gianna jessen was intended to die before she was born, just another one of the 1.2 million abortions each year in the united states. instead of death, though, gianna was bathed in a burning saline solution, but she overcame to enter the world. two months premature and weighing just two pounds, she spent her first few months in a hospital. from there, she entered the foster care system. the failed abortion had also provided the “gift” of cerebral palsy, as she calls it: “it allows me to really depend on jesus for everything.” it also labeled her a hopeless case—an infant who was a ward of the state and for whom the expectations of achievement were extremely low. doctors predicted gianna would never even lift her head. she showed them: she began walking as an infant and has grown into a woman who has run marathons. and that’s just the beginning of the places where her grit and determination have carried her. though the horrific hours of her birth initially drew attention, gianna has so much more to say: “my life and my story didn’t began and end at my birth.”