A polite, soft spoken 38 year old woman came to our office hoping that she had a miscarriage.
A month prior to her office visit she was seen at a local emergency room with bleeding. She was told she was carrying twins.
Her bleeding continued on and off for the next month. Her pregnancy symptoms though had not gone away as she had hoped.
During her visit, with her eyes lowered, she explained that she was a single mom of a 9 year old girl with severe developmental delays. She had to stay at home to care for this very sick child as she had no extended family. She was not able to trust anyone else and she was not able to seek work.
The boyfriend who fathered this new twin gestation was inconsistent in his affections and support.
She could not afford to raise the twins and take care of her other child alone. Her life was already impossible.
She had hoped that nature would have recognized her exhaustion and her depression and would have naturally ended the twin gestation in a miscarriage. This is how she had interpreted the bleeding. She had hoped that nature would have helped her. Yet, that was not the case.
After deliberating for a few days, she called the National Abortion Federation with a request for financial assistance, which they promptly provided. She wanted to have a pregnancy termination.
There was a solemn silence in the operating room during the procedure.
I witnessed a tactful distance from the support staff. The ultrasound technician who was monitoring the safe placement of the instruments looked away during the procedure. My surgical assistant kept busy with the instruments straightening them as she has never done before.
The patient was comfortably sedated yet crying quiet tears as she tried to peek at the ultrasound screen.
I performed the surgery feeling powerful mixed emotions….
I was very sad for the twins who would not be in this life….
I was proud of my staff for their committed care even though their conscience would not bear the sight of the procedure….
I felt the pain of this patient whose heart was crying for the loss of these two lives, yet marvelling at the strength of her commitment to her sick daughter.
On my way home late at night, I had tears too. I was touched by the courage of choice.
I was thinking about this patient who was on her way home that evening. She was going home to a severely disabled child. There would be no boyfriend to hug her and comfort her. There would be no family members with whom to share dinner.
In the quiet of her evening hours she would go over the events of the day and probably cry herself to sleep wondering if hope and love would be in her life….
As I approached home, I had a few thoughts that filled my heart with gentle wonder:
Women are very strong, very courageous and very beautiful human beings. They are capable of finding strength to keep their love and their commitments in the face of daunting adversity and crippling loneliness.
They face their conscience yet forgive, live, hope and love…
Women are miracles…………