A BABY’S BREATH TESTIMONY
By Paul Burdett

Hello, my name is Paul Burdett and I am a Board member and volunteer for A Baby’s Breath. On behalf of the Board, I would like to thank all of you for your support of A Baby’s Breath Silent Auction, through your support we have been able to open a third center in Collegeville.

We offer life choices for a crisis pregnancy. We offer free pregnancy tests and counseling, pre-natal classes by registered nurses, parenting classes and material assistance. For the adoption path, we offer support and direction for the Mother and family. We have helped over 300 families since our beginning five years ago.

We help Mothers in crisis out of love – love for the Mother and love for her unborn child. I am helping Mothers in crisis because it is of particular interest to me. You see before you a Father of four beautiful children (one is in heaven). I have a lovely wife. I am grateful for the choice of life my Mother gave me because it was not an easy choice.

Her choice was to give birth to her baby after she was raped. I was born a few years before abortion became the law of the land but I was born to a woman who even in those days would have had a “right” to an abortion. She was raped when she was 18. She was unmarried and lived in a small town in rural Illinois. Only her parents knew about the pregnancy, her other brothers and sisters and extended family did not know. And even her parents did not know of the fact of the rape until years later.

She was sent to an aunt’s house in another small town in Illinois about 2 hours away so that no one would know. She was cut off from her family and friends and was pretty much under house arrest for months so that the neighbors would not talk. But through all this she chose to continue the life growing in her womb. She chose the path of life so that I could take my first breath, just like the motto of A Baby’s Breath that goes above and beyond the call of duty, out of love, to see those precious babies take their first breath.

My Mother did not have to wait long, for you see, I was born at 6 1/2 months gestation in 1969 in the back of a taxicab on the way to the hospital. The hospital staff said that it would be better for her if she did not see me. I weighed only 2 pounds, 6 ounces and I spent the next few months of my life in an incubator with double pneumonia but I pulled through, I guess God has me here for a reason. Just as He out of love has willed every child, no matter what circumstances surround that child’s conception.

I was adopted by two wonderful people, the Burdett’s when I was 6 months old. They could not have children of their own and were very grateful to my Mother that she had chosen to continue her pregnancy and to give me into their care to raise as their own son.

If my Mother was faced with an unplanned pregnancy today and not in 1969, she could have walked into Planned Parenthood and ordered up an emergency contraception kit (if it were available) and she would have more alternatives to have had her pregnancy ended, but my Mother made a choice that day in 1969, she chose life and I must say that I am eternally grateful for her choice. It was not an easy choice but she had some people in her life to help her. I had people in my life, my parents to adopt me. At a Baby’s Breath, there are caring people there to help a Mother in crisis see her child take his or her first breath.

Thank you all for all your generosity this evening at the Silent Auction, it is your participation here and through out the year that allow A Baby’s Breath to continue their wonderful work.