Perfectly Human: Nine Months with Cerian

By Sarah C. Williams

Candid account of a difficult subject. Birth disabilities affect 1 in 33 pregnancies, and Sarah Williams’s personal, insightful account of her experience is a helpful and encouraging guide.
More than just a memoir: besides being a mother, Sarah Williams is an Oxford-educated professor, with the knowledge and skills to go beyond retelling to explore the ethical and spiritual implications of her experience.
Resonates with pro-life audiences. Williams makes no ideological proclamations, but the decision of her and her husband to carry their baby to term in spite of the difficulties will inspire anyone concerned with pro-life issues.
Includes new afterword by the author.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Plough Publishing House
• Release date: Oct 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9780874866926

Sarah C. Williams

Sarah C. Williams trained as an historian at the University of Oxford, where she subsequently taught British and European political and cultural history. After seventeen years at Oxford, in 2005 she moved with her family to Vancouver, Canada, where she taught history at Regent College. Today Williams lives with her husband Paul in the Cotswolds, close to the city of Oxford, where she continues her research, writing, and teaching. The daughter of popular British author Jennifer Rees Larcombe, Williams is the author of Perfectly Human, a spiritual autobiography in which she reflects on contemporary debates surrounding identity and personhood.

Book preview

1

The Day of Trouble

There are two entrances to the Women’s Center at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. We took the top one. I glanced at my watch as we entered the lobby. My calculations had been precise. I had ten minutes to spare before my routine twenty-week ultrasound scan in the Prenatal Diagnosis Unit. I had dropped the children at school, driven to the supermarket to do the week’s shopping, rushed home, crammed the food into the cupboards and begun preparations for Hannah’s birthday party later that afternoon. All day I had been reminiscing about the birth of our eldest exactly eight years before. Hannah was born in Canada on Vancouver’s North Shore in a room that overlooked the white-capped mountains of Grouse and Seymour. I remembered the mountains as I struggled to purchase my parking ticket.

My neighbor was on the seventh floor of the John Radcliffe, having given birth to her third baby thirty-six hours earlier. I headed straight for the lift, abandoning my mother in the lobby. I found Adrienne sitting up in bed like a queen, radiant with the relief and joy of her son’s arrival. I held him in my arms and realized with a surge of excitement that this would soon be me. I laughed out loud as I headed back to the ground floor. Next time I visited the seventh floor I would have my baby with me.

The waiting room was surprisingly full for a Monday afternoon. My mother set up her laptop to catch up on some work. Paul would have done the same if he had been here, instead of in a client meeting in London. He and I had never been sentimental about ultrasounds. The first time we had seen Hannah on the screen in the Lion’s Gate Hospital in Vancouver, we both reacted to the bizarre unreality of seeing our child for the first time through the intrusive medium of technology. Our friends had told us this would be the moment of bonding, but we struggled to tell the difference between a head and a foot, our eyes flitting back and forth between graphs and cursors. The image on the screen bore little relation to the clear mental picture we had of our child. We vowed never to have another ultrasound scan and we discussed the ethics of prenatal screening all the way home in our clapped-out Dodge Omni. Such conversations came naturally to us during our student days.

Perhaps I was mellowing with age or maybe the exhaustion of two small children had taken the edge off my idealism; either way I could barely read the magazine in front of me I was so excited to see our baby by whatever means.

The doctor called my name and I got up to follow him. He asked my mother to join us. Not wishing to overstep any grandmotherly boundaries, she was reluctant at first, but sharing my enthusiasm she did not take much persuasion.

It was dark in the room and I remember the dull pattern on the curtain around the bed and the sharp cold of the jelly as the doctor squeezed it onto my bump. I made a joke about twins.

And then I saw the foot. There were no shifting lines this time; even the toes were distinct. The baby seemed for an instant to look straight at me. I could see the detail of the face. I caught my breath, silenced by a sudden rush of love and connection. I now knew what those friends meant by bonding. With Hannah it happened when I saw the bright blue line on the home pregnancy test, and with Emilia when I first held her in my arms after an arduous labor. I smiled at myself, unashamedly sentimental lying there oozing love at the screen.

