Hi Dr. Laura,
I thought I'd write you a quick note to let you know about my own experience with abortion. My husband and I have been married for 11 years. We have three kids, a 2 yr old, a 5 yr old and an...11 year old.
From their ages you can probably guess that I was pregnant when we got married. It was definitely not an ideal situation. We were both still in college when I got pregnant...we'd only been dating for 8 months. And while we loved each other desperately most people thought we should have had an abortion because they all assumed it would never work out if we went ahead and got married. At first we considered it. I remember going to the clinic in the college town where we lived and being basically hustled as if I were at a used car lot. "You are doing the right thing," the college aged 'counselor' (and I use that term loosely) told me. "Most situations like this never work out for anyone." She went through the options of procedures etc, but she hit a snag when she asked me how far along I was. I had no idea. I had irregular periods so really, I couldn't even guess. "Well you'll have to an ultrasound to date it," she told me. "You don't have to look if you don't want to."
I was lead into an exam room where they did the ultrasound. The monitor was turned away from me, but my then boyfriend was able to see it. I saw his eyes widen at one point and he looked at me in this terror filled way. What had he seen? The tech running the machine tried to hide the picture with her body so he couldn't see it and suddenly I wanted to see the image.
"Let me see it," I said. "I don't think that's a good idea," the tech told me. "I want to," I said. "Let me see it."
Then she turned the monitor towards me and I saw...him. He was floating in a sea of blackness...a little white profile of a perfect human being. He hand was raised to his mouth, and even to me, a total medical layperson, I could tell the tiny baby on the screen was sucking his thumb. I looked at my boyfriend, and saw his eyes filled with tears. "I can't do this." I said. And I got up and left.
That was over 11 years ago. How close did we come to losing the only thing in life that has mattered since? How does a scared college student even begin to realize what they are throwing away? No one can explain it to you. It's nothing you can ever understand...unless you see it for yourself.
We might have been young, dumb, and irresponsible, but we were capable of making it right. We committed ourselves to that baby and each other and got married a month later. We somehow slogged through those last years of school and we've never looked back. I am so thankful we had the courage to look at that ultrasound image 11 years ago. Who knew a black & white image of a thumb sucking little peanut could redefine the way we looked at everything else? We are so blessed.
E.
