Their difficult journey began just two years into their marriage.

"I took a pregnancy test -- a home pregnancy test -- and we were elated. We were excited. We were scared. We were nervous," Claudia said. "We'd been married for two years. But when my husband proposed to me, he asked me to marry him and to be the mother of his children. It was something that we had both always dreamed of."

Then the first sign of problems. She woke up one morning and felt anxious, so she went to her obstetrician for reassurance. Tests discovered that the baby had fluid in the brain. Her doctor sent her to another specialist.

"I was six months into my pregnancy and I had a strange instinct telling me something was wrong ... My OB sent me to a specialist who, 30 seconds after she started examining me, said, 'I concur with your doctor.' And my husband and I looked at each other and said, 'Concur with what?' and she told us that the fluid in my son's brain had prevented it from developing." 514K/47 sec. AIFF or WAV sound

The specialist showed the couple an ultrasound image of the baby's heart, which had a hole between the chambers that restricted the blood flow. She told them that their baby boy would never survive. The news was devastating at a time when baby shower invitations had already been sent and they were picking names.

"Here we were, a happily married couple, madly in love, six months into a perfect pregnancy, a wanted pregnancy, and all of a sudden, we got the tragic news that our son stood no chance of survival, and we were faced with having to make a decision to have an abortion," she said. That idea was foreign to her. "Abortions were never something that happened for wanted pregnancies. Abortions were something that people had when they don't want a pregnancy."

They met with a genetic counselor and discussed the few options they had, including the possibility of the baby dying inside Claudia, which would put her life at risk.

'We cried, we talked it through'

"After explaining the options, we looked at each other and said, 'We need some time,'" she said. "We went downstairs and we held hands and we took a walk and we cried and we held each other and we talked it through," Claudia said. "And we came back and sat on the steps outside and we made the incredibly difficult decision, for the sake of my son, to terminate my pregnancy."

They then had to make the wrenching phone call to their families.

"My parents were so loving and so supportive. All of our family and friends were. They were incredible. but I felt I was taking away their grandchild," she said tearfully.

She had the abortion. It took three days because she was already in her third trimester.

"It was emotionally, extraordinarily difficult for everyone -- for myself and my husband," Claudia said. "And while I was there in the operating room, I was not aware of everything. But my husband was pacing in the waiting room, praying that while he was losing his son, he wouldn't also lose his wife. And so when I woke up from the final procedure, he was standing there holding my hand, so happy, so relieved. and I was so empty, so sad. And I put my hands on my belly and it felt so empty.

A very,very tough day'

"It was a very, very tough day, and a tough week and month. (It took) a long time for the two of us to come together to that place where I got over that feeling of emptiness and he got over the fear of losing his wife."

Since then, Claudia and her husband have adopted a baby boy they named Oliver. 318K/29 sec. AIFF or WAV sound

"I have never, for any moment, had a doubt that we did the right thing. And I have the most wonderful, incredible, there are no words to describe, perfect son that we adopted -- that it's inconceivable to us that he would not be in our lives," she said. "Although it's hard to believe that we had to go through that hell in order to have the happiness that we now have, it's the path that we took ... it doesn't bother me that I had to go through it or that I have to share my story.

But, "It bothers me that I have to defend my decision day in and day out -- probably for the rest of my life. And that there are people who continue to judge ... for what we chose for our family and yet they've never, ever come close to walking in the shoes that we have, or ever lived through the kind of tragedy that we have. And although I pray that they never do, I would love to no longer be judged for the decision that we made."

Cynthia was the middle child in a family of five children and grew up in West St. Louis County, a traditional, conservative middle- and upper-middle class area.

She left home to attend college and, as a freshman, moved into a dormitory. She was drawn into college life, enjoying the independence of living away from home. Then, she found love.

"It was toward the middle part of my first year, and I met a boy who was actually a sophomore. And we just immediately -- it was a love-at-first-sight-type thing. He was the love of my life. And we just immediately fell into that euphoric type of love just right away. And of course, we were both in the dorms, just having a wonderful time, and it wasn't long after we met that I found out I was pregnant."

She vividly recalls taking the home pregnancy test, which was positive, and going to a doctor for confirmation. At first, she and her boyfriend thought it was wonderful news. Then reality set in.

What will people think?

"We were both getting ready to take our exams and move home for the summer and once again be living with our parents and confronted with the realities of life, and it wasn't just going to be the euphoria of living in the dormitory and the, I guess, sort of the unreal situation of living in the dorm.

"And we started to -- we just started to really question what, you know, what's going on. What are we really going to do now that we're getting back into real life."

Her friends urged her to get an abortion.

"I told my roommates in college and, of course, their reactions, unanimously their reactions: 'Oh. You have to get an abortion.' Consider you're not dealing with reality here. You're 19. You're in your first year of college. We're having fun. We're going out. That's going to be the end of all that. You guys have no money. You have no insurance. Who is going to take care of the baby?"

But Cynthia was "incredibly ambivalent" about what to do.

"On one hand, I felt that the pregnancy was a miracle, and that there was a life inside of me. Yet on the other hand, there were so many what seemed like logical reasons to have an abortion. And I went back and forth, and it completely consumed every thought that I had over the few-week time period after I found out that I was pregnant." 303K/27 sec. AIFF or WAV sound

She worried about telling her parents and dealing with what others might think about her and her family.

"I considered that I would be the topic of gossip, and I considered all the people who know me talking about me. And I would be the topic of dinner conversations. And I would be the topic of parents reiterating lessons to their daughters about the dangers of having sex. And I thought of my enemies and people who would take pleasure in my misfortune. I considered that if I were to have the baby, that my parents would have to go through the same thing in their circles of friends."

'I envisioned (my baby) inside of me warm and safe'

So she decided to have an abortion. But sitting in the clinic, she had an "awakening."

"For the first time, I actually envisioned my baby. And it wasn't just an embryo. It was my baby inside of me. And I envisioned him inside of me warm and safe, and I just thought, 'I can't do this to you. No matter what happens. No matter whether I'm shunned by friends or family, I'm going to keep this baby, and we're going to have each other.' And it was at this point that the doctor and the assistant walked in, and, at the same point, I jumped off the table and said, 'I'm going to keep this baby.' And I was finally filled with a sense of peace."

Her boyfriend was waiting outside.

"Of course, I wanted him to be supportive. But I was prepared that he might not be. He still had taken no stand either one way or the other, and so I came out and I said, 'I'm not going through with it. I'm keeping the baby. I don't want you to feel like you have to do anything. You don't have to marry me. You don't have to support me or the baby. It doesn't matter.' And he was relieved that I didn't go through with it. I think he was feeling the same way I was."

They married that summer and remain happily married. Cynthia finished college, earning degrees in nursing and law, although she missed some classes and gave up some things, including, she said, "a lot of my youth." Still, she has no regrets.

"I look back and I think that that was the worst thing that could have happened to me at 19. That was my biggest nightmare and it was the worst thing that ever happened to me, and yet it turned out to be the most fabulous thing. It turned out to be the most wonderful thing that's ever happened in my life."