When Time Stood Still
October 3rd, 2010
My thoughts on abortion haven’t changed since I’ve had a child. You’d think they would, having a deeper understanding of the machinery at work, and the miracle that eventually surfaces, but alas, they have not changed one whit. Until I became pregnant, I can say with relative certainty that I never truly understood what it was like to be a prisoner in my own body, held captive by a tiny parasite that did little to thrill me, but instead seemed hell-bent on making my life as miserable as possible. It was all worth it of course, but I wasn’t in the mood for such platitudes while peeing through my pants as I hunched over the toilet for the twelfth time in as many half-hour increments.
I was a late to bond with my unborn baby; truth be told, I never really did until I saw her face out in the world. I hated being pregnant more than I can really articulate here, and my hormones were so horribly out of whack that I think if you’d asked me mere days before delivery if I wanted to change my mind with the promise of making it all go away, there’s a solid chance I’d have taken you up on that offer and called it a day.
Pregnancy, abortion and the decision to become a parent is so personal. Everyone reacts differently, although obviously my view on how I would handle an unplanned pregnancy is much more clear-cut as a parent growing a family than that of a teenager or even a twenty-something. But I maintain that this remains the most personal of decisions, and that no one — truly, no one — can say for certainty what they would do in another person’s shoes, which is why I find any sort of legislation on the matter so laughably deplorable. And this is before we go into the argument from conservatives that the government should keep their hands off of their healthcare! Except you, there, lady with the uterus! Mind telling me what’s in there? Oh, and Medicare. We love Medicare. Don’t cut our Medicare, are you crazy?
But I digress.
This post from Elizabeth made me realize something I’ve been meaning to articulate since the minute Sam’s been born. In summary, it’s an incredible account of the life of — and her relationship with — her sister, who has Down syndrome, and the moments during her pregnancy when her daughter was shown to have an elevated risk for Down’s.
I will repeat what I said in Elizabeth’s comments, and my emotions surrounding articulating this are so conflicted, but it’s as honest as I know how to be, so I’ll tell you: If Sam had been shown to have genetic abnormalities, there is a strong possibility we would have terminated. Naturally, as that was not the case, I can’t tell you anything for sure, because as I said, it’s nearly impossible to predict one’s precise reaction in such a complex, terrifying situation under the circumstances we were in — those of first-time parents with little more than an abstract understanding of what was headed our way that spring.
I’ll also tell you this: should we be fortunate enough to have another child, I can think of very few circumstances that we would terminate, and Down’s certainly wouldn’t be one of them. But of course, it’s easy to say what you would do in a situation that you’re not actually in, isn’t it?
(Before I go on: I’m not pregnant.)
I find it nearly impossible to fault anyone for making whatever decision they choose to make in those situations. As I said before, I am pro-choice to such an extreme that I am loath to put any limitations on abortion, barring elective procedures past the point of fetal viability. If you would — or have — made a different decision, I do not judge you in the least, and I mean that with all the sincerity in my heart, truly I do.
But for me, and truly, I am shocked by this, being Sam’s mom made me more confident in my ability to deal with things I’d previously thought myself incapable of, but it also made me acutely aware of how vulnerable we all are to being put in situations we hadn’t planned for. Yes, there is genetic testing and there are ultrasounds and a seemingly endless number of tests to prepare for whatever inevitability lies before you, but ultimately, even if that ultrasound comes back 1 in 3245 (like Sam’s did), there is that ONE baby who beats the odds. The world is not foolproof, least of all modern medicine.
And then there is Katy, one of the best moms I know, and not because of the challenges she faced with her son, but because she just is. All the genetic testing in the world would have been meaningless, as a necessary medical intervention during birth left Charlie with cerebral palsy. She didn’t plan on this. And yet, look at her. Look at him.
We’re all just a hair’s breadth away from a different life — a harder life, an easier life, a richer life; no one really knows what’s in store for us down the road. It’s part of what we signed up for when we agreed to be born (you didn’t get paperwork?), and it’s crazy and it’s terrifying and it’s wondrous beyond measure.
Entry Filed under: Beeber McSteebs,Gettin' thinky with it
59 Comments Add your own
1. Nothing But Bonfires | October 3rd, 2010 at 10:07 pm
Ah, there is my favorite photo on the Internet. I remember the first time I saw it, I burst into tears, and what do you know, same thing happened this time too.
