We all have stories to tell. Everyone’s lives are full of comedy and tragedy, solace and heartbreak, tears and laughter. Our lives are stories. That is what it means to be human.
My own story is just starting out. I’m a young Associate Producer at Yellow Line Studio. Yellow Line fascinates me. We want to inspire change in society—change for the better. We believe the best way to achieve our goal is through story telling. I’ve always loved story. That’s why I’m part of Yellow Line. And I think that’s why the producers of BUMP+ asked me to host this blog.
Because BUMP+ is all about story. We’re telling the stories of three women, each facing the challenges and anxieties of an unplanned pregnancy.
On May 17, 2009, President Barack Obama called for a change. He spoke to the graduates of Notre Dame, and to all of America, about our failure to live together as a human family. We Americans have become so politicized that we can’t look past the laws and statistics. We’ve forgotten about the stories of those around us. BUMP+ is here to remind us.
But no man – or woman – is an island. Human nature isn’t only about telling stories. It’s about listening to them, too. And I want to listen to your story. Truly listen. We here at Yellow Line believe so strongly in the power of story that we’re willing—eager, even—to be influenced by it. We tell you the story of Katie, Denise, and Hailey. You tell us your story. Your story makes a difference in the stories of these women. It’s a real conversation—the kind every human being craves.
Oh, I nearly forgot. My name is Emily. Won’t you tell me yours?
Emily Von Sydow is our favorite redheaded bookworm, storyteller, and world changer. She’ll be here every Friday with episode recaps, behind-the-scenes insights, and answers to your questions. Join the conversation by posting a comment or question below or dropping her a line at Emily@yellowlinestudio.com
To Our Audience -
Bump+ The Show has come to an end – but the conversation it has sparked is just beginning.
As word about Bump+ spread to 64 countries across the globe, controversy and criticism from people on both sides of the debate followed; but instead of listening to them, you found the courage to listen to each other. Six weeks and more than 125,000 site visits later, your responses not only to our characters, but also to each other has proved to the world what we suspected all along – we were right to trust in the goodness and intelligence of our audience. We are intensely humbled by the stories you’ve shared and the respect you have shown to each other. Your partnership has challenged us to see this debate in new ways, and reminded the world that we don’t have to agree to listen and respond with compassion. Thank you for that gift.
Comments on individual episodes have now been closed in order to preserve what was The Bump Experience as it unfolded. A new comment thread has been opened here to keep the conversation going. Please visit this link to share your story and join the conversation.
Hi, my name is Jane and when I was thirteen when I got pregnant and I got an abortion, because my so called “boyfriend” had cheated on me and got another girl pregnant.So I knew this was going to be one of the hardest decisions I would ever have to make, but I knew a choice had to be made. I went back and forth with my options for about two weeks, but i knew soon I would have to make a choice. And at the end i did choose abortion and it is something I have to live with for the rest of my life, but I do not regret my choice, because I was not only thinking of myself I was thinking of my child and the life he or she would have. Abortion is not is an easy decision and protesters and laws don’t make the choice any easier. No one understands the strength it takes to terminate a pregnancy. And I can see why people would want it to be illegal, but we have so many other laws that are all about choice, so why not keep it a choice of Pro life and Pro choice. Because until you go through all the pain and all the complications I have been through you have no reason to judge. Honestly abortion is much harder then adoption and sometimes it is even harder then keeping a child, because there are so many side effects and so many emotional and physical stresses that you honestly just want to die. But you have to just stick it out and truly believe that your decision was the right one. Because if you don’t you will be living in regret and guilt for the rest of your life, and its not healthy.
Thank you, Jane, for sharing your story with me. I am so sorry for the pain you experienced. To go through that at such a young age–I don’t think I could have handled that kind of pain at thirteen. I agree with you; no one has the right to be a harsh judge when they have not borne the same burden.
I have not been pregnant but wanted to add that I have been privileged to listen to aborted men and women tell their stories to me. I see them now, the many faces, and cry that they died along with their child one fateful Yesterday.