It makes it all worthwhile, doesn’t it? my mother said, reflecting my own thoughts and referring to the acute nausea that had dominated the pregnancy up until this point.

But the doctor’s cheery voice gave way to a clipped monotone. He left the room and returned with a female technician. I assumed he was simply inexperienced at doing ultrasounds, and I shuffled into a sitting position and looked at my watch. I’d seen everything I wanted to see and it was time to get home to prepare the party. I bristled with irritation as the woman redid everything the doctor had done. If we didn’t leave soon, there would be no time for Paul to play an extended game with the girls as planned, and to read an extra chapter of Narnia before bed.

The woman put her hand on my arm and said the words that every expectant mother hopes she will never hear: I am so sorry. There is something wrong with the baby. We need to fetch the consultant.

But there can’t be, I responded immediately. I saw the face. The baby looks fine to me.

She shook her head and squeezed my arm.

I went cold all over. The rational part of my brain observed this creeping paralysis from a distance with a strange forensic clarity. How could this be? God knew I could not bear this, not after all I’d been through.

Mum, I’m terrified. I whispered.

I’m going to pray. The edge in my mother’s voice suggested she was no less afraid than I was, but the discipline of years had made prayer reflexive.

I was so glad she was there. She hadn’t planned to come to the hospital with me. I’d told her I was quite content to have some time alone, but she’d run after me as I shut the front door. Hang my emails! Let’s make a jaunt of it. I’ll drive so you can relax and get your energies up for the birthday party.

I heard footsteps in the corridor and the lowered tones of serious discussion. Somehow I had to pull my mind into gear to ask all the right questions – the questions Paul would have asked had he been there.

The consultant sat down beside me. He checked the notes before he spoke – evidently, my name had not featured in the relay of information behind the door. A number of people stood behind him peering over his shoulder at the screen. Using the cursor and his finger for reinforcement, he highlighted different points of the tiny person inside me and murmured incomprehensible numbers at the group.

I have to tell you, Mrs. Williams, this baby will not live. It has thanatophoric dysplasia, a lethal skeletal deformity that will certainly result in death shortly after birth. The chest is too small to sustain the proper development of the lungs. When the baby is born it will not be able to breathe.

I concentrated on the medical terms, repeating thanatophoric dysplasia over and over again under my breath. I wanted him to stop speaking but I was too afraid of forgetting the words. I shouted at him in my head: This can’t be true. You must be mistaken. You’ve muddled my body up with someone else. This is not my baby. It must be a fault on the screen.

But the consultant left no room for misunderstanding, the implications were plain, and I found myself nodding like everyone else in the room, intimidated by the finality of his words. I suggest you come back with your partner in the morning and we will talk further about what you want to do.

It was not until I sat in a side room with a second consultant that I understood what was meant by what you want to do. I listened while the doctor suggested dates for a termination.

Dazed, we made our way back through the waiting room. It is strange the detail one remembers in moments of crisis; the blond child on the floor playing with a tractor, the girl in the bright red maternity dress drinking from the water fountain, the look of pity on the receptionist’s face as she watched us leave. At the exit we passed a woman leaning on her heavily swollen stomach between long drags on her cigarette. I could not speak.

My mother took my arm and steered me to the car. I crumpled into the passenger seat, remembering the delight on Paul’s face when I had told him I was pregnant for the third time. We’d waited so long for this. I thought of the party balloons already taped to the letterbox and I thought of Adrienne with her arms full of her son. An aching emptiness enveloped me. Every line of thought ended with the same conclusion: Thanatophoric dysplasia; this child will not live, it will not live … Around and around it went in my head like a mantra.

Shivering uncontrollably, I wrapped my arms around my body and wished that I could disappear. I was going home to face the hardest decision of my life.

2

Pineapples and Amethysts

If praying somehow constitutes a beginning, then Christmas Day was certainly the start of it. It was then that Paul and I asked God to give us the gift of another child. December 25 has particular romantic connotations for us. Paul’s uncle was the pastor of a small village church in Kent. The family had come up from Dorset to celebrate together. My family had been attending the church for some years and I had heard a great deal about the nephew who was studying politics, philosophy, and economics at Oxford. I did not realize at the time, however, that he had also heard a great deal about the serious girl with long blonde hair and masses of brothers and sisters who was on her way to study history at Oxford.

