I want you to say a prayer for Jayden this morning. Who is Jayden you ask? He is the son of Sarah Capewell, a mother in Britain whose baby boy was born too early. Jayden, born 21 weeks and 5 days into Sarah’s pregnancy, was denied life-saving care by a government system which decided arbitrarily he was unsustainable; decided it was not in his ‘best interests’ to survive.

Had Jayden been born just two days later, doctors would have given him the care he deserved. Instead, based on statistics and numbers, Sarah was told there would be no oxygen administered, no treatment rendered. Doctors did not care his tiny heart was beating strong or that he was breathing on his own. It didn’t matter, because a board somewhere who had never met Sarah or Jayden decided that her baby was not worth saving, nor could the costs be justified in an already burdened public medical system. Jayden is a beautiful baby boy and his mother loved him so.

I know his mother loved him. I also know the torture and horror and hope she had. I know exactly how she felt the instant her son was born. I know the screams and begging in her head as she wondered his fate over the first few hours of his life. But there is a part of her story I don’t know: I don’t know what it would have felt like to have to doctors refuse my child care. I don’t know the heartbreak of holding my baby while no one would help, until he struggled for and took his last breath.

This is my daughter. She was born at 22 weeks 3 days into my pregnancy. She weighed 1 pound 3 ounces.

Kelsey Lee was born on a cold, rainy November night. I had been admitted to the hospital two weeks earlier after rushing to the emergency room in the middle of the night. I suddenly went into labor at 20 weeks in an otherwise uneventful pregnancy.

By the time we got settled and I had an examination I was 3 cm dilated, in full blown labor. My mind raced-what was happening? Why was my baby trying to come so soon? Was it something I had done? Something I had not done? What would be done to help my baby?

My doctor was unbelievable. He soothed my nerves. He immediately made arrangements to send me to a high-risk pregnancy clinic thru one of the best hospitals in our area. Within 3 hours I was out of the emergency room and we were on our way. They had administered drugs to slow my labor-this would get me through until I could get to the next stop in what would be the hardest journey of my life.

It is impossible for me to imagine what it would have been like to show up at the emergency room and have them tell me, “Just treat this like a miscarriage.” I had had a miscarriage prior, just like Sarah.

Two weeks in the hospital. Two weeks on drugs that at once hopped me up and quelled my contractions. Two weeks, I had my cervix sewn shut, I had parties of doctors looking at my most private places; I had explicit instructions on my every move. I had the best care offered, but never once did I have someone tell me to write my pregnancy off.

She fought to be born and I fought to keep her from it — a classic power struggle between the two of us that continues to this day. Unfortunately, she ultimately won that one — so determined to be born, so tiny.

It didn’t take long for her to become the darling of the NICU. All the nurses loved her. 18 years ago it was unbelievable a baby this early and this tiny would survive. They cared for her gently. They held her hand; they soothed her when she cried. They all pulled for her to make it thru the first 72 hours; later, the first week.

Her eyes were fused shut; she was like a puppy. She didn’t open them until more than two weeks after she was born. Thankfully the wonderful nurses documented it for me. She just couldn’t open her eyes while I was there, but during one of the few times I went home to steal a nap or a shower. I will never forget sitting there for 15-18 hours every single day … just willing her to live with my mind.

My mom always encouraged strength in me; my will is as unbending as Kelsey’s. She lived because she was born strong and willful and because I wanted it so badly.

The truth is she lived because she got the care every baby deserves. Like Jayden, Kelsey’s saving grace was her strong heartbeat and lack of any serious defects, tested for and rejected over and over in the first several hours after her birth. Like Kelsey, it is very likely Jayden only needed the opportunity to grow, to get stronger. He probably would have required oxygen for a while, but more than anything he just needed the opportunity to “finish.” I have no doubt Kelsey would not have lived for two hours, breathing on her own after birth. She had problems all the way up until she went home with keeping her oxygen right, but never did they tell me, “We give up. It’s just not in her best interests to keep going.”

The first day I held her was January 1, 1992, almost two months after her birth. The doctor told the nurses he thought I might be ready to jump off the roof-top if I didn’t get to hold her, even just for a few minutes. I had seen so many other mothers come through the NICU at that time. Their babies were a little bigger, a little stronger — they could hold and rock their tiny, tiny babies … I could only stick my hand through a portal and touch her hand or foot. It was the most torturous time in my life.

While the doctors and nurses gave me hope, they also told me the truth. I always knew there was a chance … but they just didn’t know whose blood was coursing through those veins.

I always knew she would live — even though they told me she likely wouldn’t make it three days.

I always knew she would be ok — even though they repeatedly told me she would be mentally retarded or have cerebral palsy; she would never live on her own or care for herself.