I have heard former pro-abortion nurses say that they were “blind” to what happened in the clinics, as if they couldn’t see the bodies for the limbs. This blindness is the only explanation I have for why intelligent people would perform abortions.
[COMMENT HAS BEEN EDITED]
Thank you for sharing your experiences, Paula. I am glad you’re there for the people who need you.
Another Paula:
I’m offended by your comment. There are real people who have had to make tough decisions. I am lucky enough never to have been in a position where I’ve needed to consider abortion. I admire the strength of anyone that has, because either choice would be difficult. You trivialize it by making up stories about how you “listen to aborted men and women”. There’s no such thing as ghosts. Grow up.
I am buoyed by the thought that there can be some honest dialogue about abortion and this seems to be a place that welcomes it. I too feel like I can’t talk about what happened to me except to my closest friends without recrimination.
I grew up in a middle class neighbourhood in a small industrial city. When I was 17 I got pregnant. I had a tumutuous relationship with my parents and had been in and out of my house twice already by this time. The pregnancy was the last straw for my folks.
I remember having to go for an ultrasound before the abortion. The doctor rubbed the wand over my belly and I asked her if I could see the screen. She looked surprised and asked me if I was sure. I said that I was. (I can’t believe I had the presence of mind to ask that yet still went ahead and killed my baby anyway. It strikes me as unbelievably schizophrenic.)
I saw my baby on the screen. I remember the number 126. The baby’s heart was going 126 beats per minute. I marvelled at the miracle that I could house another human being. It seemed unreal that I could have a baby inside of me.
Choosing the abortion was very easy even back when it wasn’t really supposed to be for a minor in 1986 in Canada. The nurse checked off a box that said pregnancy would be harmful to my mental health and that was it. A more ironic statement was never made in my life. There was no counselling, no preparation.
An argument I had with my father not long before the operation haunts my memory. “My first grandchild, an abortion”, he threw carelessly at me.
“My first CHILD dad!” I cried back at him, incredulous that he would say such a thing and yet they wouldn’t help me, they didn’t offer to help me care for this child. They told me I had to leave as soon as I aborted the child and found a job. It still hurts SO much to this day that they never offered to save their grandchild.
Still,it was me who made the decision in the end.
I had to go in to the hospital the night before to have something inserted in me. I don’t remember what but they told me that after this pre-op procedure, it would be too late to change my mind.
My mother took me and we cried together as we left.
The next day is a fog. I don’t remember going to the hospital but I do remember lying on the operating table and the anesthesiologist saying “Now count backwards from 100.”
I remember looking up at the I.V. drip and counting “100, 99, 98…” and then darkness.
When I awoke, I was crying. A nurse gently approached me and stroked my hair and told me I had been crying under anesthesia for 45 minutes.
That was the only grieving I allowed myself for the next 18 years. I spent the following decade and a half doing hateful and stupid destructive things to myself. I became an alcoholic and the only times I cried about my baby were times of serious intoxication.
I became very promiscuous. I got involved in the sex industry and became a stripper for over a decade and a half. I married and divorced an abusive man. I wandered around the country with no realistic goals, hopeless about my future, tortured about my past, ridiculous in the present.
I considered myself very pro-choice and was hard core into the feminist movement but I never tried to fool myself by using euphemisms. I knew I had committed a murder of an innocent human being and I seethed in constant anger and hatred. My life was a sad sad caricature empty of love, hope and meaning.
I thank God for the miraculous developments in my life of the past 7 years. I have some peace, though I still feel I don’t deserve it.
I met and married a man who led me to the path of God’s forgiveness and love.
We have a beautiful 3 year old daughter. I lost a second baby due to an ectopic pregnancy. My other fallopian tube is too diseased to carry another egg through it and so she will be the only child of mine who ever made it to earth alive. I beleive that the diseased tube is the consequence of my promiscuity. Not a punishment, a consequence.