2. ABDPBT | October 3rd, 2010 at 10:15 pm
Oh wow.
I read her post, and it’s really great, but in my head I’m already making excuses. What the hell is that? What is wrong with me?
I cannot imagine having a child with Down’s Syndrome. I think to say otherwise, for me, would just be me wanting to not be the kind of person who would say that it didn’t matter. I know people rise to the occasion but I don’t see myself doing that. I see myself failing miserably and taking everyone else along with me.
But then, you are right — who knows? You really don’t know until you’re in that position.
3. mischasone | October 3rd, 2010 at 11:04 pm
Love your writing. Completely agree that only you can fully understand the situation you are in and make the right decision for you and only I can understand and make the right decision for me. When it comes down to it the person making the decision is the one who truely has to live with it every day for the rest of their lives.
4. shriek house | October 3rd, 2010 at 11:25 pm
Oh how I LOVE that photo. A thousand words, right there.
5. ZestyJenny | October 4th, 2010 at 12:38 am
Yes, NothingButBonfires. Yes.
6. Megan | October 4th, 2010 at 8:16 am
Oh MY, Jonna, that photo is completely amazing and wonderful and you’ve made me cry this rainy Monday morning. I can’t stop looking at it, but then I keep crying! Damn you!
7. Jenna | October 4th, 2010 at 8:19 am
Beautiful, courageous post, Jonna. The photo made me cry, of course, because it’s beautiful and because I have photos just like it for each of my daughters’ births. They capture the emotion of that indescribably earth-shattering moment.
I feel the same way about abortion. Experiencing the breadth of pregnancy (I had one easy, happy pregnancy and one miserable, depressed, sick pregnancy) and motherhood hasn’t changed my pro-choice views. If anything, being a mother has made me MORE pro-choice. At that same time, motherhood has made me more sure that I wouldn’t terminate my own pregnancy unless the fetus was unviable.
8. Swistle | October 4th, 2010 at 8:28 am
Completely agree.
And that photo of you makes me tear up EVERY TIME.
9. SwingCheese | October 4th, 2010 at 8:40 am
My husband and I were offered the testing, and we refused. It turns out that, no matter how pro-choice I thought I was, I couldn’t handle the thought of having to terminate MY pregnancy. Once I was pregnant, that was it. Barring a miscarriage, we would have this baby. That being said, I didn’t really bond with boyo while he was in utero. In fact, I’m not sure I bonded with him the first time I laid eyes on him, even. After almost 4 hours of hard labor (and the 20 hours of…I don’t know…soft labor that preceded it), by the time he was out, I was exhausted. He was handed to me, we stared at each other for a little while, then my husband wanted to hold him. I could practically see them bonding while sitting on the couch. But for me, it didn’t start right away.
10. Korinna | October 4th, 2010 at 8:41 am
I recently saw some people praying outside of an abortion clinic near where I work. I wanted to shout at those people, “YOU DON’T KNOW!” They don’t know what the women’s situation is. They don’t know that what they’re praying for is infinitely better than the alternative.
11. jive turkey | October 4th, 2010 at 8:47 am
Ditto what Swistle said.
My mom always used to tell me I’d change my view on abortion when I had a baby of my own. But my views didn’t change; things actually got clearer for me, like you said.
12. Kader | October 4th, 2010 at 8:50 am
You know, I love your funny posts because they are so you. But I particularly love this post because it is so you. So there you have it, a glimpse of your three-dimensional self right there on the internet.
I knew, immediately, that that photo would be the one I’d see with this post.
We don’t really have any idea what we’re capable of, do we? Sometimes we are champions of dealing with the big things, and then utter wimps with the small stuff.
I’m so proud to be your friend… I know that’s corny, but it’s how I felt the whole time I was reading.
13. Alias Mother | October 4th, 2010 at 9:21 am
I am the most pro-life pro-choicer I know. I think there are very few good reasons to terminate a pregnancy. I would love to see the abortion rate cut to almost zero. I could never, ever do it if the child was at all viable, even in case of extreme issues. But, BUT, I also know this: I DON’T KNOW. I can never know what is going on. That’s why, ultimately, I’ve got to end up on the pro-choice line. Even though motherhood has made me more firm in my discomfort on the issue, I will never judge someone for making a different decision. Because I don’t know.
In other words, I let my compassion extend to the mother as well.
