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Love's Forever Embrace
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Sandra
Maryland,
United States
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I had an abortion because I thought that I wanted it.
During the abortion procedure, I experienced being in what I remember as a lab of sorts. My pregnancy was 3- 4 weeks and I remember that I did not want to WAIT for the three-month requirement at a clinic. I wanted it sooner because if I waited any longer, I told myself, that it would be a 'baby' and I could not kill a 'baby.’ Also, I had helped my sister get an abortion when she was a junior in high school and she had to wait until the third month of pregnancy.
Immediately after the abortion, I felt like I had to 'see' this tissue that came out of me. The foreign woman physician must have sensed my disbelief when I said, “Did you get it all?” and then retrieved the mass from the sink to show me. I remember it being a very small, gelatinous glob-type of mucous and she said something like, “Yes, here is the ----- (I don't remember her exact words, maybe 'heart,' maybe 'head,' I'm not sure.) I remember also going out to dinner at a restaurant after the event. My future husband (one and only husband), whose baby this was accompanied me to the hospital for the procedure and after to the restaurant. We sat there and ordered dinner. When it came, I took one bite and said I was getting sick and left.
We went home and had sex, I forced myself to. (I also was date raped as a teen in my senior year of high school--no pregnancy. But, I do believe this event contributed considerably to my lack of clear thinking in all of my sexual encounters.)
As time went on, although I married the man of the aborted baby, I can say that I was and continue to be 'emotionally' distant from him. Seven years after the abortion, I cried uncontrollably while confessing my sin of abortion to a priest in an open penance service at our Church (the priests were in the various pews, rather than the confessionals) for this service.
Two years later, we adopted our first daughter and went on to have two more birth children. As my daughters went through various teen-age growing up drama in their lives, I also went through my own continued epiphany of sorts. My adopted daughter was sexually assaulted at the age of seven by a 15-year-old brother of her friend (as well as two other girls who were her friends) at the time I was to give birth to my third daughter. Later, my abused daughter had difficulty in her teen years and this brought out further conflict in my own life. Difficult years ensued.
My ties to the Catholic Church have remained strong and I have been blessed to be surrounded with various prayerful people. I attended a Rachel's Vineyard Retreat 33 years after the abortion by myself (I invited my husband, but he did not want to attend) and am in another phase of recovery. I'm able to discuss the abortion with all of my daughters and my middle daughter said that she was surprised that, “You're not one of those ladies who hold up the signs that say, "I regret my abortion," considering how pro-life you are, mom?"
Although much time has been lost in various ways much has been restored through the power of the Holy Spirit, I would certainly say that the Rachel's Vineyard Retreat, Power of the Sacrament of Confession, various Bible studies and surrounding myself with prayerful women have been my saving grace. I continue to pray that whoever reads this will certainly not hesitate to continue in your own recovery through the help of the Catholic Church—she is the hospital for wounded souls. May God's peace be ever near as your child/children continually pray for your conversion and healing with the fervor of love's forever embrace.
BE NOT AFRAID Pope John Paul II
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