When I was 17 I became pregnant. Of course I wasn’t ready to be a mother. I kept my child and delivered a healthy baby girl. At this same time I was a heavy user of drugs. By the grace of God my daughter was born without one birth defect. The only defect was her mother chose to continue a life of sin.

 

I became pregnant a second time. With my first pregnancy my mother would not talk to me until the delivery of my child. After she saw this beautiful child she was by my side always helping me. Thank God I was so confused about raising a child. I had no idea what to do -- I was just a child myself.

 

Anyway, when I became pregnant with my second child I went to Planned Parenthood, and of course they gave me their advice and that was to abort my child . That was the consensus all around me . My mother was the one who was strongly for it. I had no thought one way or the other because I was so scared and numb.

 

I won’t go into detail about what happened or what it was like -- all I know is that that day changed the rest of my life forever.

 

I went to a friend's house that night and they had to take me to the emergency room. I thought something was wrong with me. It turned out I was experienceing a major anxiety attack. After all, I did just kill my child.

 

After my first abortion I still continued being sexually active and guess what? I got pregnant a third time . This time the abortion was a little easier, although the pain during this simple procedure was worse than labor. My heart had turned so hard from turning my back on God and doing whatever I chose to do.

 

It seemed that God had other plans for getting my attention. When my only living daughter was two and a half years old she caught a very rare disease and died 18 hours later. She suffered so much. Thank God she is in heaven. After my second abortion the doctors inserted an IUD. This was to guard against any further accidents.

 

A year after my daughter's death I became pregnant again even with the IUD. It was a one night stand and we were both drinking heavily. I have to say God works in mysterious ways. This time I called on Him because I had tried to run my life by myself for so long and all I produced was death. I chose to keep my child and had a beautiful healthy baby girl. I stopped the destrucive path I was going down and trusted Christ to guide me.

 

When my daughter was nine months old I started dating and eventually married. The things I allowed to happen to my body made it impossible for me to carry a child. I became pregnant two times but each time it resulted in an ectopic pregnancy -- I had one in each tube. That was so devastating. I truly reaped what I had sown. We did adopt twin boys from Brazil.

 

My daughter is 18 years old now and a freshman in college. I thought I had left my past behind but all the damage I did had to be repaired -- I don’t mean physically I mean emotionally. I truly suffered the damaging effects of abortion. Thank God He led me to a Project Rachael weekend retreat. It saved my life and my spirit.

 

My life has had many twists and turns. My original question was where should I go from here. I have such a burning desire to share my story hoping to help teens and women understand the effects of abortion and how each decision we make in our lives either brings us closer to life or closer to death.