When our son Raphael was stillborn, I marveled at how perfect his face was. His eyes, little nose and slightly opened mouth were so beautiful to me. I supposed that he looked just like any other baby boy, only in miniature. And I remember looking at his peaceful little body and how much I wished that I could have had just a second to connect with him. Just a moment to look into his eyes and tell him that I was his mommy and that we would always love him and miss him. Just an instant would have been so precious to me.
Since that experience I am always shocked and surprised when I read that not all moms with difficult pregnancies feel that way. Some express the fear that they will be too sad to watch their baby die, so they are relieved to able to avoid that through abortion. Others are afraid of the unknowns to themselves if they were to try and continue with a pregnancy that is anything but textbook.
I always think, “Really? Wouldn’t you even want just an instant to say hello and a goodbye? Just one little mom moment?”
But yea, they’re usually pretty adamant about their position and how dare anyone try to take the “choice” away from them.
After a few years now of reading such stories in articles, blogs and forums I finally occurred to me why my experience is so out of sync with these women. In their paradigm, it isn’t the quality of a small amount of time that matters, but the quality of a lifetime. Life isn’t precious, special or valuable unless it falls into the boundries of “normal” life and “normal” life span. Of course everyone wants a healthy baby to grow up and have a normal life. But it seems that nowadays there is little value outside of that; anything outside of the norm isn’t worth having, and certainly isn’t worth taking a chance on. In other words, if it is apparent that the baby won’t be normal, won’t live a normal life, and won’t live a normal lifespan, than the whole thing is a tragedy and there seems to be little to no value in continuing the pregnancy.
Which is not to say that these moms don’t grieve for their babies. They do. But there seems to be some kind of disconnect from what the dreams and hopes for this child and the precious gifts of the reality. For some women it seems if they can’t have it all, then they want no part of it.
Lately I have developed a theory that this sort of attitude on the part of women and their caregivers might affect the type of care they receive. If a woman and her provider are both pro-choice, and a much wanted pregnancy goes awry why wouldn’t that dictate how the care and treatment proceeded. If there is no value or worth in sharing even a brief moment with a new baby, then I guess the type of procedure used to deliver it doesn’t matter very much. If the child ceases to matter because he (supposedly) can’t live a long and normal life, then why should the mother take any chance, shoulder any burden, or make any sacrifice for something so fleeting.
In my own life I have known two women who did think that the lives of their babies, regardless of how short, were worth taking a chance. One was Frankie’s mom, Jean, who delivered Frankie and then was her health care advocate throughout the two years that they had her. One only has to read Jean’s blog to see how much love Frankie brought into their family.
The other was my friend Suzanne, who found out that her much wanted baby had Trisomy 18. Suzanne endured a lengthy hospital stay to keep her baby’s heart tones going, shifting her position and trying to stimulate the baby inside of her whenever the tones dropped. Finally she delivered her daughter via C-section even though some of the doctor’s in the hospital were livid about it – why have major surgery after all for a baby that was “going to die anyway”? But her baby girl didn’t die right away and because of Suzanne’s tender loving care, she was able to have her baby live with her for three more months. That was time that they got to have her baptized, love her, hold her and even have a family picture taken. When I arrived at the funeral home I thought perhaps an older, very important person must have passed as well, because the funeral home parking lot was packed! But the baby was the only patron that weekend; all of those people were there out of love and support for her parents. This little 3 month old baby, that some certainly didn’t think had much value, had brought a community together. Her life did have meaning. It did have impact. Just be existing she touched many lives.
The Be Not Afraid web site has many such stories, some heartbreaking and sad, but always full of love and hope.
In my opinion, this is a great tragedy from the pro-abortion mind set. They can’t avoid suffering by trying to avoid it. That merely builds a callus around the heart to cushion the hurt and camouflage the regret. Maybe this is why in my experience these women have been the loudest and most vocal in their strong defense of abortions for non-viable babies. But that doesn’t change the circumstances, it doesn’t make the hurt go away, it doesn’t diminish grief. Defiance is a poor substitute for heartfelt remorse. How much better would it be take the tender time that is available and spend it loving, caring, mothering? How much sweeter would those memories be?
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