Hi!
If you have landed on this post,
so that you might understand what's happening
in this part of my story,
I suggest that you start at
Part 1, HERE
(there'll be a link to click at the bottom to bring you to Part 2
and a link at the bottom of Part 2 to bring you back to this page).
Thank you!
Part 3
{Parts of this story are extremely graphic.}
After I got back into my own bed, I was shocked and horrified by what began happening to me. My abdomen had begun to convulse, violently. It was as if whatever was in there was fighting for its existence. I didn't make sense why a tumor of tissue would jump and thrash like this. I had never felt this much movement from the fetus before. I watched the skin on my stomach roll and undulate, and it was terrifying. It was at that moment that I began to question if I had been misled. The thrashing suddenly stopped.
Then the pain started in my back and in my front. I had no idea how long I was in labor because I didn’t care. I was in anguish as I tried to understand where I was, what I was doing, and who I was. Even as I remained silent, inside I was screaming. As I felt the urge to push, I also decided, like the girl had, to not call the nurse. I would rather have been alone than to have been with a stranger. Soon I felt something large and warm pass out of me. I was afraid of what it was.
Just then, the nurse came into the room to see if I’d like some more ice. It was the nicer nurse, the one who’d held my hand tightly. She could tell that something had happened, and she came over and asked if I was all right. I told her that I had pushed something out, and she lifted the covers and looked. She said she’d be right back, and to just hold still. I did. She returned pushing a rolling cart upon which was a white bucket; she shut the door behind her. I looked over at the bucket, which was the size of a Crisco can, and saw upon it a long hyphened number and below it my last name, with my first name on a hastily handwritten label on the side.
The nurse took the bucket and its lid and placed them on the bed beside me. She put on her gloves, lifted my gown again, and reached down to retrieve the mass that I had just expelled. I could smell blood and something I can’t even describe except to say it smelled like something that was decaying.
I knew now that this so-called tissue mass was not simply a mass of tissue, and so I asked her, as she was placing it into the bucket, “What is it?” I expected her to tell me it was a fetus, or tissue, or even nothing. But she turned her head to look at me between my bent-up legs, and she said, softly, “It’s a girl.” And my heart broke apart into a million little pieces.
As I retell this story, it is still amazing to me that this nurse answered me in this way. Why did she admit what I’d been wondering all along? Was it cruelty? Was she trying to shame me? Why did she say “it’s a girl” instead of “it’s a fetus” or “it’s a baby”? Why did she tell me it was a “she”? I think, now, that that nurse wanted me to know what this “procedure” really was. I am convinced that her motivation wasn’t to distress me, but to enlighten me.
And then, once again out of curiosity, I asked, “Can I see her?” And after glancing toward the door to the room to make sure no one else was present, she held the bucket down at an angle so I could gaze at a most beautifully, intricately formed little person. She had ears and fingers and toes, and even a tiny behind. She was also red and bloody and burned. And my soul collapsed in that ten-second glance where I witnessed the truth. If I could have died right then, I would have.
The nurse neither smiled nor frowned. She put the lid on the bucket, put the bucket on the cart, and rolled my baby away and out of the room. Another nurse who I hadn’t seen before came in and removed the soiled bed pad below me and put a fresh one under me; she gave me a sanitary napkin contraption consisting of elastic and metal clips with which to hold it around my waist. I was told that, if I had to go to the bathroom, then I could, but I had to call a nurse for help in assisting me to the restroom.
Shortly after this, I was moved into a room a few doors down, the recovery room. It had a window (I could see that it was dark outside, even though I had arrived at the hospital clinic waiting room at eight that morning) and a television. I was alone, near the window, and I was brought a tray of food; however, I cannot remember a thing that was on it.
The nurse turned on the television for me because the remote that was on the side of my bed wasn’t working, and she left the room. I tried to change the channels to find the news of what was happening outside, but the buttons weren’t co-operating. I looked up as I heard a woman with a British accent speaking to me. The bottom of the screen read “The 700 Club”, and I was familiar with the show because my grandmother watched it. This woman said, “It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. You may have committed adultery, stolen, lied, had an abortion… it doesn’t matter, because God loves you, right where you are.” I heard nothing she said after that. (I found out later that the woman was Sheila Walsh.)
