My Heartbreaking Decision
My dearest Gabriel,
I miss you. I think about you all the time. I see your face in my sweet Ruby and wonder if your personality would have been more like your sweet and sensitive brother Joel, or confident and funny like your little sister Zoe. Just the other week in church, I felt the very strong presence of God. Like a lightning bolt, I heard His voice assure me, "I know you miss him dearly. Remember that I know best." I have comfort in knowing that you are in Heaven, with your perfect, healed, whole body, in the presence of God. How wonderful for you. Still missing you, though.
Recently there has been a lot of drama in the Infant Loss Community. The online magazine Still Standing, posted an article entitled "I am the Face of a Heartbreaking Choice." You can read it here. I quickly realized it was about mothers who were given the choice to terminate their pregnancies for medical reasons. Part of me didn't want to finish it. Part of me knew to at least stop after the article and not to read the comments, but I continued.
It was a debate I hadn't really thought about in awhile. I soon realized the readers were quite divided. Both on the magazine's website and their Facebook page, emotions were running high. Within the comments, a battle was brewing: AHC vs. CTT. Strong options on both sides - those who identified as "A Heartbreaking Choice," meaning those who made the decision to terminate a pregnancy due to medical reasons, and those who made the decision to "Carry To Term." Truth be told, I'd say anyone in these shoes, forced to make a decision either way has "a heartbreaking choice." And, although not surprisingly, the arguing within the comments led to a pro-life vs. pro-choice debate. However, let me be clear - when you are dealt "fatal diagnosis" cards, any decision you make ends the very same way.
Gabe, you had already been in my tummy for twenty weeks when we got the bad news about your life. You were growing without your kidneys and your bladder. You were fine as long as you were still inside, because I was sustaining your life. Wow. At that point in my pregnancy with you, I could feel your movements inside me. No matter what decision your Daddy and I made about when and how you would be brought into this world - either way I was going to have to deliver you. There would be a birth. Maybe not everyone realizes that...
Most people who choose to CTT do so out of a religious perspective - we assume the position that we don't have the "right" to chose when life begins... or ends. We simply want to give our child every opportunity to live, and spend as much time with them as possible. And those parents who chose AHC felt they were doing what was best for their child. What really stung, was reading their perspective that they were taking all the pain and suffering upon themselves, to assure their unborn child wouldn't receive any of it. Maybe I'm naive, but I didn't see that one coming.
I do understand that I can't expect those without a relationship with Christ to have the same thoughts, emotions and convictions that I have. But, even when you take God out of the equation, I realized as I read the article and the comments, that the bottom line was the same.
Gabe, this is what struck me most: Every mom and dad being represented was hurting. That was the whole point. We had ALL suffered a loss. The timelines may have been different, the circumstance not the same, but we all lost our babies. There were a lot of opinions about an existence of a "hierarchy of grief" when it comes to infant loss (a completely different debate), but one thing is certain - It is NOT as if the mother who made funeral arrangements had to endure sadness and the one who decided upon a "late-term medical abortion" was left without any melancholy emotions!
Every parent commenting experienced a loss, was grieving that heartache, and genuinely missed their child.
Why I am going into all of this with you? Well, just a few days ago I was informed that members of my own family continue to voice their opinion that your life should have been terminated. That I made the wrong decision. Right now I feel numb to their insensitivity. But I know there is anger boiling. I know they don't understand, they haven't had to be in these shoes. But it still hurts.
Because I realized way before your fatal diagnosis, the same thing I still know today - I love you so much. You are my son. Not past tense, present tense. That's why there are pictures of you in our home. That's why we talk to your brother and sisters about you. That's why we visit your gravesite and leave you little gifts. No matter what decision we would have made back in April of 2009, none of this would be different.
Gabriel, I'll be forever grateful that I carried you as long as God allowed. Every day with you safe inside me was a blessing. I miss you, little man. Say hey to Nanny for me.
