A matter of the heart

“Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.
Children born to a young man are like sharp arrows in a warrior’s hand.”
Psalm 127: 3 & 4

Last Sunday a doctor known to perform late term abortions was gunned down while serving as an usher at his Church in Kansas. He was apparently murdered by an abortion activist who is said to be also anti-government.

Apparently this particular doctor and others who perform these kinds of abortions very often come under fire and have protests organized against them.

I was watching Anderson Cooper the other night on CNN and Anderson was talking to one of the colleagues of the murdered doctor, who apparently plans to take over his practice and he mentioned that only late term pregnancies that threatened the life of the mother or pregnancies with fetuses that were severely abnormal and could not survive outside of a woman’s body were actually aborted. Anderson specifically asked him if other abortions outside of this nature were also performed and he said flatly no.

Anderson interviewed one woman who opted to abort her pregnancy because her baby had a severe neural tube defect known as ‘anencephaly’ resulting in the absence of brain or skull. This woman and her family opted to abort their baby to cut down on the amount of pain and distress that they would have to face if they chose to prolong the baby’s life until its demise. This could not be done in her state however, because of laws against abortion, instead they advised her that she would have had to carry the pregnancy until her body ended the pregnancy or have the abortion done in another state that supported abortions of this nature. She was so outraged that she wrote a letter to then Senator, Barack Obama. I am a fan of President Obama, and I would love if he paid much attention to this letter and this woman’s issue and have the laws of the state rewritten to give women in this unenviable position, the right to make up their own minds about these kinds of pregnancies. After all, ‘only he who feels it truly knows.’

Another woman was interviewed who chose to keep her pregnancy even though her baby would not survive very long after birth, due to a chromosomal abnormality known as ‘trisomy 18’ which is incompatible with life. She said she and her family prefers that the baby goes the natural way, that is, die when it was time.

My problem then is, if this doctor only performs abortions of this nature, why then are people so outraged? I guess they probably know otherwise.

I am aware that there will always be people who abuse the system and make it bad for others so it is therefore up to the state and the doctors involved in this regard to ensure that this system is not used by others as a form of birth control but be reserved for people who actually have very good reason to use it.

My family could have been in this position in February 2006, when we learnt that our baby, which I was seven months pregnant with at the time, had a condition known as ‘hydrops fetalis’ where the fetus had too much fluid and also had multiple other disorders e.g. down syndrome and, severe heart conditions and was given only a 30% chance at life. Luckily for us, my body made our decision because the baby died in-utero, about a month after being diagnosed.
I know if our baby had not died, we would have been faced with the decision of whether to abort her and save her having to come into this world and live a compromised life or to let her live even when the odds were so high, and hope for the best.

I do understand the second woman’s position to have her baby go the natural way, but believe me, as per my experience, this wait is very difficult. I had to wait a whole month for tests to be done before I could choose which option I would take and this was painful. You go through a lot emotionally. First of all you are just waiting to hear someone come to you and say this is all but a cruel joke, your baby is fine. Then the days drag along and sometimes you feel like you cannot get up out of the bed to face another day. When those days came, I just lay in bed and stare at the ceiling and the walls, looking for some answer.

Everyone was praying for us, our families, friends, our church but one day I was lying there on my bed and it suddenly occurred to me that my baby was still sick, all those prayers were not answered and sure enough, our baby died shortly after. I even had a dream that our baby was born and was very weak but as each day passed, she became stronger and stronger. I said this to someone, who quickly cautioned me that dreams usually come in the exact opposite of their meanings. Understandably, I was crushed, because I was hoping that this dream would indeed become a reality.

If our baby had survived I believe we probably would have chosen the optioned that prolonged her life as long as possible because we were trying for a baby so long and would give anything to know that she would be around for as long as she could.

All in all, I just cannot understand not having the freedom to make these decisions yourself and instead have them made by someone else. This should clearly be a matter of the heart. Worst if they are allowed to be made by people who have never been faced with a situation as frightening and painful as this.

I therefore have no problem with these abortions if they are practiced within the parameters that they should.

My heart goes out to families having to make the very difficult decisions of whether to keep their precious little ones or not and for those who would give anything to becoming pregnant.

Keep clinging to hope.

Until next time

My Infertility Story – Dealing with miscarriages cont'd.

“I felt as if someone was playing a cruel joke on us and I was not amused. What did we ever do to deserve this, I thought.”

We were only halfway into our experience with miscarriages, with the worst still to come.

