|
|
Testimonies
| Help us spread the word. Share this with your social network. | | | |
|
|
|
A True Friend
|
Patrecia
Minnesota,
United States
|
|
|
I had two spontaneous abortions (miscarriages) in my life. At the time of the first miscarriage, I was married and in the last quarter of dental school. I had looked forward to graduating and 1994 for four years. It was to be one of the hardest years of my life and set me on the path toward having love and compassion toward women having elective abortions.
Both spontaneous abortions (miscarriages) occurred because my body was low in the hormone progesterone. I would only learn this after my second miscarriage for which my blood loss was so great and so rapid that I could not raise my head without passing out. My husband rushed me to the ER. This could have been avoided had I been attended by medical staff desirous of the lives of children at the time of my first miscarriage. Unfortunately, I was under the "care" of a University of Minnesota Women's Clinic abortion provider. When I did the follow-up appointment and tried to obtain help and counsel in why I had had the miscarriage, they told me they did not offer any help or advice until the second miscarriage.
My first miscarriage occurred when I began to hemorrhage in class. My girlfriend walked me to the student health services. I was transferred from the section where I had heard my baby's heart beat and met with an nutritionist to the section under the care of an abortionist who, as I cried, wanted to get me out of there as soon as possible so she could close the clinic at 5 PM. "It doesn't look good for this pregnancy." She wouldn't even dispense a nurse to transfer me to the University of MN Hospital, but sent me along with my girlfriend walking across campus to the hospital so I could be treated. I was overwhelmed with grief, and the abortion provider and her nurses seemed so embarrassed and desirous of getting me out of there.
As I WALKED to the hospital, I prayed that my child would not die in vain. The lovely and compassionate nurse to whom I was assigned in the ER treated me like her younger sister. I so wish I had got her name. But I was too self-absorbed at the time. I still pray for her as Jesus knows her name. She stayed with me that whole horrible night. She briefed me after the doctors came into the room. When I would not have a D&C until after I had an ultrasound, she encouraged me to hold my ground and that they couldn't make me do anything. The doctor on call wanted to be efficient. He wanted to end my bleeding. But all I could think of was that my baby might still have a chance.
Normally, I have very low blood pressure, but the record of that stayed in the student health clinic and so they did not have a history of my low blood pressure. The doctor would not allow me to have pain medication, partly because of my low blood pressure and partly because they wanted me to have a D&C which they reasoned (rightly) would stop my loss of blood and they wanted to keep me motivated to help myself. I would not receive a transfusion of blood, because this was in 1994 and they did not have at this time a way to screen for AIDS.
At the Univ. of MN at the time, there was a lot of negative feelings toward foreign graduate students because it was at times hard to understand the lectures, especially in the math and science departments. But I have to say, I thank the Lord for the compassionate foreign medical intern who came on the scene and spoke with compassion toward me and changed the orders to allow me to have an ultrasound after which I was willing to have a D&C when I saw that there was not child in my womb. I realize now that it was all about cost and in fact we were billed for this ultrasound because the student insurance did not pay for it. I don't know if they had to write it off or not.
We were so broke when I first graduated that they may have chosen to write it off rather than wait for payment. But the intern said, "You mean you won't give her pain medication or let her have the ultrasound? Get the ultrasound done." My nurse spoke code telling me she had had something like this herself and that I would be OK. She did not gloss over it or say it wouldn't hurt. She was honest. When I cried, she repeated like a chorus, "You have a right to grieve your child, because you wanted it."
It dawned on me as I walked out the door of the hospital that she was an abortion survivor and that she had not given herself permission to grieve her own child and as she cried with me she could vicariously grieve her own child. I wish I had gone back to talk to her, but I did not. My friend had come to take me home in the middle of the night and had to work the next day. I did not want to further inconvenience anyone.
Over the next few days, I was in shock and grief. I thought I had the "world by the tail" and I went from looking forward to my graduation and new baby to coming down with a terrible viral infection, being clinically depressed and subsequently failing my written boards.
Milestones that I remember follow:
I remember when I first laughed and the girlfriend that got me to laugh. I remember through the dark days realizing that I could not have anger anymore toward the women that had had abortions because they had to deal with the pain I experienced, but even more so know that they had made that choice themselves. I finally could not be angry at them but feel compassion for them. I prayed for my dear R.N in the ER who wept and was a true friend to me and I could not be angry with her or other women any more who had lost their child to abortion. Jesus had brought good out of the death of my firstborn child.
|
JOIN US
| Help us spread the word. Share this with your social network. | | | |
Back |
|
|