14. Wendy | October 4th, 2010 at 9:35 am
Excellent post. I actually found that being pregnant made me more strongly pro-choice than I was before. Understanding the total and complete life take over that pregnancy can be it just seemed clear to me that there are very, very good reasons that some women can’t and shouldn’t have to continue to be pregnant if they don’t wish to be.
That being said, my husband and I don’t at this point plan to have anymore kids but I wouldn’t be able to terminate if I got pregnant. It would be too personal (I’m not sure if that is the right word…I would just be unable to not think about my son and the unborn baby being like him).
There are medical things that might change that, but I don’t think Downs would be one of them.
15. H | October 4th, 2010 at 9:36 am
I completely agree with you about this issue. It drives me crazy that the great majority of those who have the power over this legal issue are MEN. I get that men are affected by the decisions women make when they’re pregnant and I don’t discount that. It simply isn’t the same as it is for a woman, however. I think it is every woman’s personal decision — and only women have the right to draft and vote for or against any abortion laws.
That picture is priceless.
16. Lawyerish | October 4th, 2010 at 9:54 am
Alias Mother said pretty much what I was going to say, although she said it better than I would have.
Having a baby made my feelings on abortion MUCH more complicated. Because even the very first time we saw our daughter on the ultrasound screen, at seven weeks’ gestation, that tiny smudge with a flickering heartbeat was HER; it was a tiny human being: a life.
So I feel like I dislike abortion more than I did before (not that I was all, I HEART ABORTION before, but my feelings about it were not as WEIGHTY), but I will always remain pro-choice, because legislating someone else’s body and life choices is not something I am ok with.
Because, yes, none of us can know…until we know.
Also, I love that picture (always have), and have to note that the equivalent shots of me when Felicity was handed to me? Are not nearly so gorgeous. The term “wrung out” comes to mind (although I did have a similarly rapturous expression, and man…that gets me every time).
17. Marie Green | October 4th, 2010 at 9:57 am
When I see that photo of you, I’m THERE, myself in that magical moment of birth and all of the emotions that go with it.
I have a good friend who has a daughter with DS. She wasn’t diagnosed until she was several hours old, so my friend thought everything was fine. Her husband went home to be with their older child, they had a boy AND a girl now, life was great… When they told her, she really didn’t think she could do it. She said that they only time she was sure she could do it was when she was holding her daughter. With the baby in her arms, she was SURE. W/o the baby, she was filled with grief and doubt.
I think that’s an important distinction to be made here- that when you hear something about your unborn child, you can’t hold them in your arms first, you can’t have that feeling of being sure. You only get the fear, grief, doubt.
In any case, I totally 100% agree with you. My stance on abortion is identical to yours. For me personally though, we have not and would not do the screening for things like DS.
Also, I loved your point of the conservatives wanting the government’s hands OFF health care… well, unless you’re pregnant, then WE get to decide. Oh, man, so true.
18. scantee | October 4th, 2010 at 9:57 am
I agree with you, completely. Nothing solidified my pro-choice stance like pregnancy and childbirth. I had relatively easy pregnancies and I still feel like the physical burden was enough that it would be wrong to force a woman to stay pregnant against her wishes.
We had all of the testing, and I played out scenes of what our lives’ would be like if we had a child with a genetic defect, but I never went that next step to decide what I would do. I still have no idea and since I am done having kids I will never know.
Great post.
19. Marie Green | October 4th, 2010 at 10:00 am
Also, I too never felt as strongly pro-choice as I was when pregnant, and as you said captive in my own body. It made me even MORE aware of how much it was MY body, MY domain, and MY choice. I’ve often wondered if others felt that way- or if everyone else was all just so aware of the life inside. But for me, it made it even more clear how much I wanted to be able to make that choice for myself.
20. Ariel | October 4th, 2010 at 10:09 am
I was adamantly pro-life until I had my daughter, who is lovely and perfect and precious.
But I had no clue what it took to make a human until I was in the process. To force that on someone unwilling? Horrible.
And I always thought If it came down to the oh so dramatic “Save the baby no matter what” I’d be squarely on the baby side. But now, as a mother, should I ever have another child, I would have to side on saving me. Because I believe, as a mother, that I have a duty to parent the child I already have. If something happened to me, guess what happens to my daughter?
She goes back to her asshole, drug addicted, alcoholic father, where she would be abused and neglected, because GUESS WHAT? The courts don’t care.
