Being a Pro-life Activist

This blog has been a long time coming.  I guess you could say I've been a pro-lifer since I've known how babies were made. ;)  I have had several friends starting from high school throughout, that became pregnant and struggled with the decision to have the baby or not.  I always found myself in the position pleading with them to "keep the baby, put it up for adoption."  I had, every time, lost the battle. Each of them decided to have an abortion.

I connected every one of their babies. Feeling extremely sad for each and every baby aborted. I also felt sad for the Mom and the regret that I'm sure she would feel, if not immediately, I'm sure at some point, when she realizes exactly what she did.  I pray for the babies soul and the Mom's healing mentally and Spiritually.

At one point I begged an extremely close friend of mine's parents to not let their daughter have an abortion. I lost that battle, not that it is a fight between me and the Mom or the Parents. It is a fight for the unborn, to "Speak Out for the Silent Ones."  I am still friends with her and have been for 31 years and love her parents dearly.  She regrets her choice and says she thinks about it daily and struggles with having horrible nightmares.  It hurts me for her.  I pray for her and her Parents and the soul of her baby.

The latest abortion that I pleaded for the babies life has gotten to me really bad.  It has made my decision to not only be a pro-lifer, but an active pro-lifer.  This one is one of a good friend of mine who was almost 20 weeks along.  I had just gone to a birthday party for her other 4 kiddos, all of them girls and this one was to be a girl as well. I was so excited, as was she.  I asked her if I could feel her belly.  I felt her pregnant belly and bonded with that baby as I have with all of God's children.  We sat and talked about what she was going to name her,  if she was feeling her move and all the fun stuff that comes with pregnancy. It was such a fun time.

A couple of weeks later she got an amnio done, a test done to determine if there are any abnormalities with the baby and can even determine the sex of the baby.  This test, however, was done upon her request, her second one (That I know of, the other was done with her previous baby).  She had a family member that had a baby that had down syndrome and she wanted to make sure her baby was going to be "normal."

I talked with her the whole time as she waited for the test results to come back.  The results taking longer than expected...the worries were getting higher and higher for her.  I tried calming her.  I reminded her of our own experience that we went through with our last baby. We took the triple screen blood test that pregnant women of a certain age take, suggested by the doctor, that check for spina bifida, down syndrome and another disorder.  Ours came back with an exceptionally high probability for down syndrome.

My husband and I were together when we got "the call" from our nurse. I remember it like it was yesterday.  Speaking to the nurse through tears and trying to sound positive on the phone with her that I told her no matter what we love this baby and this baby is God's gift to us and our family.  She said she understood and that she would be praying for us.  There are a lot of false positives, but this test came back a real high probability.  She set up our appointment to go get our high-def ultrasound done and she even gave me her cell phone number to let her know what we found out after the appointment.  She was so sweet.

We had prayed and did a lot of research trying to get a head start on something that would be brand new for us. We went to get the ultrasound where we, up until that point, thought we were having a boy.  We were pleasantly surprised to find out we were having our third girl.  Everything looked "normal" on the ultrasound.  We were relieved, until the Doctor then told us that 60% of Downs babies show up "normal" on an ultrasound.  He then suggested we have an amnio done.  I immediately said "no." There can be risks with amnios and if I didn't have to have one, I wasn't going to.  We were keeping our sweet baby regardless, so why even worry about getting the amnio, just to know faster?!?!?  The Doctor told us that 90% of people with a downs baby abort.  My Hubby did NOT appreciate him saying that.  It was as if he was suggesting we do the same.  He told the doctor we WILL NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE ABORT OUR BABY AND TO NEVER SUGGEST IT AGAIN.

We went through the remainder of the pregnancy not knowing, but prepared ourselves through prayer, research and talking to parents of downs children.  We had prayers all around us. We did not worry, we kept Faith.  We loved her and that pregnancy was the best one out of all three of mine.   Finally the "day" came when we got to meet our little girl, our gift from God.  She was born and I asked the assisting Physician "Does she have down syndrome?" He looked at me like I was crazy and asked "Why? were you worried about that or something?" I told him the situation and he told me "No, she is healthy and doesn't have downs."

She is now over 2 years old and I look at her and am reminded of that time in our lives.  We are very blessed. I thank God for her and I also thank God for opening our eyes to Downs and giving both my Hubby and I a great appreciation for Downs babies, children, adults and their parents.  If it wasn't for that situation we wouldn't have given it much thought.  Now I want to hug every Downs baby and child I see.  I love them all.

Getting back to my friend, her test results finally came back and they said that her baby girl had Downs.  She had told me when I was going through all that that with mine, she didn't think she would be able to have one, the look alone.  She was pregnant with her fourth child when she told me this and I prayed that her baby did not have Downs. I was scared of what reaction she would have and action she would take.  Her fifth baby girl's test results came back positive for Downs.  She said she didn't know what she was going to do.  I told her from that moment, "If you aren't going to keep the baby, please give the sweet baby a chance at life and give her up for adoption."  I talked to her the whole time since she found out to news ,the drive to the clinic, before and after she got dilated,after the baby was aborted, and as they drove home to their four other children.

I had called different friends trying to seek help requesting adoption,  posted prayers in the prayer group.  I had three people wanting to adopt her child. I told her. I had also told her about a friend of mine that worked in a lab and said some of the amnio results end up being wrong, because maybe it was left out too long or even results sent to the wrong person, but none of it mattered.  She said she was scared that no one would adopt her.  I will never understand abortion, especially when there is another option.

ADOPTION IS THE OPTION