If her parents had viewed Cerian as nothing more than a hindrance to her mother’s autonomy or a lesser sort of life because of her disability, then abortion would seem like the logical choice. But if you view Cerian as a fully human child, despite her disability, and believe that the natural law requires parents to love their children, then Paul and Sarah experienced the freedom of acting according to the given order of things, even though acting thus was painful and difficult. And in the midst of that action, they learned new things about the nature of love and what it means to be human.

This poignant book tells how a British husband and wife discover their unborn daughter has a catastrophic abnormality that will result in certain death. Against the advice of their doctors, they choose to carry the baby to term.… Sarah Williams describes how God drew near to them in their suffering. She notes the ways modern culture dehumanizes the unborn, de-emphasizes fathers, and delights in the perfect.

Sarah Williams shows us – and perhaps especially those in similar circumstances, having lost a child to miscarriage or stillbirth – that love can triumph even in such agonizing situations. Love remains love, and it remains infinitely precious, even if it’s given for only nine months and seared through with pain. If you haven’t read it, get Perfectly Human. Then give it away: Like love, it deserves sharing.

This is a wonderful, beautiful, heart-wrenching, healing book. We recommend it to everyone, and especially if you are facing or have faced a pregnancy with a child with a potentially fatal disability, or a miscarriage. An amazing book by an amazing woman.

One of the most profound, insightful, tender, sensitive, though-provoking books I have read in a long time.

A beautiful reminder of how individually specific the choice of whether to bring a pregnancy to term can be. Readers will be touched by Williams’s story of perseverance, faith, and love.

It would be a mistake to characterize this book merely as a grief memoir. Williams shifts seamlessly between intimate reflections on love in the midst of tragic loss and incisive commentary on the social structures that framed her experience. … This is an important word for those of us wrestling with suffering and struggling for hope.