I must have slept well, because I remember nothing else except driving home (the hospital required me to be driven by someone else, but I lied and told them that I had a driver) the next day with my left hand out the window, staring at the mark left by the IV, which had started to bruise slightly, and hoping that no one would notice it and ask me about it. I spoke about my secret choice with no one.
Let’s flash forward seven years. I was twenty-six, married, saved and baptized, blessed with a three-year-old daughter and a newborn daughter, and during this time where I should be overjoyed, I can’t understand why I can’t shake the feelings of worthlessness and self-hate. The tormenting emotions of those days I spent in Miami were haunting me in my dreams and in my waking moments. Most of my nightmares consisted in my chasing the cart with my baby in a bucket down a long corridor, but never catching up to it. When I found myself driving to the Amtrak station because I wanted to lie down on the tracks and be obliterated by a train, I knew there was something seriously wrong. Thankfully, I turned around, went home, and confessed to my husband why I was drained of every ounce of joy and life that I thought I should be having as a new mom. I also sought the help of a friend, who prayed for me and directed me to a women’s center.
At the woman’s center, a new group was starting, a post-abortion recovery group. I was invited to join. Initially, I was reluctant to commit to the meetings, because I didn’t want to be judged, labeled with a big fat figurative “M” for murderer or “A” for Abortion on my forehead, but I felt compelled to go. And there, with other women who felt just as ashamed and just as unworthy as I did, I learned that what Sheila Walsh had told me all those years ago: that despite my Choice, God loves me, no matter what I've done, right where I am.
And this I finally believed.
I gave my daughter a name. Her name is Morgan, because she is a person with a soul and a mother who loves her. I know that I will see her again, and I know that she's forgiven me. I've also learned to forgive myself and all of the people involved.
In fact, I found out that there was grace offered to me (and them) a long, long time before my Choice:
God makes everything come out right;
he puts victims back on their feet.
God is sheer mercy and grace;
not easily angered, he’s rich in love.
He doesn’t endlessly nag and scold,
nor hold grudges forever.
He doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve,
nor pay us back in full for our wrongs.
As high as heaven is over the earth,
so strong is his love to those who fear him.
And as far as sunrise is from sunset,
he has separated us from our sins.
Psalm 103:6-12
And that's my story.
When the nurse broke all sorts of hospital policy rules that day,
I can't help but think that she'd wanted me to talk about what really happens.
I wasn't going to let her bravery be for naught,
and so it's in her honor that I've shared the truth with you.
When the nurse broke all sorts of hospital policy rules that day,
I can't help but think that she'd wanted me to talk about what really happens.
I wasn't going to let her bravery be for naught,
and so it's in her honor that I've shared the truth with you.
___
If you are reading this right now and have had an abortion, if you are struggling with any of the feelings of hopelessness and self-hate that follows it, and if you can’t find peace with it, then I beg you to re-read Psalms above and believe it.
Did God see me there in the Miami-Dade Hospital? Of course.
Was He there with me when my eyes were opened in horror at what I had done? Absolutely.
Did He still love me? More than ever.
And so it is with you. God was there when you made your Choice. He knows what happened and what you did. He loves you like crazy anyway.
The lies that you've believed since that day: that you are no longer good enough, that you do not deserve to have good things in life—that you are tainted, less than, and dirty?
The even bigger lie that God can't forgive what you've done?
They're just that: lies.
The lies that you've believed since that day: that you are no longer good enough, that you do not deserve to have good things in life—that you are tainted, less than, and dirty?
The even bigger lie that God can't forgive what you've done?
They're just that: lies.
But the truth is that there is Grace after the Choice.
I've experienced it, and so can you.
Start here, sweet friend, and find truth, because it truly will set you free:
If you can't quite yet reach out, then watch this series; it is a wonderful new television program called Surrender the Secret. It follows the lives of five women as they meet together and heal from their abortions.
Grace is calling to you, too. Can you hear it?

