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Baby Avonlea from The Schultzes on Vimeo.

CHARLOTTE, NC, March 20, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Geoff and Cheyenne Schultz became photographers “to create art that matters and to genuinely care for people.” They say that, thanks to their latest project, “living out our mission statement was taken to another level.”

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On March 6, the photographers posted a video featuring pictures they took of Avonlea Powell, a baby girl born with Trisomy 13.

At six-and-a-half months into their pregnancy doctors told the newborn's parents, Melissa and Brian Powell of Project Life Photography, that the diagnosis was “not compatible with life.”

When the baby was born alive, the Powells asked their fellow Charlotte-based photographers to capture the child's first days on film.

“Sweet Avonlea, however, is very much alive,” the Schultzes wrote. “Thank you, God, for this baby.”

Pictures of a Trisomy 13 baby have opened hearts and minds in the past. Little Corbin McHenry lived 135 days and reached 50,000 Facebook fans. Each day, his parents posted a new picture and updates such as “3 weeks of Beautiful, Perfect, Memorable, Wonderful, Miraculous LIFE!”

Ethicists say describing the condition as “incompatible with life” is often misleading.

“Although many of the congenital syndromes that used to be lethal no longer are, they are still routinely referred to as 'lethal anomalies,” according to the Hastings Center, a non-profit bioethics research institute. The group warns that description “is not only inaccurate, it is also dangerous: by portraying as a medical determination what is in fact a judgment about the child’s quality of life, it wrests from the parents a decision that only the parents can make.”

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A 2012 study involving 332 couples whose children had Trisomy 13 or 18 found that the majority were told the diagnosis was “incompatible with life,” but 70 percent of the children were still alive, at a median age of four.

They also found that “97 percent of parents described their child as a happy child. Parents reported these children enriched their family and their couple irrespective of the length of their lives.”

The Schultz family knows little Avonlea will be no different. “We can rest knowing that her life – no matter how long or how short it may be – will be used in incredible ways and will touch many people,” the Schultzes add. “I know that for me, I will forever be changed in knowing her.”