Always,
Momma
I miss you. I think about you all the time. I see your face in my sweet Ruby and wonder if your personality would have been more like your sweet and sensitive brother Joel, or confident and funny like your little sister Zoe. Just the other week in church, I felt the very strong presence of God. Like a lightning bolt, I heard His voice assure me, "I know you miss him dearly. Remember that I know best." I have comfort in knowing that you are in Heaven, with your perfect, healed, whole body, in the presence of God. How wonderful for you. Still missing you, though.
Recently there has been a lot of drama in the Infant Loss Community. The online magazine Still Standing, posted an article entitled "I am the Face of a Heartbreaking Choice." You can read it here. I quickly realized it was about mothers who were given the choice to terminate their pregnancies for medical reasons. Part of me didn't want to finish it. Part of me knew to at least stop after the article and not to read the comments, but I continued.
It was a debate I hadn't really thought about in awhile. I soon realized the readers were quite divided. Both on the magazine's website and their Facebook page, emotions were running high. Within the comments, a battle was brewing: AHC vs. CTT. Strong options on both sides - those who identified as "A Heartbreaking Choice," meaning those who made the decision to terminate a pregnancy due to medical reasons, and those who made the decision to "Carry To Term." Truth be told, I'd say anyone in these shoes, forced to make a decision either way has "a heartbreaking choice." And, although not surprisingly, the arguing within the comments led to a pro-life vs. pro-choice debate. However, let me be clear - when you are dealt "fatal diagnosis" cards, any decision you make ends the very same way.
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| Via artist Carly Marie |
Gabe, you had already been in my tummy for twenty weeks when we got the bad news about your life. You were growing without your kidneys and your bladder. You were fine as long as you were still inside, because I was sustaining your life. Wow. At that point in my pregnancy with you, I could feel your movements inside me. No matter what decision your Daddy and I made about when and how you would be brought into this world - either way I was going to have to deliver you. There would be a birth. Maybe not everyone realizes that...
Most people who choose to CTT do so out of a religious perspective - we assume the position that we don't have the "right" to chose when life begins... or ends. We simply want to give our child every opportunity to live, and spend as much time with them as possible. And those parents who chose AHC felt they were doing what was best for their child. What really stung, was reading their perspective that they were taking all the pain and suffering upon themselves, to assure their unborn child wouldn't receive any of it. Maybe I'm naive, but I didn't see that one coming.
I do understand that I can't expect those without a relationship with Christ to have the same thoughts, emotions and convictions that I have. But, even when you take God out of the equation, I realized as I read the article and the comments, that the bottom line was the same.
Gabe, this is what struck me most: Every mom and dad being represented was hurting. That was the whole point. We had ALL suffered a loss. The timelines may have been different, the circumstance not the same, but we all lost our babies. There were a lot of opinions about an existence of a "hierarchy of grief" when it comes to infant loss (a completely different debate), but one thing is certain - It is NOT as if the mother who made funeral arrangements had to endure sadness and the one who decided upon a "late-term medical abortion" was left without any melancholy emotions!
Every parent commenting experienced a loss, was grieving that heartache, and genuinely missed their child.
Why I am going into all of this with you? Well, just a few days ago I was informed that members of my own family continue to voice their opinion that your life should have been terminated. That I made the wrong decision. Right now I feel numb to their insensitivity. But I know there is anger boiling. I know they don't understand, they haven't had to be in these shoes. But it still hurts.
Because I realized way before your fatal diagnosis, the same thing I still know today - I love you so much. You are my son. Not past tense, present tense. That's why there are pictures of you in our home. That's why we talk to your brother and sisters about you. That's why we visit your gravesite and leave you little gifts. No matter what decision we would have made back in April of 2009, none of this would be different.
Gabriel, I'll be forever grateful that I carried you as long as God allowed. Every day with you safe inside me was a blessing. I miss you, little man. Say hey to Nanny for me.
Always,
Momma
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ReplyDeleteAs someone who's never faced that incredibly devastating choice, all I know for sure is that you and your husband are incredible parents and beautiful human beings. So I believe that you made the right choice for your child and your family. That's really all that matters in my mind.
ReplyDelete