Approximately two years after doing my surgery and ten months after we had seen the female doctor, we realized we were pregnant again. We were on the brink of giving up hope as this was about four years after our previous miscarriages.
I was at Church one Sunday and realized that I was feeling terribly hungry and I had eaten breakfast that morning. I could not wait for communion to be served, as I thought even that little morsel of bread could indeed help this terrible hunger that was gnawing at my stomach walls.
I was expecting a period as well and it had not turned up as yet. Could I be pregnant? I thought, as I was also feeling a little bit queasy. I waited a few days to see if the period would show just to ensure that I was not setting myself up for anymore disappointment. That, I was certainly not in any hurry for. The period did not show, the queasiness continued and so believing that something was indeed happening, I did the test. I was pregnant and there was no doubt about it. The joy again was overwhelming and something about this one told me that it would stick around. I was however still very cautious.
I called my doctor the next day but did not get him and so I left a message, he returned my call after a few days and set an appointment to see him. I went promptly and he confirmed the pregnancy. He also did a scan saying he was not sure he would see anything, but as luck would have it, the scan showed the pregnancy with the fetus and even a heartbeat. We were so excited, and my doctor was too. The end to my struggle with infertility was surely in sight.
Having learnt from previous experience, we did not break the news to our family until I was about three months pregnant and ofcourse, they were overjoyed, especially my in-laws.
Each month that we went for our prenatal check-up was a triumph in itself, as the news was always good. We were having a girl, and we were even more excited.
Then round about the seventh month of my pregnancy, everything changed. Our baby was sick, she had developed a lot of fluid (a condition known as Hydrops Fetalis) in her little body and was given only a twenty percent chance of living.
We were crushed. It is confirmed, we are doomed to remain childless. We must have in fact done something to deserve this punishment, as this cannot be happening and not at this stage when I was already thrown a shower and had all my cute pink things to welcome my baby girl.
My doctor wanted to give us hope and so he told us that he was focusing on the twenty percent chance of life that our little angel had, and challenged us to remain positive. Bless his heart. I was put into the public system as he could not monitor my pregnancy anymore and on my first appointment, the doctor discovered that the baby had died. I did not know life as it were anymore. I was walking around like I was seeing ghosts. I was totally devastated and needed to know why this was happening to us.
I was admitted to the hospital the next day and things got worse the day after I had given birth to our daughter, as there was this terrible feeling of emptiness that made me cry and could not stop. I never cried so much in my entire life.

In the next post, I will tell you, (and I know you are eager to read it), how we made it through this very trying and dark time.

My Infertility Story – Dealing with miscarriages

This is, as you can well imagine, the most difficult part of my story to tell and I know I will be tearing up as I will have to relive the devastation and sadness to relate it to you. I am alright with that though, because as long as my story helps even one person, then it would be well worth it.
With that said, when I was diagnosed with infertility, I did not know that I would have had to deal with miscarriages as well, and in all honesty, I was not expecting to deal with any. It was while recently reading up on my diagnosis (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, as I still do so), I am finding out that there seems to be a higher rate of miscarriage among women with this diagnosis. Not that it would have made much of a difference had I known this before, as you cannot be really prepared for tragedies such as miscarriages, but I would have known to at least expect them.
As a result of this when I had my first miscarriage, I was totally devastated. I longed for the day when I would receive a positive pregnancy test and often wondered if I was so unlucky that the tests I bought were defective. This was seven years into my struggle and numerous occasions that I had tested. The manufacturers of pregnancy test must have seen a dramatic increase in their profits over this period, because of me. I was overjoyed, to say the least, when I received my first positive pregnancy result. I thought I was dreaming as my husband and I stood over the test and stared at it. It felt like Christmas. We hugged and I did not know if I was to laugh or cry. One thing I knew though, I wanted to climb on my roof top and declare to the world that we were finally pregnant. It was such a surreal experience. I remember calling up our family right away and telling them the good news, which I learnt very soon after, was really not the right thing to do. I also began planning my pregnancy wardrobe, the nursery, I was totally in ‘pregnancy zone.’
The next day I called my doctor, made an appointment and went in to see him. He confirmed the pregnancy and told me to come back for an ultrasound as it was too early to do one. I went back and my doctor did the ultrasound. He found the sac for the pregnancy, but sadly there was no fetus to be found. I really could not believe what was happening. How can there be no fetus, where else could it be, I thought. He seemed quite perturbed himself and decided he would comfort me by saying, "well you are indeed pregnant as the sac is there." Whatever does he mean, I thought, I don’t want to only know that the sac is there, I want to know that our baby is there as well.
I was diagnosed with a ‘missed abortion’ which is the term given to a pregnancy where no fetus is found. We were totally devastated. I cannot forget the look on my husband’s face, he was so distraught. He just stood gazing in space. I felt so helpless and sorry for him. Then it was time to break the news to our family. My mother-in-law would be the hardest one to break the news to, as she was ecstatic when we told her we were pregnant. When we did, I could sense the sadness in her. The whole feeling of guilt began welling up in me again that I lost touch of how I was feeling and began feeling that I had betrayed my mother-in-law, having lost the grandchild she had longed for, for so long.
I just could not function after that and had to ask my doctor for some sick leave. I stayed in bed and cried for most of the time, only coming out to study for an in-house exam, which surprisingly I passed. I could not believe it.
We managed to pick up the pieces and move on with our lives, ofcourse not giving up on our dream to have children. Shortly afterwards, I began feeling pregnancy symptoms. We did a test and sure enough it was positive again, I felt as if we had hit the jackpot, luck was on our side. I was in 'pregnancy zone' again and on an emotional high, only to quickly hit another low, when our doctor attempted to confirm the pregnancy and found out it was a ‘false positive’ one. We were not pregnant. He explained that my hormones were out of balance and that was what tricked my body into acting as if I was pregnant.
We were again devastated. I felt as if someone was playing a cruel joke on us and I was not amused. What did we ever do to deserve this, I thought.

We were only halfway into our experience with miscarriages, with the worst still to come.

More in next post, you cannot afford to miss it, or you’ll be missing out.