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She knew they would only have a few fleeting months together, but in that time Sarah’s unborn daughter would transform her understanding of beauty, worth, and the gift of life.
Winner: Christianity Today 2019 Book Award, CT Women
Silver Medal, 2019 Illumination Awards
Happily married and teaching history at the University of Oxford, Sarah Williams had credentials, success, and knowledge. It took someone who would never have any of these things to teach her what it means to be human.
This extraordinary true story begins with the welcome news of a new member of the Williams family. Sarah’s husband, Paul, and their two young daughters share her excitement. But the happiness is short-lived, as a hospital scan reveals a lethal skeletal dysplasia. Birth will be fatal.
Sarah and Paul decide to carry the baby to term, a decision that shocks medical staff and Sarah’s professional colleagues. Sarah and Paul find themselves having to defend their child’s dignity and worth against incomprehension and at times open hostility. They name their daughter Cerian, Welsh for “loved one.” Sarah writes, “Cerian is not a strong religious principle or a rule that compels me to make hard and fast ethical decisions. She is a beautiful person who is teaching me to love the vulnerable, treasure the unlovely, and face fear with dignity and hope.”
In this candid and vulnerable account, Perfectly Human brings the reader along with Sarah on the journey towards Cerian's birthday and her deathday. It’s rare enough to find a writer who can share such a heart-stretching personal experience without sounding sappy, but here is one who at the same time has the ability to articulate the broader cultural issues raised by Cerian’s story. In a society striving for perfection, where worth is earned, identity is constructed, children are a choice, normal is beautiful, and deformity is repulsive, Cerian’s short life raises vital questions about what we value and where we are headed as a culture.
Heartbreaking and beautiful – a mother’s love story and ringing testimony to the value of every single human life. After a devastating diagnosis declared her unborn baby would not survive, Sarah and her husband choose to carry the pregnancy to term anyway. This has a terrifying and painful impact on her body and their family, but it also profoundly changes them for good as they declare with her body and with their baby, the worth of a life. What makes up a human life? How is worth determined? Not everyone will agree with their choice, but that doesn’t matter… What matters is – this is one family’s story and testament to beauty and life, and it is stunning.
Sarah Williams, a history tutor at Oxford, faces the personal and philosophical realities that carrying a baby with a severe congenital abnormality raises both within herself and the people around her. Her book, Perfectly Human, is a thoughtful, intellectually and personally honest, and at times painful exploration of the question of the value of humans who are deemed too imperfect to be born – a journey that ultimately affects how Sarah sees herself and others. The book encounters some of the fundamental questions a mother who is carrying a severely deformed baby will face – questions that somehow reach into the heart of what it is to be human and to face our imperfection.… No matter what our own personal beliefs, her story is valid and deserving of our attention and respect.
“Perfectly Human” is pro-life without pitting mothers against babies, without judging or advocating.This is a work of exquisite, intimate, and aching beauty that also raises profound questions without becoming preachy…. To read this narrative is alternately to wonder and to weep, in our own longings for we know not what, at the perfectly human gift of Cerian.
How do you reconcile birth and death in the same moment? Williams never shies away from the honesty of how difficult a decision she faced, nor does she sugarcoat the misery of her situation. Yet in the deepest pain of her life, she shares a profound sense of knowing and being known by the God who will somehow see her through to the other side.
This memoir is much more than just a record of events. Williams decided she would see this journey as an opportunity to know God better… This book is also an exploration of what it means to be human. How we treat our weak, she writes, tells us much about our society. The issues of bioethics and the idea of personhood are woven throughout her personal account.
During her pregnancy, Williams questioned assumptions about prayer (of God as wish-granter), normality (which she feels is overrated), and grief (Cerian did indeed die at birth). Perfectly Human is a passionate spiritual reflection ... the vocation to marriage and family are sometimes fraught with complicated decisions that will test our faith. But in the end, it’s the story of how marriage and family, for Christians, is ultimately the story of God's love for all of us.
It was a privilege to share Sarah’s emotional struggle to stay true to her beliefs, which gave her the inner strength to accept life as a gift, in any form, for however long and at any cost… There is no denying that this was a horribly sad occurrence that happened to a real family. Throughout this story there is understanding, acceptance, and grace that only a happening of this magnitude could create.
This is such a powerful, heart-wrenching book to read! I cried, I smiled, I cried some more.... As a mom, my mind doesn't want to get too close to thinking about how difficult this experience was for the entire family. They are an excellent example of how to deal with adversity.
A beautiful book! This story of Cerian and her family is amazing. I did not expect to feel so strongly about someone's pregnancy in which the child would be deformed and die at birth. But following the family's acceptance of the fetus as a perfect human being brings a new awareness of the journey the parents go through. Very thought provoking.
This book truly is extraordinary. It is beautifully written and the author manages to take us on her heartbreaking journey while also eloquently discussing the questions that we need to ask ourselves about how we view health and life, both before and after birth. I felt a pull to this book from the moment I read the description. I knew it wouldn’t be an easy read but it is like it came to me at a perfect time. For me what that meant was the unexpected and incredibly powerful impact it had on how I view my own life. I was born prematurely and not expected to survive.
While the subject matter is hard, this is a beautifully written book. I went through a roller coaster of emotions while reading it, but the story line was very engaging and kept pulling me back in. When one of the girls asked if she could always love the baby even when it died, I shed tears... Even though this is a real story it reads more like a novel in the way you are drawn into the characters and story. I highly recommend this book.
There has been a shortage of accessible material on the experience of continuing a pregnancy where the child has been found to have a severe abnormality. Here, at last, is a book where medical professionals, pastors, and friends can see into the hearts of a family living through the dilemmas, sorrows, and joys that this experience brings. Perfectly Human is beautifully written, carefully crafted and, at times, completely heartbreaking. Is this a book you could give a couple going through a similar experience? It is certainly not reading for the faint-hearted, but such a couple won't be and are likely to be eager to learn from those who have gone before. Is it a book to give to your obstetric colleague or your obstetrician? Most definitely! Mine should get his in the post any day now.
This book relates Williams’ own journey through a challenging pregnancy. Her third child was a joyful expectation when a 20-week ultrasound scan revealed that the baby was developing with a unique condition that would lead to its death upon delivery. In Perfectly Human, Williams lets us into the depths of confusion, grief, despair, and joy that meets her within the months of her pregnancy. With moving honesty, Williams chronicles the challenges that she faced along with her husband, Paul, her two daughters, Hannah and Emilia, and close family and friends. How do we relate to one another when things are not as we had hoped? How do we relate to God in these challenging situations? How might we need our own hopes and dreams to be refined by the apparent ‘wrongs’ that come into our lives. Now, some of you are saying: “Matt, this really isn’t a book I’m going to read because it really doesn’t apply to my life. I mean, I’m not pregnant … I don’t have kids … I’m not even thinking about getting married …”, etc. Listen to me: this is a book worth reading for anyone because of the way in which Williams draws us into her personal story and engages the head and heart with the perplexing issues of valuing life as followers of Jesus, understanding what true strength and weakness are, and wondering how God meets us in the shadows of life.
A beautifully written book on what it means to be human as seen through the eyes of a bereaved mother. I cried continually throughout this book and my heart felt connected to the author as I too am a mother. The way Sarah continues to pray and trust God even with the inevitable death of her daughter looming in the future is utterly inspiring. Despite these incredibly difficult circumstances, the Williams family grows in their faith and understanding of God, death and humanity in this hard-to-put-down memoir.
