A Life-and-Death Choice
The news of six babies hit the Perkins like a tidal wave, washing away their years of silence with a deafening roar of reality. But the initial shock was quickly overshadowed by a terrifying medical truth: a human body is not designed to carry six lives at once. The risks of extreme prematurity, lifelong disability, or losing all the babies—and even Lauren—were incredibly high.
The medical team sat them down for a “grim talk.” Using clinical terms, they suggested “selective reduction.” They advised Lauren and David to eliminate some of the embryos to give the remaining two or three a better chance at a healthy birth.
“If you keep all six, you might lose them all,” the medical team warned. The statistics were stacked against them. For weeks, the couple lived in a state of agonizing prayer and reflection. They remembered the words of the woman in Nicaragua: Something very big is coming. They realized then that the “big” thing wasn’t just the number of children, but the size of the leap of faith they were being asked to take.
After much tears and soul-searching, they looked at their medical team and gave their final, unwavering answer: “We are keeping every single one of them. We believe these lives were given to us for a reason.”
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