I have to recommend Rachel’s Vineyard to anyone who feels that they can tolerate forgiveness. I went to a retreat last spring and I can’t begin to describe it for you. I was able to speak openly to other women without judgement. I was able to publicly acknowledge that little boy who never had a chance to live. I was able to further understand and accept forgiveness.
For reasons unknown to me, maybe just that I am a child of God, I have a very satisfying life. I have a wonderfully challenging child, a husband who loves me and much more. I don’t think too deeply about what I have done too often because I need to be strong for my family. I will, however, give my story wherever I can because I pray to God that it will convince even one woman not to destroy her baby and her conscience.
The pro-choice rhetoric strikes me as so dishonest. It is a choice indeed. It is a choice to see that you are not the only one involved. It is a choice to be a hero. It is a choice to let your baby live.
We know better.
Thanks you so much for sharing your story with me, Paula. I am so sorry for all the pain you’ve endured throughout your life. No one should have to live that kind of emptiness. I am glad your life now is so rewarding.
I am touched both Lucy and Anne’s stories. They are so heartfelt and powerful and hold so much truth. And I am honored that you both came out and told your stories in public. That takes so much courage. I, like Emily, have been involved in this project and, also like Emily, your stories are the reason that I am doing what I’m doing and why it’s so important to me. God bless you both and may you feel his mercy and forgiveness.
Thanks for your comment, Andrea. I’m glad Anne’s story and Lucy’s story touched you, as well. It’s for moments like these that Yellow Line Studio exists.
This is a terrible story, but true. Maybe you will edit it out, but some people do think this way.
My sweet aunt, in her 70’s, sat in my living room and said “Well, abortion has kept the black population in check”. I was so completely shocked. My aunt, whose first child and first grandchild were concieved out of wedlock. My aunt, who cooks a beautiful meal, sends me a card on every birthday, and has never hurt a soul. Can you believe she could say such a thing? The words “It’s never right to take an innocent life!” could not get out of my mouth fast enough. And her response? “Well, maybe you’re right.”
And then, I’ve heard that the origins of the abortion movement were steeped in this kind of thought. Hard to believe it has gained such legitimacy.
Thank you for sharing, Kris. It is tragic to see the misunderstandings and prejudices in the world.
This is my story.
Growing up in a rural area of Maryland in the 1960’s and 70’s, I grew up a sheltered child, shielded from the ways of the world. When I went off to college nearly 1400 miles away in the late 1970’s, I was still that same sheltered, naïve, inexperienced teenager who knew practically nothing about life. In fact, I knew so little about the ways of the world that I didn’t even realize that I was 18 weeks along in a pregnancy of which I knew nothing about. Call it stupid, call it naïve, call it ‘how-could-anyone-be-that-dumb,’ or whatever you want to call it, but I had no idea that I was pregnant at any point during these four months. Of course, I knew about the concept of sex but I was naïve in the actual practice of it…it never even entered my head that with my first sexual encounter that it could, or would, happen to me…that I would conceive and carry a child within my womb.
The day it dawned on me that I might even be (pregnant), I was scared. In fact, I was more than scared – I was frightened out of my wits. I was 19 years old. Frightened. Alone. Trapped. Confused. And didn’t know where to turn. As it turns out, I turned down the wrong road – one that I thought was the easy one. But it wasn’t until years later that I found out that it was, really, a road of deception, and the hardest one of all to go down.
I didn’t know what to do or where to start. So one of my college friends told me about a place called Planned Parenthood; she said that they could help, and that I could get a free pregnancy test. I jotted down the address that I had found from the local phone book, walked the few miles it took to get to the place then told the lady behind the desk my plight. She gave me the test; my worst fears were realized within just a few short moments when the test came up positive. ‘But,’ she said, ‘not to worry because she was there to help me.’ She told me of a place located a few hours away ‘that would help me “get rid of my problem,” and that I’d better hurry up because I was pushing past the time that I could get it done, and that it really was for the best,’ she told me, ‘because the fetus was probably “already retarded or deformed” and I certainly didn’t want to have that, now would I?’ (I was still taking birth control pills at the time, hence the woman’s comment about my baby being deformed or retarded. I don’t even know if what she said is even really true.)