Paul sat four pews in front of my sprawling family. We were so many that we took up two rows, forming a human bloc on one side the church. Half of us were presided over by my mother, and the other half were supervised by my harassed father. I sat sandwiched between Naomi and Justyn on this particular morning, with my youngest brother Richard squirming on my lap. At the end of the second hymn Paul turned around and our eyes met for a second only. I hid behind Richard for the rest of the service, overcome by shyness.

Exactly seventeen years later we stood in the pouring rain halfway up a Welsh hillside searching for an ancient Celtic pilgrim site. For some reason it mattered to us to pray for another child at this particular site. My historical zeal matched Paul’s keen sense of Welsh ancestry and we pressed on up the hill regardless of the rain.

The fact that Christians had been praying on this hill for the best part of two millennia was lost on the rest of the family, wet, cold, and hungry for Christmas turkey. Can’t you pray by the wood burner? they pleaded.

Of course we can, I said, but it wouldn’t be … I struggled to find the right word, as poetic. Paul and I had been waiting five long years and we were not going to be thwarted.

After Emilia was born, the doctor told us that we would be extremely unwise to contemplate having any more children. A long-term back injury had become acute as a result of the pregnancy. I had spent three months in bed after Emilia was born but it was a year before I could lift her into her cot at night. If my disc were to prolapse again I was likely to face major back surgery. We waited, and meanwhile I watched my friends have their thirds and fourths, lifting them effortlessly from car seat to stroller or into swings at the playground, wielding vacuum cleaners, and stooping at the end of the day to pick up toys without even bending their knees. Some of them began to ask if Paul and I had given up on having more children. Slowly, I revised my expectations and reassessed the enduring assumption Paul and I had harbored since we were first married, of having at least four children.

It felt like a declaration of defeat when I finally admitted I needed sustained help to cope with the two I already had. It was at this stage that Emma came to nanny for us. We had known Emma since she was eighteen. She and her family had been part of our church in Oxford and we had observed her gentle consistency over the years as she had served as a nanny for one family after another. I could hardly believe our good fortune when she agreed to come and work for us. With inimitable efficiency she took on a large part of the physical work of caring for the children while I immersed myself in work. Spending three years teaching at Birmingham University before returning to Oxford to take up a History Fellowship at one of the University Colleges, I persisted with my back exercises and we continued to hope.

And, after five years, we reached Christmas Day and the wet pilgrim site. I know that God can hear prayer anywhere, but there was something special about that hillside and perhaps God saw the funny, earnest side of our kneeling there in the mud, holding the ancient cross, carved in the rock over a thousand years ago.

A month later, when we’d fully recovered from the colds we contracted in Wales, I was able to tell Paul he was going to be a father again. Hannah and Emilia were delirious with excitement and so was Emma.

It was with a touch of triumph that I told my closest friend our news.

Janet, I’m pregnant, I said it abruptly in the hope I might surprise her.

"I thought

Reviews for Perfectly Human

[boingerhead · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I didn't realize this was a religious book or I wouldn't have requested it. The constant pushing of bible verses was very off-putting, and the writing was so raw and intimate that it was often uncomfortable. I usually embrace discomfort; it's okay to be uncomfortable or else there is seldom growth. What I disliked about this book was the deeply religious themes. Simply not for me.

[scotlass66 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A heartbreaking beautiful book about author Sarah Williams’ decision to carry her baby with lethal skeletal dysplasia to term. Birth with this condition is fatal for the child. Sarah is happily married and teaching history at the University of Oxford — with academic credentials, success, and knowledge — but it took her fatally disabled unborn child to teach her humbling humanity. She and her husband find themselves having to explain their decision to bring to term their already cherished baby, whom they call Cerian (Welsh for “loved one.”) They face disbelief and even outright hostility from others. As Sarah writes, “Cerian is not a strong religious principle or a rule that compels me to make hard and fast ethical decisions. She is a beautiful person who is teaching me to love the vulnerable, treasure the unlovely, and face fear with dignity and hope.”In this tear-inducing and inspirational memoir, the author describes her heart-stretching journey towards Cerian's birthday and death-day. She does so without self-pity, rather expressing gratitude for the gift of Cerian and her lessons about the value of a life, no matter how perfectly “imperfect.”