And now I am as pro-choice as I can be.
21. Life of a Doctor's Wife | October 4th, 2010 at 10:50 am
Oh man, this post… Wow. I am just so incredibly moved.
Beautifully said.
22. Nimble | October 4th, 2010 at 10:53 am
@H “It drives me crazy that the great majority of those who have the power over this legal issue are MEN. ” Yeah and even worse: they’re politicians. A pregnant woman and her doctor are the only people who need to be making those decisions. I get incensed when I think of other people trying to get involved.
Thank you for your clarity and your understanding, Jonna.
23. Jaida | October 4th, 2010 at 11:01 am
Wow, first time commenter here. This is a great post. My introduction into motherhood consisted of an emergency c-section at 30 weeks, followed by a critically ill son who was diagnosed with Ds four days later. Kind of a lot to take in. Anyway, I’m so grateful that there was nothing that showed up in the limited prenatal testing we were offered. I don’t know what our decision would have been, but the thought of missing out on the complete and utter magic that is our son is terrifying.
I think one of the scariest parts of imagining having a child with special needs is that you play out scenarios in your head that feature an anonymous individual with those needs, rather than YOUR CHILD. When my son was born I kept thinking ahead to A Person with Down syndrome and what I came to realize is that it’s not going to be A Person, it will be our son, the whole way through, extra chromosome and all.
I feel like that’s poorly articulated, but hopefully the sentiment comes through. When all is said and done, I still don’t judge people for their decisions, but it stings each and every time someone comments that they couldn’t imagine having a kid like mine. Thankfully, I don’t have to imagine. I get to experience and enjoy him.
(thanks for the links too)
24. Melissa | October 4th, 2010 at 11:02 am
Just discovered your blog – love what you wrote here! Especially this – We’re all just a hair’s breadth away from a different life. SO true, and I remind myself of that when I have my judgey hat on.
25. agirlandaboy | October 4th, 2010 at 11:17 am
I love that you’re writing about this.
Having a child now has also complicated my feelings on the matter, and so much now that it’s pretty much impossible for me to articulate them at all. Theorizing on imaginary babies is one thing, but as soon as there’s an actual baby in the works? That changes everything, and I absolutely cannot know what I’d do in any given circumstance. What I do know, though, is that having had an easy pregnancy and easy baby has made me MORE fearful of a next time because I’m aware of how many things can go “wrong” and it seems foolhardy to tempt fate like that, especially when I feel like I’m finding this single healthy child a challenge in and of himself. Seeing other mothers (and sisters) step up to the challenges they didn’t expect, though, is comforting in the way that reading about the challenges of parenting a “normal” baby was before I had one of my own.
Also, that photo smashes me into smithereens from the force of your love for Sam.
26. Amy K | October 4th, 2010 at 11:41 am
I’m still pro-choice, but after becoming pregnant with my daughter and watching this little person develop week to week in utero before my eyes, it really made abortions performed after the first trimester seem monstrous. Horrendous. I can barely stand the thought of it. My brain is apparently okay with an unrecognizable cluster of cells being scraped out, but when that cluster becomes a miniature healthy baby waving its little arms and legs around, crushing it and vacuuming it out is…well, I couldn’t do it and I’m not sure it should be an option for anyone except in extreme cases (rape, incest, threat to mother’s health, fetal defect, etc.). I know the argument is “It’s the mother’s body, so it’s her choice” and this makes sense until a certain point in fetal development, but then it becomes two bodies for me, not just the mother’s body and parasite she can choose to remove.
Could I have an abortion if the fetus had DS? I’m not sure. Could I have an abortion if the fetus had a severe genetic defect? Absolutely. My best friend’s younger brother was born right before I met her in middle school. He was nearly blind, had zero muscle control, ate through a feeding tube, never grew beyond the size of a large toddler or the mental capacity of a newborn and lived for 17 very miserable, painful years full of surgeries, diapers, constant wailing, sleepless nights, broken brittle bones and infections. It was BEYOND AWFUL for all of them. They loved their son, of course, but his parents would have been the first ones in line to buy tickets for the time machine. I saw the toll it took on the entire family and now I could never bring a child into the world to suffer like that.
27. Kristabella | October 4th, 2010 at 11:46 am
Great post, Jonna.
I really think you’re right that until you’re in the situation, you don’t know. But everyone should have the choice to do what it right for them.
