Let’s get a little personal for a minute.
I’m beyond triggered by this new Texas law. I’ve lost two babies to miscarriage and so I am well aware of the sanctity of life. Those two babies were most certainly wanted.
My first pregnancy was with Goofball. It was pretty much a textbook pregnancy.
My second pregnancy was a very early miscarriage. Had I not been extremely in tune with my body, I would have assumed my period was just a little late and a little heavier than usual, except that I was in tune and I had two positive pregnancy tests.
My third pregnancy was a first trimester miscarriage. I was about 10 weeks along and we had been monitoring baby closely, so I was devastated, yet not surprised when we could not detect a heartbeat at our third sono, because our second sono had an extremely weak heartbeat and our first sono had not yet shown one. Clearly we were prepared that this was a touch and go pregnancy and we knew from the beginning that something was wrong. I was offered a D&C but I made my own choice to carry that dead baby until I naturally miscarried 2 weeks later. I wanted to really feel the hard core emotions. That was my choice. Laying on the floor outside of my bathroom, writhing in pain with contractions, I delivered that fetus at home with my husband by my side. That was the choice I made because that was what I wanted. I needed to do it for my own grieving process.
My last pregnancy was with Mush. I don’t think I ever relaxed during that first trimester having just lost two babies, having to go on progesterone to keep my uterus safe for him after having some bleeding. During my second trimester I was past the danger point where I had lost the last two and I was able to enjoy my pregnancy and start to plan, but only for a short time. By the beginning of the third trimester, something was obviously very wrong. My hands and feet were swollen, I lost four pounds in one week from vomiting, my urine was orange, I felt little movement, I was doubled over in pain and shivering, and so I went to the doctor assuming they would put me on bed rest or give me fluids for dehydration, only to be sent to the hospital, knocked out and rushed into the OR for an emergency c-section 8 weeks early. My body was literally shutting down. My liver enzymes were through the roof. My blood pressure was elevated. My platelets were so low that I couldn’t be given proper anesthesia and so I could not be awake to hear my baby’s first cry and his father could not be with me holding my hand. I was knocked out and rushed in. My husband thought I died.
In essence, that pregnancy was terminated. That baby still had another 8 weeks to grow. Had I continued that pregnancy, I’d probably be dead in a matter of days, maybe even hours. Had I not been monitoring my symptoms and advocating for myself, I very likely could have had a stroke while I was home alone with a preschooler.
What is the point of telling this story and what does it have to do with Texas?
Firstly, without safe access to abortion, a woman may have to turn to unsafe measures. With my second miscarriage (third pregnancy) I carried a dead baby inside me for two weeks until the fetus naturally miscarried. I was monitored the entire time and was given a timeline and my doctor instructed that if the baby does not pass, my body could go into sepsis and I could die, and so if it doesn’t naturally happen, he has to intervene. It was for my safety. If a woman tries to abort her baby without being under the care of her doctor, we can start seeing a lot of dead women. Where are the pro-lifers now?
Secondly, with Mush, it was imperative that we get him out or I was going to die. I was lucky that we recognized the problem and that I was able to be saved. (I was misdiagnosed the week before with “just having a rough pregnancy” and very well may not have been here to type this post but that is another story for another day.) Under some of these archaic laws, a women will be forced to carry a child to term, even if it means having to lose the mother. Now I was far enough along in my pregnancy where my baby could safely be delivered, but what if he wasn’t? What if I was forced to carry to term? What if my HELLP syndrome came on earlier in the pregnancy and I was forced to carry him? I’d be dead. And as a result, the baby would be dead, so what has been accomplished here? One doesn’t have to go to medical school to know that the health of a fetus is 100 percent dependent on the health of the mother.
When I was crying on the sonogram table after losing my third pregnancy, and when I was being rushed into the operating room to deliver my last child prematurely, I consulted with my husband and I consulted with my doctor. I didn’t stop to check with my local politicians because this is not their area of expertise.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was asked in a GOP debate in 2015 if he would really let a mother die than have an abortion, and his response was that “I’ve said many times that that unborn child can be protected and there are many alternatives that would protect the life of the mother” and sometimes that is simply not true. I would have given anything to go on bedrest and take some medicine to carry my child to term. I would have been thrilled to not have to deal with a baby in the NICU and his lifelong developmental delays which are very possibly the result of his being born prematurely. Scott Walker, and politicians like him will never know what it is like to hear the heartbreaking news that their child has died in utero or to give birth to a fetus in their toilet.
Having lost two babies has made me more pro-choice than ever, because it is not my business what happens between a woman and her partner, and at the most vulnerable moments of my life, I chose to consult the experts and not the law makers.
