Would you adopt a child knowing it would only have a short time to live? Perhaps, if you were as selfless as the Lewis’s.
Allison and Josh Lewis were excitedly awaiting the birth of their sixth child, which would be one of two adopted children they had along with their four biological children.
They received the double shock of a lifetime when they discovered that their sixth child had a twin.
“Two babies. I won’t lie…it felt overwhelming,” Allison wrote on the family’s YOUCARING fundraising page. “We kept reminding ourselves, though, that the Lord had gone before us in this, and while we had all been clueless about the second baby. He’d known all along. After maybe an hour or so of processing, talking through the logistics of bringing home twins, and feeling a growing excitement over our growing blessings, the weight grew far heavier when the next phone call came. ‘Incompatible with life.'”
Not only would they soon have seven children, but one of those children was only given a short time to live. The college sweethearts, who married in 2000, had a tough choice to make.
“You know you don’t have to go through with this, right?” one of the doctor’s said, according to Allison. ‘We’d all understand if you chose to walk away from her. You don’t have to take her. We know this isn’t what you signed up for.”
The Lewis’ took one look at baby Ava and declared the child as their own despite the fact that she was born at just 3-pounds and without a brain.
“Choosing Ava to be out daughter was one of the ‘hardest easy things’ we’ve ever don’t,” Allison said. “It was easy in that after praying for something for so long, to see it clearly manifest right before our eyes was pure grace. We didn’t have to manufacture the results of our prayers. Jesus so sweetly revealed his will in a dimly lit room full of beeping medical machinery.”
And the short life that Ava lived wasn’t an easy one. She was sickly and in and out of the hospital. But during that time, she was very loved thanks to the Lewis family and her twin brother who was faring well.
The family prepared themselves for the day they would have to say goodbye to Ava and that day eventually came. However, they were still grateful for the time they had with her.
“A peace finds its way into my heart as I rest in the assurance that Ava – that delight whom we loved on earth for 178 days – has new eyes that are open to see something far greater than my mind can comprehend,” Allison wrote. “Ava Leigh Lewis is beholding The Light.”
A donation page was set up for the family to help pay for the “vomitous” medical and adoption costs the family incurred. You can make a donation to their page here.