You know my desire to have kids, whether on my own or with a husband, and I think I would have to take the route SwingCheese did and just not get tested. I want a baby so bad that I don’t care.
But 10 years ago? I would have had a completely different opinion.
28. Jenni | October 4th, 2010 at 12:13 pm
Great post, great photo. I know that moment in that photo. I know it, but it is so indescribable. How wonderful that you have it captured in a photo.
29. Kristin H | October 4th, 2010 at 12:26 pm
What a lovely post. That picture makes me cry immediately, every time I see it.
30. -Jen | October 4th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
Beautiful post. Thank you for being such a thoughtful writer and for sharing with us.
31. jonniker | October 4th, 2010 at 1:18 pm
Jaida: That’s precisely what I was trying to get at with the point that we’re all a moment away from a different situation. Sam could become profoundly disabled at any time — an accident, an illness, an anything — but she’s mine, my little girl, and it doesn’t make a lick of a difference what happens to her, she is mine. She is Sam.
And that’s what I realized most when I thought about everything in a different light: it won’t be a theoretical Person with DS, it will be my son or daughter, with a wonderful personality all their own.
Yes.
32. saly | October 4th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
1. That photo…my gawd. LOVE
2. I’ve always been pro-choice but until I saw my son’s beating heart when I was 7 or so weeks along did I ever feel the magnitude of “wow, a little person”. And then I knew that I didn’t care about tests or “risk factors” or any of that crap. I cared about MY BABY.
33. Ginger | October 4th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
What a beautiful and eloquent post. (and photo, I’m jealous I don’t have one of those.)
I’m MORE pro-choice now as a mother than I was before. No one should have a right to force pregnancy (which I hated) or motherhood (which is h.a.r.d., yo) on an unwilling participant. That being said, I don’t think I could do it myself. Despite the fact that I, like you, didn’t really bond with J in utero, that was still my little guy. We actually turned down all genetic testing, because it just wasn’t something that was in our cards should there be problems (admittedly, if I were older/had more risk factors, that choice might have been different).
But our thought was…this is our baby, no matter what. And we’ll love him and take care of him. No matter what.
But that was OUR decision, and no one should be in charge of that decision except the people involved.
34. Suki | October 4th, 2010 at 3:16 pm
After 3+ years of infertility, 3 rounds of IUI, 3 rounds of IVF and finally (yeah!) almost 7 months into a pregnancy where I felt bonded from pretty much the instant I got the phone call saying I was pregnant, I can honestly say that I am just as pro-choice, if not more, as I was prior to all that.
I was worried that infertility and then finally being pregnant myself might make me less pro-choice, but in the end it has just reinforced how intensely personal any decision relating to child bearing truly is. I still don’t know what decision I would make if faced with the decision to abort or not, but I do know that I want every woman to have the right to make that decision for herself.
I also can’t help but think of what it would be like if those who believe that IVF and other fertility treatments are immoral were allowed to force their sense of morality on the rest of us and outlaw IVF.
Oh, and that picture? Lord, it makes me excited to meet this little person who’s kicking me right now
35. Miranda | October 4th, 2010 at 6:26 pm
That is the most beautiful picture I’ve ever seen. I can’t event formulate thoughts about the rest of the post because I’m so distracted by how much I adore the pic.
36. Amanda Brown | October 4th, 2010 at 6:36 pm
That photo reduced me to brimming tears in 0.3 seconds.
37. Ruby | October 4th, 2010 at 7:32 pm
Mommie,
It’s Ruby(the twin-within)
Wow!!!! That’s all I could say when Nonno read this post to Sam and me. Then Sam said to me, “Ruby, I’m the luckiest little girl in the entire universe. I have (I me WE have) the very bestest Mommie in the world.” I tried to tell Sam that although she was 1000% right about Mommie, “bestest” isn’t a word. “I can make a word up if I want to,” Sam told me. Then Nonno whispered to me that Sam is right. She needed a new word to tell everybody how wonderful her(your) Mommie is.
We love you,
Ruby (the twin-within) & Sam
38. nonsoccermom | October 4th, 2010 at 10:02 pm
Awesome post. Awesome comments. Yes. This is exactly it. I should make my dad read this. He and I have…shall we say…very different views on abortion and while I’ve tried to explain my position to him several times I haven’t yet succeeded.
But this…this is perfect. This is precisely how I feel.