My initial thoughts at that point were: “How can I tell my parents? My Dad’s going to kill me. My Mom’s going to be so mad. What’s everybody going to think? How am I going to finish school? I don’t want to do this [go down to that clinic in Wichita], but if I do, then my ‘problem’ will be over with, and it’ll all be over.” But funny thing is (even though I’m not laughing), the ‘problem’ wasn’t over with…it was really only just beginning. I think Anne, from the first post, covered it well when she described her experience in the holding/after-recovery room after the abortion, although, I myself, didn’t cry at the time. I think I was too numb and too dumb to know exactly what I had done. It wasn’t until some years later, when I saw what my baby really, actually looked like at 18 weeks in the womb (fully formed head, face, torso, arms and legs) that I shed my first real tears. I do remember, though, the holding/after-recovery room like it was yesterday: just like a herd of cattle, all the other women were, like me, unceremoniously lined up atop miniature-esque, white-sheeted gurneys in the overcrowded room – the women’s vacant, empty stares fixated on a certain nothingness on the ceiling immediately above them, their expressionless faces overcome by the total unnatural shock to their systems.
And the abortion itself was, in actuality, something that if-I-had-known-exactly-what-they-were-going-to-do-I-never-would-have-done-it-kind-of-thing. After waiting for a time in the waiting room (where I truly thought about bolting but sat there, stupidly, like a good little girl), I was taken to a small, austere room, and for some reason, wondered if it had been recently cleaned (it’s funny, the thoughts that randomly enter your head in a given situation), and was then told to hop up on the examination table. The nurse who accompanied me said that she would be right back; shortly thereafter, both the nurse and the doctor entered the room together. The doctor’s name was Dr. George Tiller, the one who was shot and killed last summer. While the nurse held my hand, Dr. Tiller plunged an apparatus high up into my uterus, and then I heard this awful noise, like a vacuum cleaner, and felt this horrible, terrific pain. Through my writhing, the nurse told me that it would all be over with in a few minutes. And after he was finished, I saw Dr. Tiller turn to his right then throw something away in the plastic-lined garbage pail behind him. At the time, I had no conception (no pun intended) of what those trashed contents looked like. Now, however, I know that what he threw away was the broken body of my child: my baby’s head, torso, arms, legs, fingers and feet were literally torn into a tiny, mangled, hundred pieces.
And now, I stand here today, nearly 31 years later, knowing beyond knowing, that I made the BIGGEST MISTAKE of my life. Yet, even as of this morning, I sat on my bed crying uncontrollably – my chest heaving with heavy sobs, the clenching spasms of my vacant, empty abdomen aching a near-torrent flood of unrelenting sorrow for the one I let go. I know now, that I have missed out. And my husband missed out. And our other three adult children missed out. But more importantly, my child, who would now be a grown man if I had allowed him to live, would have, in all likelihood, been married with children of his own.
And I have also found in the years that have gone by that how a person feels when she is young is not necessarily how she will feel when she is older and has, for all intents and purposes, matured somewhat. I know now that when I found out that I was pregnant, it wasn’t all about me. It was about an altogether other person: the one who was forming and growing within my womb. I can bet that if my baby had been given a vote about whether he would have liked to have lived or died, I can assure you that he would have voted for life, and the right to live. Because, I know now, that it wasn’t my right to make that decision…about whether he lived or died. No more than it was my mother’s right to make that decision about me. For we shouldn’t have that kind of power. No one should. Because the gift of life is a gift from God.
The fact is, a woman’s body was meant for life and for the nurturing of that life. It was never meant for death. The death of one’s child is anathema to a mother. The stark emptiness and anguished pain that I feel about my aborted child I liken to how a mother feels when she sees a stranger approach her [own flesh and blood] son or daughter, and then she witnesses, firsthand, that stranger shooting, or stabbing or bludgeoning her beloved child right in front of her very eyes. That is the real pain and heartache of a mother who loses her child – even in the case of losing that child through abortion.
