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To My Expecting Daughter

To My Darling Daughter Who May Be Expecting,

I know you are feeling many intense emotions right now. Perhaps so much so that you are overwhelmed with the responsibility of such hard choices with such long term consequences. This may well be the biggest decision of your entire life, my girl. I want to tell you about some things I didn't know when I faced this decision long ago. I hope this will help you to find your way.

Every human being is unique. I know you will hear from other sources that you can have another baby at some later date, and, in most cases this is true. BUT it will not be this baby, this individual. All sperm within your lover are completely different just as all the genetic codes on each of your eggs are different. Each one giving each of us our distinct traits - that crooked smile, that artistic talent, those beautiful eyes. This person, if destroyed, can never be replicated. Sure you can have another baby, but you can never again have this baby. This is his or her only chance.

In case you have already spoken to an abortion clinic and they have told you that your nine-week-old baby is a 'blob of tissue' or 'microscopic', I want to tell you clearly and truthfully that is a lie! Your nine-week-old baby looks like what it is; a tiny human being. All the organs are there, they are just small. Your baby moves around inside you. Moving her fingers, growing every day. Please go to the library and get any video on life before birth. Don't take anyone else's description for granted. Even if they are sporting the title of 'Doctor' or 'Nurse'. In any major decision in your life it is only to your advantage to have all the pertinent information. Before you decide on an abortion you should see for sure what you are going to abort. It has been to the advantage of the abortion industry that so many of us do not have a clear picture of life in its various preborn stages. And, it is easy to feel so desperate about your unplanned pregnancy that just getting it over with - seems the path of least resistance. It becomes necessary to fall into that 'I don't want to know' fog to ease any pain on yourself. But someday you will find out the whole truth. Truly, it is better to know now while you can still alter the end result. I would recommend getting an ultrasound so that you can see your baby with your own eyes, then you can decide if you can do this or not.

You will undoubtedly hear from other sources that an abortion is just a simple medical procedure and is really "no big deal". How can it be no big deal? We are talking about the mother/child relationship. The strongest relationship on planet earth. It is pretentious to suggest that is doesn't as yet exist because we have not looked into the eyes of our child. It is there. The bond is there from the moment we learn we are pregnant whether we like it or not. If we are not ready for that commitment, the bond still exists. If we are not used to the idea of being a mother, the bond still exists. If we abort our babies, the bond still exists. I remember the exact moment that child was pulled from me. It felt like life being pulled from me. I felt him separated from me, but the bond stayed, so I am left feeling less of a whole person than ever before. I am left feeling a gaping hole. Even though I never saw him or touched him or held him. I wasn't expecting that. I thought it was 'no big deal'. I can honestly say that I have never been the same. In a sense I aborted myself that day. It is a 'big deal' as thousands of women are attesting on groups like Project Rachel, Women Exploited by Abortion, and American Victims of Abortion. There are many other groups offering support and counseling as well. I would ask my daughter to consider this. Are there any support groups cropping up for tonsillectomies? Hysterectomies even? These groups exist because the mother/child bond is so strong that when it is physically ripped apart a mother is left with the greatest sense of loss she will ever know; the loss of her child. Many women feel the intense pain and don't even realize it is their own longing for their aborted children. The 'simple medical procedure' suddenly isn't so simple.

I remember being horrified by the sight of blood and tissue going from me up the clear plastic tube and emptying into a large container. I didn't expect it to be so graphic. I didn't expect it to feel so violent. I didn't expect to still clearly remember that day eighteen years later. It was the day I most regret. I didn't know then how snug and secure the little babies are within us. How she wiggles and spins in her warm safe environment within her mother. I didn't realize that she would feel herself being pulled apart, alive. I don't want you to live with this picture of yourself as a mother, my dear girl. So I am telling you as honestly as I can, how I still hurt for that tiny one after all of these years.

Please also consider my darling, that this is a multi-million dollar industry. And like many businesses of our day, their advertising is not entirely truthful. They want your three hundred dollars. If you have trouble living with the reality of the bloody service they performed for you they obviously cannot refund you your baby. Your baby was tossed out with that day's clinical trash. I hate to use this abrasive language - but it is the truth. It is far better that you know the facts now instead of finding out when it is too late like I did. I cannot ever have that baby back. You will never know him as your older brother or her as your older sister.

I know that abortion has a reputation as being a good thing for women. I well remember my sense of urgent desperation. I remember wanting to get this 'thing' over with. I am still waiting. They didn't tell me the very core of my view of myself as a loving, caring mother and as a good woman would be so shaken. The woman who gives her baby for adoption can keep these views of herself knowing that she did what was best for her child. I thought adoption would be too hard for me. I didn't realize that the bond remains the same whether I see the child or not. Yes, if you give your baby for adoption, it will hurt you to be separated fromm her but it will hurt no more than aborting her and living with that picture of her. Tell me dear, wouldn't you rather picture her five years from now happily skipping off to school with her loving adoptive parents?

I know that you have about seven months left to carry your baby to term and I know that at your age it seems a very long time. But truly, it is not as long as the guilt for the rest of your life and not as heavy either.

Consider these things my dear girl. I understand that you feel yourself in a desperate no win situation with no way out. But please stop and think clearly. Don't go into that panic phase. The abortion industry makes its payload there. I only want to spare you the grief of this reality that no one knew at the time. At least nobody told me. My uncle pressured me to have an abortion because no one would ever want me if I had a child. I still remember those words. They cut like a knife. He doesn't live with this guilt, my dear. I do. I realize you have some pressure put on you from other sources to go through with it. But I can tell you, they won't carry the burden when the deed is done. It will be all yours.

I was also a lot harder on you than I should have been because of my terrible self-image. I put that off on you in many ways. I am very sorry for that my dear. Please forgive me, I think my poor self-image over this terrible deed has kept me prisoner. I didn't finish school. I watched girls and boys with half my talent and intellect go to college and make something of themselves. I, on the other hand, did a lot of drugs and thought of suicide when they wore off. You have much better than that ahead of you! I know it doesn't seem that way now, but if you can just hang tough and follow through with what you know to be the truth, you will see what a gentle and caring person you have always been!

I know you have never been cruel to even a tiny frog! You used to find snails and earthworms in the garden and handle them with such care! It would go against yourself sweethart, if you had an abortion. This is not you. This is not your way.

I want you to consider one more thing. Humanity has always made tragic errors when it tries to decide on fellow humanity's viability. When the settlers came, the native Indian people were considered savages. Africans were bought and sold like cattle because 'civilized' man considered them to be beasts of burden rather than equal human beings. You can go as far back in history as you like and you will find segments of humanity being discriminated against because of 'civilized' man's horrifying misconceptions. Are you prepared to brand your own child as less viable than the rest of us? Is poor timing on your part a 'viable' reason to choose her demise?

I will be here for you as will the rest of the family to help you through this strange, exciting time. We can contact the Pregnancy Care Center and find out how they can help. We can talk to that lovely friend of mine who adopted her daughter, she's the same age as you. She can tell you how it is to adopt a newborn. I will get you as much information about adoption as I can, and if you want to keep the baby, I will help you. I love you, now as ever. If you have an abortion I will love you the same. It is your love for yourself that is in jeopardy, my darling. And you need that love to thrive.

All my love,
Mom

    In Their Own Words