Beautiful picture, by the way. Such joy. I teared up immediately.
39. Cheken | October 4th, 2010 at 11:06 pm
I’m more pro-choice for the population and more pro-life for myself since having a baby. I’m pro-life for myself to the point of cutting IVF off as a possibility, because I’m not comfortable with intervening creation of life, either.
But I can’t make that decision for anyone else. Either way. I’m incredibly grateful to have the choice.
I knew my daughter would be ok as long as she could survive my body. It was a high-risk pregnancy, but not for the reasons we thought. When my bowel ruptured at 36 weeks, both of us almost died. Miraculously, she is FINE and I’m here, but it’s a new normal, and had dire consequences for my health. All of the genetic testing and monitoring in the world (and I had it all, including WEEKLY ultrasounds after 28 weeks) couldn’t have predicted it.
I can’t have more children without heroic measures, and then it would be suicidal.
I’m not quite sure where I was going with this, except that maybe there are so many permutations of the baby/mother thing that people just should let people make their own decisions.
And for the love of Christ, don’t parade your children in front of the planned parenthood, because that’s just tacky.
40. -R- | October 5th, 2010 at 11:33 am
This is a beautiful post and a beautiful picture.
I was really surprised when, a few years ago, I read about the percentage of parents who chose to terminate a pregnancy when they found out the fetus had DS. Though I wouldn’t make that choice, I don’t judge others for it because I’ve never been in their position. I’m sure it’s beyond difficult for the parents and changes the parents’ lives in a million ways. But it’s not like having DS dooms the child to a bad life. And different people with DS have different abilities and capabilities. I don’t know.
41. agirlandaboy | October 5th, 2010 at 1:53 pm
I find it interesting that people link their resolve to NOT terminate to whether or not they have genetic testing at all. For me, I’d do the testing for the same reason I did the anatomy ultrasound–because I wanted to be able to prepare for my baby, both physically and mentally, in the best way I could, and having that little peek into who I’d be bringing home really helped me with that. We expected (and wanted) a girl, see, and the number one reason I wanted to find out the sex at twenty weeks was because I didn’t want the joy of meeting my child (girl or boy) in the delivery room to be darkened by my disappointment in realizing my baby was not who I thought she would be (i.e., she turned out to be a boy!). I couldn’t possibly love my son more than I do, but I am so glad I found out he was a boy at twenty weeks and was able to process that THEN instead of finding out in the delivery room.
Even if I knew I wouldn’t terminate a baby under any circumstance, I’d still want to know if there were genetic abnormalities, you know? Being able to prepare mentally, emotionally, and practically for a child with special needs would be a very good thing for me.
42. Steph | October 5th, 2010 at 7:17 pm
Yep. Exactly how I feel. I am a genetic counselor and so I deal with both sides of the issues (i.e. testing or not? screening or not? termination or not?) on a daily basis. I think my profession is why I had a definite detachment from my son the entire 41 (FORTY ONE, EDWARD) weeks of gestating. I also had an amniocentesis. Straight up, no fooling around. For exactly the same reason that agirlandaboy articulates–preparation. I know that attitude of “I want to be prepared” can/will get me in trouble, and I don’t know that I would have ended the pregnancy if a lethal anomaly had been found, but to know is/was crucial for me.
I can go on for days about perceptions of prenatal and/or genetic screening/testing and the bad information out there, but ultimately it is my job on a daily basis to walk with individual couples down their path, provide them with accurate information and education on a level they can understand, and hope it a) helps them personally on any given day and b) maybe trickles out to friends and family that we in the genetic clinic have no agenda save supporting and helping people.
Also, I think the term pro-choice is perfect and one of my biggest frustrations about the whole abortion debate is that pro-lifers tend to think “pro-choice” equals “pro-abortion” which is not even…just…come ON. I’m not saying YOU (the pro-lifer, not you, Jonna) have to have an abortion. I’m saying (just like you, Jonna, and most of the other peeps here) that EACH INDIVIDUAL should have a CHOICE. CHOICE.
And man, some of the shit I’ve seen. I would like for a pro-lifer to lie on the ultrasound table and hear some of the stuff I’ve had to tell people that’s wrong with their baby. Maybe they wouldn’t make a different choice (aha! choice!) but for the love, have some empathy that someone else would walk a different path.
Aaaaannndddd cease babbling.
Summary: superb post, Jonna. Very well put and I agree one meeeellllion percent.
