Reclaiming Our Children: A Blog About Healing After Abortion

Today I am beginning a series of posting the witnesses of women and men that were in newsletters from Lumina's early days…they are worth getting out here and I thank all who shared their hearts with us…tb

WITNESS

 The following is an excerpt of what I wrote days before my
abortion when I was 19 and struggling with my boyfriend to make a decision.

 I go to college. We are happy. I really do love my family.
My father picks up garbage for a living. His is an executive for a major
corporation. I don’t know how we came together. We are so different. I didn’t
even know him. All I knew was that I liked him. I liked him well enough to let
him stay in my room to sleep with me. And after a time, I liked him enough to
become the father of a child that was conceived within me. What had we done?

 
When I found out the truth about being pregnant I did not
know where to turn. I couldn’t even cry. He was shocked and found it hard to
believe it could happen to him. Who could we turn to? I couldn’t hurt my
parents. But would it hurt them more not to know? And what about his parents?
Their position in his community would be ruined.

 I ask myself what is love? Is the love between us, if there
is any, only lasting enough to raise the money for an abortion? Can we make it
if we get married? We don’t want to get married. I want my degree.

 I don’t even think of it as a child. It is a group of cells
within me. We do not believe in abortion. I am scared. Do I pray? Does God
still love me? How can I have an abortion? How can I hurt my family? He is
frightened. He is not yet a man, but he is a father. The sound of the word seems
harsh.

 My father is a proud man who never received a ticket to mar
his name. How can I, his daughter, not yet 20, say, “Daddy, I’m pregnant. Do
you still love me? I’m sorry.” I can’t even conjure up the look on my
mother’s face. I cannot bring the shame of my mistake upon them.

 And what about him? He is very afraid. He lets me decide and
counts on me making the right decision. He doesn’t want an abortion, but what
are the other alternatives? Marriage? Shame? Adoption? How can we ruin a third
person, created by us, two people not yet ready? I am frightened. I am a mixed
up young women of 19 in a bad situation. He is an irresponsible young man of
19. He is frightened. Do these descriptions warrant us the title of Mother and
Father?

 Is abortion the only answer? Sometimes my mother would tell
me life isn’t as we always want it to be and we have to do things we don’t want
to do. I am thinking of it now and wonder if God will still love me after I
actually go through with the procedure. Am I being selfish? It is my mistake on
my conscious and it isn’t necessary to hurt more people than I have to. I don’t
believe the alternative I chose is the right one. It goes against everything I
believe in. But I also know I can never imagine telling my parents of my deed.
I have to live with it every time I see a baby. When I marry, whether to the
father or not, I will always remember and for me that is punishment
enough.

 The letter above was written 30 years ago. I did not marry
the father and what happened after the initial abortion was even worse. I had
the abortion, then went back to the clinic six weeks later for a check up and
found out I was still pregnant. The doctor told me I had to have another
abortion for fear of the health of the remaining child. Twins! I was 19 and I
believed the doctor, so I had a second abortion.

 Two days later I began to hemorrhage. On the second night of
bleeding, while my 17-year-old sister was with me, I bled until I miscarried
the parts of my baby still inside of me. I saw an arm. I saw the fetus. I
flushed the bowl, relieved that the bleeding had stopped. I don’t remember what
I did the next day, but now 30 years later I know I went into an emotional
wasteland. I went on to marry happily. I have four children and genuinely
believed my life was good. However, I was afraid to go to church. After my
first child was born and he was six weeks old I threw up one day when the
realization of what I had actually done hit me. I pushed it further and further
away, until my father died. That was when I couldn’t control things anymore.
Within six months of his death I began to slip into hell and didn’t quite know
why. I blamed it on his passing, but inside me I knew that wasn’t it. It was
almost a year after my father’s death when I realized I suffered from Post
Abortion Trauma.

 There is help, there is recovery, and there is hope. It
isn’t an easy journey. In fact, it is the hardest thing I ever had to do, but a
journey I had to go on to finally accept my twins, accept responsibility and
move forward. The most wonderful lesson I learned is that God is forgiveness
and love.  He is there for everyone.

 CB