You know, it’s not really about a woman’s particular situation or circumstance or what she has going on in her life at the time she gets pregnant. The funny thing is, there is never a really “good” time to get pregnant. But reality is, is that women do become pregnant, every single day. And whether they know it or not or whether they decide to keep the baby or not, in that instant, their life changes, and changes forever. Because no matter what a woman’s decision, she will forever know that she IS a MOTHER. Nothing will ever change that, or erase that fact. Not even death.
The following is something I wrote not too long ago about my personal experience with my abortion. Maybe others will figure out before it’s too late what I found out too late. It’s called ‘Me.’
ME.
PICTURE OF ME IN MY EARLY 30’S.
That was me.
PICTURE OF ME IN MY EARLY 20’S.
No, that was me.
Wait.
PICTURE OF ME IN MY LATE TEENS.
That was me.
Fresh-faced, rosy cheeked, bright-eyed.
Up-turned, smiling lips, crinkled eyes against my taut skin.
But was that me?
That façade behind the façade?
The mask that never gave up?
Rushing headlong into open arms?
Never taught.
Never schooled on the ways of life.
A confused little girl.
Not knowing which way to turn.
So I turned to that which was facing me.
They were everywhere.
All with their arms stretched out.
Everyone.
All the same.
I was innocent.
Yet not innocent.
I did not know.
But I knew.
Something inside told me that it was wrong.
But I went the way of everyone.
Innocence of my youth.
Innocence lost.
Virtue gone astray.
Still steeped in an abyss of loneliness, all the same.
And so I hid.
Hid behind the pain.
Interred within my upturned smile.
Blanketed from my righteous, beloved father.
Veiled from my faithful, admired mother.
My sin.
One.
Two.
And now, three.
The greatest one was three.
Put out of sight that which plagued my mind.
I thought I could bury it.
In the rubble heap.
Far away from the recesses of my brain.
I thought it would all go away.
“My ‘problem’ would be over,” I lied to myself.
It will all go away.
And then I’ll be free.
Free to be me.
But the load that I carried
Weighed down in the years of my upturned face
Emptied that day
The ruse gone without a trace.
For ME had finally caught up with me.
I heard it first in my newborn’s cry.
At the sound of pitter-patter feet.
Shadow’s past of what was past,
Of what could have been…
But I denied.
A life lost,
Yet to mourn.
I pushed it down some more.
Went on my way, did I
And tried to hide the lie.
But a lie never dies.
For it’s a weed, you see,
Taking root down deep.
Taking root down deep.
Tentacles cracking the surface,
Of something dark,
Now hidden.
The tiny holes they tear
Through the heart of pain
Shattered now, broken in two
That was Me.
Drenched now in a life of
Grief
Guilt
and
Shame.
A life it was.
A life it is.
A life he was.
A life she is.
The greatest gift
One could ever know.
A Gift of Love
I threw away that day.
For I was blind.
I could not see,
What was right there in front of me…
The Present.
That Gift.
For what it’s truly worth.
The Gift of Life.
That Gift of Love.
A beautiful treasure,
All carefully wrapped
Amazingly tied with a bow.
He was there, waiting to be discovered,
Happily snuggled warm in my womb
But because I had neither compass nor map
Blind, selfish
ME
Tossed my precious gift aside
And left him there
On the gurney to die.
For my womb,
Only meant for life,
And life alone,
Became my unborn child’s
Very own deathbed tomb.
He,
My son!
Was waiting there for me
With open arms
For me to see.
To be loved and taught,
To be sat upon my knee.
Him – my son – upon my lap,
Up and down he squealed,
Oh, so happily…
But I regarded him not worthy enough
And thought of him…
My Gift…
My Beautiful, Precious Unmatched Gift
As nothing more than non-human stuff.
For you see,
It was all about
ME.
– Everything covered will be uncovered.