43. Steph | October 5th, 2010 at 7:19 pm
And p.s. I remember that picture the first time you posted it and it is absolutely the quintessential “delivery room” picture in my mind. Makes me get all teary eyed and weak kneed.
44. Rebecca | October 5th, 2010 at 8:31 pm
Great post and….
That is most definitely one of the most awesome photos I have ever seen.
45. Angela | October 6th, 2010 at 8:31 am
Delurking to say, “Bravo” and this is one of the most thoughtful, honest and direct posts on this subject. I absolutely agree with you, even though I am a practising Catholic, on this issue, I disagree with Church doctrine. Compassion for other women and their personal choices is something I wholly support.
46. Katy | October 8th, 2010 at 12:54 am
My husband and I are both pro-life, but not in a legislative kind of way–in a “for us” kind of way. For us, the baby was ours from the very beginning.
I don’t think telling people what to do with their bodies is the way. Rather, I think the best I can do is live by example. I’m not a super-hero. I like napping and staying up too late and diet coke. No one who knows me would accuse me of being Mother Theresa–I’m a just a woman who got handed a little more than she bargained for. ADBPBT’s comment strikes me the most–about wanting to be better and not being capable of it. I can assure you that no part of me wanted to have a disabled child. I spent many nights crying about the hand I’d been dealt. But I did feel that as his mother, I had a responsibility to him as a person, and that is what kept me going. These days, my husband and I often congratulate each other on what an amazing kid we have.
I want every woman to keep their baby. I do. Because I know that Charlie was predicted to be so little and he is SO much. He is astounding and amazing and the idea of a world without him. . . I can’t see it.
But again, this is not a battle to be fought with legislation. Love, compassion, and knowledge will get us so much further.
I will now let you have your blog back : )
47. SwingCheese | October 9th, 2010 at 10:33 pm
I had the conversation about pre-natal tests and preparation with my bff, who got pregnant a few months after I did. She and her husband decided to have the testing done because she is a preparer – if she was getting more than she had expected, then she wanted to prepare for it. I am not a preparer, I am a worrier and an over-thinker. I do better when I’m thrown into a situation – otherwise, I just obsess over it. Throw pregnancy hormones into the mix, and, well, it would have been detrimental to my mental health to know anything in advance.
But had I been at high risk for something, etc., then I don’t know what I would have done. Probably had the tests and gone from there. It’s difficult to know what I would do in circumstances other than my own.
48. Alexandra | October 11th, 2010 at 10:04 am
That picture of you is the most beautiful picture I’ve ever seen of labor and delivery.
It will mean so much to your baby as she gets older, to see the powerful emotion that swept over you when you first saw her.
Beautiful.
49. A Photograph of You | Jon&hellip | October 11th, 2010 at 9:37 pm
[...] I can’t thank you enough for your kind, thoughtful comments and emails on my post last week. I know it’s a touchy subject, but every single one of them was thoughtful, [...]
50. Suebob | October 11th, 2010 at 10:04 pm
You do have the best commenters anywhere. I think you should have a panel at BlogHer about “How to build a really great comments section.”
51. Maggy | October 14th, 2010 at 9:22 am
Okay, finally commenting although I am (yet again) coming off the night shift and am therefore sleepy and cranky. I found out during my first pregnancy that I am a carrier for cystic fibrosis. I work in pediatrics, and I have seen the heartbreak that CF can be. As I told my sister, I am adamantly pro-choice, but it was not a choice I wanted to make. I rushed my husband to be tested (not covered by insurance, thank you very much), and thankfully he is not a carrier. Even so, there were times during my pregnancies when I thought, “What the hell am I doing?” and looked up abortion in the phone book. (Yes, I have mental health issues. Yes, I am being treated. I knew that it wasn’t what I really wanted, like a depressed person saying that she doesn’t want to live anymore, when what she means is she doesn’t want to live _like that_ anymore.)
Have you noticed that the people who are “family values” are also the people who don’t support paid family leave, or subsidized daycare, or WIC? There’s a lot of judgement (“Why did she even have kids if she doesn’t want to take care of them?” What are her other options? No-one asks men these questions.) Here, make this choice so we can damn you for it.
So, Jonna, thought-provoking post. Since I have hijacked it.
52. luna | October 25th, 2010 at 10:58 pm
this is a really beautiful post, and so important.
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