Grace after the Choice :: My Abortion Story {Part 1 of 3}

This post is not about home staging, interior design, or organizing. 

This post is in honor of National Sanctity of Human Life Day and of the memory of my daughter who I lost to abortion through a choice that I made. I am going to be sharing my story with you here. However, it is somewhat graphic at times; I wanted you to know that before you began reading.

Some of the details may be unbelievable, but I assure you that they happened. I saw them with my own eyes, heard them with my own ears. For many years, I have wanted to share this story of sadness and grace with you, but thought that it would cause controversy or that some of you would no longer want to read my blog. But because it is a story of grace, of a makeover of the heart, I feel that it is appropriate to share with you how my past made me who I am today. 

I know that one in four of us women reading have had one or more abortions; I wanted us to be reminded that, no matter what we have done, we are loved by a Father who gives us a grace covering all sins. The world calls abortion a choice, a reproductive right, a freedom, but after this choice I experienced nothing but the knowledge that my right had been wrong; my so-called freedom resulted in nothing less than the chains of depression and the bonds of suicide. God found me in the midst of my shame. He gave me His grace after my choice.

How do I share what happened so long ago (though it is still so fresh in my memory), but to start at the beginning?

I was nineteen, sitting in a lobby in a Miami, Florida clinic. It was a mid-spring day in 1987, and I was waiting for my name to be called, waiting and watching the dazed faces of the other young women who also waited for their names to be called. While I waited, I mused over the months that had led to this appointment.

Too many long nights with too many strangers had led me to too many bad choices, and somehow I knew that this would be one more bad choice to follow up the rest, the last bad choice to hide the other bad choices. But it had to be done.

A few months earlier, when my period hadn’t come, I hadn’t been worried right away; it had always taken me a few months to get worried. Anemia and juvenile rheumatoid arthritis had made all of my periods unreliable. It had been at least four months, though, since my period had last come, which was unusual. One night, reclining on the sofa in the living room, I felt movement in my lower abdomen.

Something was alive inside of me, but I was in nineteen and in college. I couldn’t decide then which I felt more strongly: that I didn’t want to be inconvenienced with a baby, or that I didn’t want anyone to see the evidence of my behavior. Anyway, abortions were legal, and, after all, it was just a fetus.

I got out our phone book and searched for abortions through the yellow pages. I found an ad claiming to assist pregnant teens and made the call. When I told the woman on the other end of the line how long it had been since my last period, she made me an appointment for the next day. I pulled into the parking lot, surprised to see that it was actually a branch of Planned Parenthood. After a free urine test, it was confirmed that I was twenty weeks pregnant. Since I was in my second trimester already, I couldn’t “terminate” at a clinic; I’d have to go to a hospital. The appointment was made for two weeks later.

It would cost $1,000 in cash.  I didn’t have enough, so I asked my dad’s friend Maria if she’d loan me some money. I lied, telling her it was for my textbooks for college. She obliged, and I soon had the cash in hand.

I carried on as usual for the next few weeks, anticipating the trip with some fear and yet some excitement. I packed a small bag with a few things, since I had been told that it rarely was, but it could be, an overnight trip, depending on my body’s reaction to the “procedure”.

“Leslie Brill?” I was called to the open glass sliding window by a middle-aged woman who handed me a clipboard upon which a plethora of forms was attached.  These were just your everyday hospital forms: name, address, SS#, allergies, etc. I wrote down all I knew, signed, and handed it and the cash back through the window.

I waited, picked up a magazine, pretended to read something, flipping pages, nervously flashing a half-smile at the waiting room people. Then my name was called again, and a nurse holding a clipboard escorted me into the examination room.

“Get undressed and put this gown on. I’ll be back for you in a bit.” I did what I was told, waiting on the papered exam table. When she came back, she rolled in a machine and had me lie down. She lifted up my gown and squirted some cold, clear gel below my navel, and then turned to watch a screen that faced away from me as she moved an odd paddle attached to the rolling contraption back and forth across my belly.

Curious, I asked her if I could see what was on the screen. “No” was the answer. I asked her if it looked like a baby. “No, it’s nothing but tissue and membranes,” and even if I did look, I wouldn’t know what I was seeing anyway. Although disappointed, I accepted her answer. She was, after all, a nurse, a professional. She was probably right. 

Go to Part 2 HERE

Shared at Richella's Place: Grace at Home