That which is hidden will be revealed. –
(From the book of Revelation)
Thank you, Lucy, for sharing your story with me. It moves me profoundly to have people like you open up to me, and to the world. It is exactly the reason I’m here right now.
This story needs to be taken in it’s entirity and published, word for word, for all the world to see. The images, so clearly defined, show the mind of a frightened young woman all through to the mind of a grown, mature adult and everything in between. For the truth is, as women, we are unique in that our body houses the life of another human being, that we are given the honor or carrying that life to it’s completion, and that, born alive or breathless, miscarried at 5 days or aborted at 32 weeks, preterm or overdue, the moment a woman becomes pregnant she carries another human being inside of her, and nothing can change that fact, we can only affect the outcome. And the true horror of abortion is that we, as a society, have taken the most simple and the most deep connection, that between a mother and her child, and perverted it, and in the end, because abortion has become so taboo, society ends up with women and children (and many, many men) destroyed, not by an unwanted pregnancy, but the eventual conclusion of an unwanted death. Because, like Lucy says, nothing, not even the lies told by the proabortion movement, can change the fact that a woman instinctively knows that in that moment she is now a mother, even if she ends up the mother of a dead child. We cannot leave these women to suffer alone, because we deserve better than abortion, and those who are without knowledge are doomed to suffer.
And Lucy, on a personal note, I believe you are courageous beyond words and, I believe, you are so loved by your unborn son who surely looks down at you from heaven and is so proud of your honesty and ability to speak out and help save others through the telling of your own story. I truly believe this, with all my soul.
I hope this show helps bring the truth to the light and helps both women and their unborn children inside of them.
Lucy, your story is so honest. Your poem brought me back to that place, the place I try not to think about yet somehow daily, my mind wonders there. My precious gift I also just tossed aside. How could I have done such a thing? My child was growing in my womb where he was to be protected from the outside world, the world that I let take him from me. Thank you for sharing and helping me to not feel so alone.
My name is Anne. You asked so compassionately for stories, so here’s mine, for what it’s worth.
I was 16 when I got pregnant in the late 70s. My father was happy that I had the option of a legal abortion. The abortion was not something I wanted, but it didn’t seem to matter much, because, as everyone said, the pregnancy was such a tragedy.
My father arranged everything for the abortion, paid for it, drove me there and home again. But I can’t blame him. I gave my consent. I had decided the pregnancy was, after all, a tragedy that would prevent my plans of going to college, shining, honor student that I was.
Pre-abortion counseling was a 5 minute session in which the counselor asked me if I was going to tell the father of the baby about the abortion. I said no, to which the counselor stated that hopefully someday I would feel able to. I never did.
After the abortion, nauseated and alone, I was devastated and crying. No counselor offered to help me. I was already past the counselor step in a one-way process, and the workers around me now simply averted their eyes. I turned my face to the wall and wondered if I would ever recover from this. I was put in another waiting room, given some juice, and sent home, a difficult hour-long ride riddled with more nausea and vomiting.
Later, when the father of the baby found that I had “miscarried” as he knelt beside my bed, he dropped his head to my abdomen and wept, bitterly. Now, we were weeping together.
I continued through high school, just going through the motions. I attempted suicide once after the abortion and before I was graduated from high school, but I didn’t really want to die. I just wanted the pain to stop.
I was graduated in the top five percentile of my class, smiling and beautiful, on the outside only.
I eventually married the father of the baby I aborted, and we have been married ever since. We have a good life, and we had other children, but no matter how many years pass, I do not heal from the emotional scars of that long-ago abortion. I went to junior college for one year after we married, but I never did earn my college degree.
I listen to the debates about abortion with numbness. I don’t give it much thought.
I don’t believe anyone cares about my story. I never hear anyone else talk about other stories like mine. I feel alone. I AM alone with this. I will carry it to my grave.
I have accepted forgiveness from a loving God. In that, I have a measure of peace. But I will also never forget that there was a tiny, helpless baby, who was given no choice, and had its life taken…by me. I can say that now, knowing that I’m forgiven, but also knowing that this is the simple truth of the matter.
