My twins were stillborn, when I was five and a half months pregnant.  I was also in college, nineteen, and unmarried.  My soldier boyfriend came home that very Saturday morning, returning from his tour of duty in the first Gulf War.  They were not his children.  He sat on the sofa of my mother’s house, while I delivered the first baby in the bathroom.  My baby fell in the toilet, and I looked at him.  I picked him up, and wrapped him in a towel.  He never breathed, he never moved.  I remembered feeling him move inside me, as I laid his limp body on the side of the bathtub and pulled up my sweat pants. 

I walked back to the living room, told my boyfriend I was sick, that I needed my mom to take me to the hospital.  He said he’d go with us, but I told him no.  When he was gone, I told my mother I had just had a baby in the bathroom, and that I needed to go to the emergency room. She didn’t speak.  She just got in the car and drove.  I remember handing the triage nurse my baby.   I never saw him again.  I writhed in pain on the emergency room table, and I heard the doctor say there’s another baby--I never got to see her.

            What I do remember most is my total absence of feeling.  I had no emotions.  None of that set in until weeks later.  In the hospital, I was like a robot.  Doctors and nurses asked me questions, and I answered them blankly. They said the babies should be cremated, so I said yes.  That was best, they told me.

            I understand what the Scindlers [Terri Schiavo’s parents] went through, in a way.  They just wanted their baby to live.  They didn’t want to think of politics or living wills. It was too late for that--just like it was too late for me.  Too late for me to realize that my babies were human beings, with lives of their own, and with deaths of their own.

            For years, I kept it all a secret.  And there’s a deeper secret.  That was my second pregnancy.  Two years before, in the summer of 1989, I had an abortion.  I lied to the people at the clinic, telling them I was only three months pregnant though I knew I was at least four months.  By the time I got the money for the abortion and the ride to Charlottesville, it was too late for me to think about the consequences of my actions.  So, by the time I watched the required video on the risks of abortion, I was past feeling, past understanding.  It was just too late.

            I only recently learned that it is possible to be Silent No More.  I only just realized that it is important to tell my story.  Abortion, and stillbirth, and real motherhood, are things that we cannot explain to each other. We can only truly understand this type of suffering, and this type of love, by living it. I was a mother long before anyone knew.  I remember how deeply it hurt, listening to women I knew, said, “Someday, when you have children, you’ll understand.”  I wanted to tell them I had children, children who were dead.

            I have learned that all babies matter.  I am pro-life, because I’ve lived it.  I know the consequences of abortion. I am now happy to be vulnerable, happy to be Silent No More, and happy to share what about where to go for help.

Pregnancy centers offer free pregnancy testing and confidential counseling.  The also provide free limited medical services, and factual information about abortion, including the alternatives, the risks, and the procedures.  They even offer post-abortion support and bible study groups.  One wonderful ministry of the Catholic Church, called Project Rachel, helps women who are suffering from the effects of abortion.