Babies are Miracles

So I just bought my Developmental Embryology course syllabus today from the bookstore. I flipped through it, and I am already amazed at how much work it takes to make a baby! So many things can go wrong: the slightest mistakes can cause babies to be born with exposed brains... missing jaws... clubbed appendages...

By some estimates, the total first trimester natural abortion rate is 25 - 30%(!). That means in normal women, up to 30% of their pregnancies are spontaneously aborted by the body within the first trimester (read: something went wrong with the fertilized egg). The women probably never even realize it. A good sign of a spontaneous abortion that early is bleeding, which can easily be mistaken for a period.

The point is: the birth of a healthy, red, screaming baby is, quite simply, a miracle.