I chose to have an abortion when I was 19.  At that time I was very dysfunctional, alone, and confused.  My mother had died when I was 14 and, although I lived with my dad, he was hardly ever home.  He was depressed and basically unable to parent.  I was using contraceptives but found myself pregnant.  The doctor I went to was very pro-abortion.  She said, “Have an abortion, it’s easy.”  Then she said, “It’s not really a baby, more like a little spouted wheat seed at this stage.”  What I really needed to know was that love isn’t free and comes with responsibility, and the true facts of fetal development!  But I chose the abortion. 

After the abortion I felt a strange emptiness.  Not only was my child gone but that special part of me that made me want to be a wife, mother, even a woman, was damaged.  I wanted to forget and started to drink harder and do harder drugs.  My boyfriend (the father of my aborted child) suggested that we get married!  He was equally as confused and mixed up as myself.  We did get married, and I was pregnant again.  I had to have an ultra sound at nine weeks gestation.  Still believing the lie that a baby at that development is like a sprouted wheat seed, the truth really hit home for my husband and I as we saw a very alive little human being on that screen.   That child was born a year to the due date of our aborted child, and I had a hard time bonding with this child.  For 10 years my husband and I struggled with addictions and in our relationship.  We never discussed the abortion.  What a mess! 

While traveling, someone shared their faith with us, and we became Christians.  Then the start of our healing journey began.  I attended a Rachel’s Vineyard retreat in 2007 and experienced an incredible healing there.  All the help and healing, and the realization that I loved being a woman, a wife, a mother, and now a grandmother has caused me to be Silent No More.