Abigail Rose Beutler, 3, enjoys an Easter Egg hunt (Facebook)

In a follow-up to a story we have been following for three years, the daughter of Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA) who was advised to abort the child because she had no kidneys, is now a healthy and thriving toddler.

According to Newsbusters, the very pro-life Rep. Beutler was featured on CNN this past weekend for the latest segment of the show’s Badass Women of Washington, and happily reported how little Abigail, 3, is now thriving in spite of being told the child had no hope of survival.

Rep. Beutler had just been elected to office in 2012 when she and husband Dan Beutler learned that their unborn baby, Abigail, had Potter’s Syndrome. Usually fatal, the kidneys of these babies develop abnormally which causes a lack of amniotic fluid and limited lung development. In Abigail’s case, she had no kidneys at all.

The doctors told her that there was nothing that could be done. The baby would either be stillborn or die of suffocation shortly after birth. Her condition was “incompatible with life,” they said, and recommended abortion.

The Beutlers refused.

CNN’s Dana Bash then asked, “Did you consider at all, for even a second, taking his advice to go across the street [and get an abortion]?”

“No,” Dan immediately answered. “Being able to hear the heartbeat and knowing that she, Abigail – we had this gut feeling that there has to be something.”

And there was!

Rep. Jaime Herrrar-Beutler and husband Dan shortly after Abigail was born

Shortly after they received this devastating news, a parent who faced a similar situation helped her to connect with a group of courageous doctors at Johns Hopkins University Hospital who were willing to try a simple - but unproven - treatment called amnio-infusion.

"Every week for five weeks, doctors injected saline into the womb to give Abigail's lungs a chance to develop,” Beutler explained. “With each infusion we watched via ultrasound as Abigail responded to the fluid by moving, swallowing and 'practice breathing.' The initial lack of fluid in the womb caused pressure on her head and chest, but over the course of the treatment we were able to watch them reform to their proper size and shape. Her feet, which were clubbed in early ultrasounds, straightened. There was no way to know if this treatment would be effective or to track lung development, but with hearts full of hope, we put our trust in the Lord and continued to pray for a miracle."

Just after the fifth infusion, Jaime went into labor. She was just 28 weeks pregnant when tiny Abigail Rose was born.

"The doctors and nurses were prepared for the worst - but immediately after she was born, she drew a breath and cried!" Beutler said. "After a few minutes, it was clear that her lungs were very well developed for a baby born so early. The infusions had stopped the Potter’s Sequence."

But their ordeal wasn’t over yet. They had a newborn with a serious medical condition on their hands. Husband Dan decided to quit law school and put his career on hold in order to care for Abigail, and then her little brother Ethan who came along two years later.

And he also gave one of his kidneys to Abigail.

“I don't think there are many parents who wouldn't jump at the chance to help their kid,” he told CNN.

Today, Abigail is thriving.

“Now she's not the only, she's just the first,” Beutler said of her daughter. “There are other babies who have survived because of her.”

The usually pro-abortion CNN ended the segment by praising Abigail and her mother.

“She is a medical miracle, the first baby to ever survive birth without kidneys,” Bash concluded. “She seems like just an average kid, playing with her baby brother, playing with her dolls, hanging out with her parents, except, of course, that her mom is in Congress.”

About Beutler, she wrote, “What she went through to have – and save – her baby is truly badass, a lesson in courage from a woman who wouldn't take no for an answer.”

What Bash didn't note is how Congresswoman Beutler was exhibiting all of the qualities of authentic femininity. As Johnnette Benkovic describes in Full of Grace: Women and the Abundant Life, the authentically feminine woman is receptive to the action of God in her life; she trusts in His “never failing providence in spite of circumstances” and; she surrenders to His will in all things.

Beutler certainly exhibited all of those qualities, and her faith-filled courage is now giving hope to other children and their families who are facing the same dire diagnosis. Where abortion and death were once the only options, now there is life.

“We must be purveyors of life in a culture infatuated with death. Bearing the life of God within us, we must offer love in the image of our Father to those who have not yet heard,” Johnnette writes. “This is our mission as woman. This is our all as spiritual mother. This is authentic femininity.”

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