She was so tiny. Some days it was hard to even look at her. It killed my heart. She was my first baby. She was everything. When she struggled to breathe or absorb nutrients, I begged God to help her. When she silently cried, I cried out-loud. When she came off the ventilator, I rejoiced for an hour, until she almost completely stopped breathing and had to be put back on. Our journey together was a sea of emotion and trials, but, we did good, she and I. We were strong together.

This picture was taken the night before she went home.

I remember this exact moment. They told us they would not let her go home until she was eating 4 oz. at every meal, 48 hours in a row. I stayed at that hospital for 48 hours straight, never leaving her side, so I could feed her. She ate better for me and I wanted her home. I knew she would thrive at home. Right here, in this very moment, captured by a nurse forever in a Polaroid, I told her, “Baby, you gotta eat. You gotta do this for Mom, so you can come home to your family.” Just looking at those tiny hands makes me cry now. She was just so small.

She finally went home the very day before she should have been born — March 3, 1992, weighing in at a hefty 4 pounds. She brought with her a warming light and a heart/breathing monitor — I told them no worries, she wouldn’t need them — I had become thoroughly schooled and practiced at constantly monitoring her every, everything. I took the tools and I used them, but I knew when she was struggling or faltering sooner than any monitor could. I kept her with me all the time through that first year.

Even now, I know her that way. I know when she is getting sick, before she complains of it. I know every scar on her body. I know which monitors gave them to her. I remember the day they pulled off most of the skin from her left side removing a monitor from her tissue-paper skin.

Four months in the hospital. Four months everyday back and forth, cat-napping in the NICU sitting room. Four months of sleeping so lightly at home, waiting for the dreaded call, “She’s not doing well. Her numbers are falling and we have the oxygen at 100%. You should probably get back up here.” We got that call 3 times during her stay. Never mind all the times it was said while I was sitting right there by her side.

All of that was almost 18 years ago. Kelsey will graduate high school this year. She has been the bane of my existence and the light of my life. She is bull-headed and strong willed and one of the two most beautiful young women I know. She is firm in her beliefs. She is absolute in her determination. She is my daughter and I can’t imagine a life without her in it.

You cannot legislate and bureaucratize health care without making unfathomable choices. You can’t make decisions about who to save and who to let pass based off of facts and figures. When Kelsey was born she was one of 5 (at that time) born at that hospital, that soon, that lived. She was the only one of the 5 with no significant medical problems. She beat the odds and the statistics.

She is a person who deserved a fighting chance just like anyone else.

I tell you all of these things to highlight the excellent medical care we have in America; but there is another important element to this story. We did receive Medicaid when Kelsey was born. Also, we were admitted to a special clinic through a teaching hospital that absorbed a lot of the costs. Those on the side of single payer or a public option might see this as a victory. They might feel I make their case, but, they would be very wrong. In fact, I make a very strong case against jamming all kinds of people into an already burdened system.

Adding 30 million or 47 million or any million to a system that is already bursting with people and costs won’t make it so everyone gets this kind of care. The system is already going broke and drowning in bureaucracy. Adding more people to it will cause them to reduce benefits, not expand them. Expanding the public option, finally driving private insurers out of business, or nearly so, will not increase the amount of care that people receive. It will cause America to resort to rationing. It will cause doctors and hospitals to begin to make choices and give care based on statics and numbers, not people. Reducing payments to doctors and hospitals would “necessarily” cause clinics like the one I enrolled in to disappear. Without the ability to control their own costs, programs, finances and spending, hospitals would no longer be able to afford to invest in clinics like that. They would implement cost cutting and reduce extraneous services to get by. Are these the areas of “waste” our President talks about? My daughter’s life is not waste to be cut from the system.

If current proposals make law, they will have to find ways to cut costs to make up for all the additional people. Reducing Medicare and Medicaid payments is already on the table. If they are reducing payments and services now, what do you think they will be doing 5, 10, 20 years from now?

They will begin telling mothers to treat this too early birth like a miscarriage. They will let our children die.

In Britain they have guidelines:

Experts on medical ethics advised doctors not to resuscitate babies born before 23 weeks in the womb, stating that it was not in the child’s ‘best interests’.

The guidelines said: ‘If gestational age is certain and less than 23+0 (i.e., at 22 weeks) it would be considered in the best interests of the baby, and standard practice, for resuscitation not to be carried out.’

Medical intervention would be given for a child born between 22 and 23 weeks only if the parents requested it and only after discussion about likely outcomes.

The rules were endorsed by the British Association of Perinatal Medicine and are followed by NHS hospitals.

Read more about Jayden and his mom here. Be sure to include them in your prayers tonight.