[jennannej_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A sweet, hard, challenging memoir on what it means to be human. Thought the epilogue in particular brought up some interesting thoughts and questions about our concept of what makes a human life valuable."Even though the image of God is marred in all of us as a result of sin, our intrinsic worth as human creatures resides not in our qualities, characters, or achievements, no in our physical bodies or mental capacities, but in the eternal character of God. We treat one another with dignity because of the intrinsic worth of every person as a relational being loved by God."

[nirrad_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A very powerful read, I loved the way she showed the love the whole family and friends loved the little one while still in the womb. Also showed the treatment they received for not having an abortion. A great book showing how important life is after conception.

[pwagner2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I didn't realize this was a religious book or I wouldn't have requested it. The writing was good, but the constant bible verses were very off putting.

[pinklady60 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The memoir of Sarah and Paul Williams, a British couple who, early in their pregnancy, discover their child shows sign of skeletal dysplasia, which will be fatal. However, they decide to continue on to term, even while being pressured by others to terminate the pregnancy.This book was written with such intimate sentiment that I sometimes felt as though I was intruding. It was heartbreaking and raw, yet uplifting to know that this brave family wanted this little girl to be part of their lives, even if only in the womb for a short time.In the epilogue, written several years after the book itself, the author talks about how our society strives for perfection, and in doing so we’re dumbing down what it means to be human. “Precious though we all understand children to be, we behave as if they were commodities - - commodities that we acquire as an extension of ourselves. We have grown familiar with the idea of conferring personhood selectively on the ones we choose at the time we choose them in the form we find desirable, preferable, and acceptable. Indeed, in the Western world, choosing what we desire has become the essence of what it means to be human.”

[brenda63_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Forget the prolife/pro-abortion debate, this book encompasses so much more than that. Following the horrendous news that her daughter will not live past birth, Sarah Williams is faced with a mountain of decisions and emotions. The raw openness of her story is absolutely inspirational. The greater question of "What is a person" is answered completely and perfectly. Cerian life is celebrated and cherished even though she does not draw a breath outside the womb. Her legacy has far reaching arms embracing each life as the gift of God as it was intended. Breathtakingly powerful.

[yukon92 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I received a free copy of this book from the LTER in exchange for my honest opinion. This book was heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time. The incredible strength of the author (and her whole family) to go through with this "doomed" pregnancy was amazing. The author did not gloss over the physical and mental pain these 9 months caused her. My only negative comment would be that I totally understand her faith in God sustained the author and her family throughout the whole ordeal. However, her frequent bible comments might be somewhat off-putting to people of other beliefs who would otherwise benefit from a story of great strength.

[tjsjohanna_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was a lovely book - part memoir, part meditation on the worth of a human life. Ms. Williams shares her experience of caring her daughter to term, knowing that Cerian would not survive the birth process. Her choice to love and care for her child while in the womb was inspiring and thought provoking. The author and her husband made something beautiful out of the tragedy of losing their child.

[ellasmeme · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Sarah Williams invites the reader into a heartbreaking account of her daughter, Cerian's, short life in the womb while sharing a profound understanding of God, human suffering. and bioethics. Knowing Cerian was God's gift to her, she carries on with the doomed pregnancy without questioning God, but instead endeavoring to value the short time He has given her with her third daughter. Once starting this book, I was unable to put it down and read it in 1 sitting. While love, family, and faith are foremost in the telling, Sarah also exposes the dangers incurred when a society chooses to make decisions about which lives are valid and which are not. What joy is waiting for the Williams family when they are united one day with Cerian!