I wish the abortion had been harder to get. So hard that it had stopped me. I will never stop wishing that. But I should have stopped myself, and again, no one cares about stories like mine. And no one wants to hear me say things like that…like “I wish the abortion had been harder to get”. I can only say things like that anonymously, or people would attack me, and I simply don’t have the heart to endure that.
No, you say? Oh, but yes. I see the uproar that the Tim Tebow Super Bowl ad has generated, just the latest brou-ha-ha that convinces me to continue to keep my mouth shut. And yet, is that not his story? But seemingly, he doesn’t have the right to tell it, and neither do I. The only stories that are welcome are the ones that fit into certain boxes. And so, I remain silent and anonymous.
You asked for stories. You reached out compassionately, but if you’re honest, you reached out only for stories of a certain kind. Mine doesn’t fit, I know. But something made me type it out, anyway.
For what it’s worth.
Anne, you write so powerfully of your experience, it moved me to tears. I am so sorry for the pain you live with. As I read your story, I got a picture of a young girl who wanted to “do the right thing”, which included following her father’s counsel(a rare occurrence then as now) and “sucking it up” to move on. Every accessible avenue of adult wisdom would have told you that to bring this baby into the world was irresponsible. So you acted against your own desires in order to please others. Something I’ll bet you do a lot.
Yet, it seems as if you can’t forgive yourself. It sounds as if you think you deserve this pain. Haven’t you and your husband suffered enough? There is a group called Rachel’s Vineyard who have a ministry to help post abortive women and men(rachelsvineyard.org). Please look them up on the internet and call them. I will be praying for you and your family.
Dear Anne,
Thank you so much for sharing your story. People need to hear stories like yours. Abortion is so often presented as an “easy” solution to an unplanned pregnancy. I believe that there are many women like you who have been deeply wounded by abortion but who, like you, feel so alone. I hope your story will help you and other women realize that you are not alone. I care about your story. And I believe many other people care about it too.
I have printed your story and am going to keep it with me when I pray. Since I am a religious sister, I spend 3 or more hours a day praying. I know “Anne” might not be your real name, but God knows who you are. Please know that I will be praying for you every day. Please know that you are not alone.
You are so right! Abortions should be much harder to get. They should be illegal. You are a victum of our legal system that made abortion an option. People around you were telling you that it was the right thing to do. So many are in your position. Telling your story is the most important thing you can do to help prevent others from making the same decision. In fact you are the most powerful voice for the unborn. Your story, your pain, your regrets can move this country toward sanity more than the voices of those looking from the outside in. Thanks for speaking up. It is worth volumes.
Anne, I am touched and honored that you have opened up to me. Your story is worth a great deal–to me and to others. Your story, and others like it, are the reason I’m doing what I’m doing.
I did reach out. Thank you for reaching back. Thank you for putting aside the silence and the anonymity you’ve worn for so long. Thank you for opening your heart and allowing me to see something of what you have seen, to feel a fraction of what you have felt. I am truly grateful for this privilege.
I sit here, with my fourth baby lying in my arms, with tears streaming down my face. I cry for the babies that have died because their mothers were lied to. I cry for the mothers who sit with their arms empty, or looking at their other children and always secretly saying, there should be one more. I cry because both people have been horribly wronged by a society that has abandoned them both.
We live in a world where we are told that women shouldn’t be punished with a baby for making a bad choice. But no one says that a woman should’nt be punished with the secret guilt of the intuitive knowledge of what she has done to her own baby. Women are left to suffer alone, like Anne, ashamed and guilty, because our society says women like her don’t exist, or if they do it’s because our world forces them to feel the shame and if only we would take away the stigma of abortion than women like Anne would be just fine with what happened. The lies get piled on over and over again and the world is filled with Anne’s, smiling on the outside, and dying a little each day.
Anne, my heart breaks for you, for your story. I know so many men as well, who suffer with the hidden shame of participating in the death of their own child, a pain that is as strong as it is for the women. Thank you for sharing your story.