In March, 1971, I had a second trimester saline solution injection abortion. I was a Christian, married, and 24 years old.
Four months earlier, on Thanksgiving Day, my husband and I had celebrated my pregnancy with friends and, although it was a bit of a surprise, we were delighted to be expecting a child.
I was teaching fifth grade at the time and will never forget the moment when a student walked up to my desk and said he didn’t feel very well. When I saw the rash on his face, I flashed back to a terrible photograph I had seen in a magazine in my obstetrician’s office the week before. It was of a “Rubella baby,” and the caption said, “Bobby’s mother recovered from German measles in 3 days. Bobby wasn’t so lucky.”
I didn’t know exactly what that meant, but I later found out. I learned that the reason they finally connected Rubella with birth defects was that delivery room personnel were coming down with German measles two to three weeks after the birth of a baby with severe birth defects. Although the mother recovers in three days, sadly, the baby stays sick throughout the remaining time of gestation and is still contagious at birth.
I had almost forgotten about that student and the magazine picture, when, a couple of weeks later, I saw a very slight rash on my own face. I covered it up with make-up as best I could and drove thirty miles to school, feeling worse and worse the whole way. Halfway through the morning, I couldn’t deny what was happening to me and I… [Read more…] about God’s Will for My Family