[bradkautz · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"What does it mean to be human?" The answer to this question, lies at the heart of Sarah C. Williams' book, Perfectly Human: Nine Months with Cerian. Williams, a history professor at Oxford, married to Paul and having two young daughters, goes to a routine appointment at 20 weeks into her third pregnancy. The results are anything but routine, as she learns her baby has a birth defect that is likely to be lethal to the baby at birth. Conventional wisdom of the medical establishment is to abort the baby, but the response of Sarah and Paul is to keep the baby, and to trust God as they go into a future that they know will be fraught with physical and emotional pain, but one where they never waver, knowing that their unborn daughter is just as much a person in need of loving care as anyone else is. And so they do, sharing their experience in this book. I found their story, and the answers they arrived at to that opening question, to be riveting. I very highly commend this book.

[bevfuller · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This beautiful book tells how a family treasured the life and death of their unborn baby.

[cvaughan0708 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What would you do if you discovered your unborn child would not survive life beyond the womb?For Sarah C. Williams and her husband Paul, the decision to carry their severely deformed daughter to term comes without much consideration for the alternative - termination. Sarah rejects advice from medical professionals and instead chooses to protect and love the tiny human within her for as long as possible.Sarah's memoir is a vulnerable, honest, and heartbreaking account of her 9 Months with Cerian. Sarah discovers that her daughter, while imperfect in the eyes of the world, is actually a very perfect gift. She begs us to consider the questions: What does it mean to be human? What defines a human being's worth or value? Grounded in her faith and belief that all life is valuable and should be treasured, Sarah has shared her story with the world in hopes that we will also look beyond a person's physical and mental abilities and find their true worth.

[debristow · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I received this book as part of the Early Reviewers program. Author Sarah Williams tells the story of learning her daughter Cerian has skeletal dysphasia and is not expected to survive her birth. Williams shares her story of the affect on her husband and daughters and her faith in God along with herself in her decision to carry Cerian to term. Told with such utmost honesty and details I found myself ready through many parts teary eyed. My favorite line was found towards the end of the book- “The strange thing is, bereavement enhances our capacity for life.” Williams honors Cerian with a true testament and tribute to Cerian’s life.

[ludiegrace · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An absolutely beautiful book. I was amazed by the thoughtfulness, grace, and dignity with which Sarah shared her story. Even if you have abstractly considered questions surrounding personhood and the value of human lives, you will think about them differently after reading Sarah's candid account of her short time with Cerian. Highly recommended.

[jsbancroft · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A heart wrenching story of a couple learning their unborn child suffers from an abnormality that will result in her death at or shortly after birth. The parents make the difficult decision to continue the pregnancy. This book explores extremely topical issues such as how do we decide what lives are worth living, what makes a person human, and where is God when things seem hopeless. Ultimately, the author concludes that the time she spent with her daughter prenatally was a great blessing that taught her about love and humanity. I am in awe of the author and her husband for their willingness to share their story.

[audrieclifford · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book certainly rates three stars for its cover and for being so well-written. I wouldn't be comfortable giving it a higher rating because I disagree so strongly with the author.I don't question the heartbreak in hearing that the child you've planned to give birth to has no chance of living beyond that point, and while others may applaud the decision not to abort, this is where I feel the author went wrong.The main reason for feeling this way is because she already had two children, one of whom had a serious health problem and needed a mother's comforting and care.Devout Christians will probably love the book. For the rest of us, it's only a tale of suffering.

[diannebottinelli · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a heart wrenching tale of a mother who decides to carry her genetically impaired child to term. This book explores the moral and ethical issues of such a choice and the pressure she and her family experiences as the results of this decision.On page 43 she states in quoting theologian Jurgen Moltmann :"In reality, there is no such thing as a handicapped life;only the ideal of health set up by society and the capable condemns a certain group to be called handicapped.Our society arbitrarily defines as the capacity for work and a capacity for enjoyment, but true health is something different. True health is the strength to live,the strength to suffer, and the strength to die. Health is not a condition of my body; it is the power of my soul to cope with the varying conditions of my body."In the Epilogue, written years later after Cerian died, the author raised the issues of being human and what that means to us today in 2018.This is a thought provoking book that raises the issue of abortion,assisted suicide, and the power of love for those of us who care for the handicapped.