different. We got up early. Greg ventured out into the chil to get the paper from the drive and I made the coffee. We sat down to enjoy our little ritual and like always, I read the lifestyle pages of the paper first while Greg jumped straight to the sports page.
On a page I normally skip over, I found something that I just can't stop thinking about and I thought I'd share it with you, just in case you might be needing a little hope this morning.
Under a title called "Celebrations," was the picture of a sleeping baby, maybe four or five months old. He was wearing an oragne pumpkin hat, an orange Halloween shirt and blue jeans and he was fast asleep on a bale of hay surrounded by pumpkins. The caption read "Hunter S., born to Brian and Kim S. after 16 years of trying, makes his first visit to the pumpkin patch."
Normally, I don't even glance at this page in the paper. It's a hodge podge of submitted photos of school groups, church happenings, celebrity meetings, etc. This morning, the picture of that sleeping baby caught my eye and then I read the caption and I made Greg read it, too.
Sixteen years of trying. Four little words that stopped me right there and made me think about all the pain and heartache they represent and yet, here is this precious boy sleeping on a bale of hay.
I don't know Brian and Kim S., but I admire them for many reasons -- after our 6 years of trying, I'm not sure I would have had the heart to keep going. Obviously, they did for 10 more years until they finally saw their dreams come true. And, obviously, they don't mind sharing their happy news -- even going so far as to submit a picture of their son to the paper for all to see and including those four words "sixteen years of trying." How brave of them.
How many people will see this little photo in the paper and take heart, keep the faith and be reminded that miracles like little Hunter S. do indeed happen?
And then I began to wonder... are these babies (ones born to folks like us who tried fo so long and faced so many obstacles along the way) any more loved than "oops" babies or those who are conceived with ease? I can't say they are. Fertiles are just as enamored with their little miracles as we are with ours. But there is a difference. These babies are special in ways that others aren't. The mere fact that they exist makes them special, for they wouldn't even have exisited if we had lived 20 or 30 years ago. I don't know how Hunter S. was conceived, but I can imagine that after 16 years of trying that my very own Dr. V may have had a hand in his conception.
A photo of a sleeping baby in a pumpkin patch. Four little words that say so much and two very proud parents who wanted to share their joy with their community -- just another simple pleasure found within the pages of a Sunday paper.