Individual beads of sweat rolled down the center of my back while simultaneously tears glided down my flushed cheeks, and leapt from my sorrowful face. There were so many tears, and each minute drop felt larger than those that preceded it. I was sure that we would have a massive flood on our hands or at the very least, that these tears would dehydrate me. A sterile medical stench crept through the halls like an invisible ghost that came only to haunt me, and it made my stomach turn. At the same time an obnoxious beeping noise fills my ears. The annoying noise stemming from machines, their tubes fused to my wrists like handcuffs imprisoning me by surrounding my bed. These machines were no doubt controlling the morphine drip that confused my mind, but only masked the pain for which it was meant to control.

I was joined solely by my husband, the only one I knew strong enough to bare the weight. A heavy burden that brought even him to his knees, and caused his baby blues to leak profusely. This was an event as rare as a moonless night sky. Never will I forget the aftershock felt so deep and so long. The massive quake stretched from my head to my heart, a jolt that knocked the center of my life off its course. As my heart and soul lay broken and imprisoned in my own private hell, I prayed for the stabbing in my chest to stop. I prayed for life to remove its sword from my back and release me. One would think that this night could not get any worse, and yet I knew what I had come here to do.

By suggesting the unthinkable, my doctor saved my life. A decision to choose death became a life decision. I delivered her in the early morning hours, when merely a faint glow of amber light slid through the hospital’s vertical window-blinds creating the illusion of bars on the walls. This made my prison cell complete. I glance at her just briefly, but long enough to prove to myself and to my mind that it was over; or was it?

Another nauseating decision follows, bury or cremate? Never a decision I expected to make for a child of mine, a life I had helped create. I had sacrificed a life for that of my own, all the while knowing that her life would have ended either way. Somehow that information does not give immediate comfort! Either way she was bound to cross over, I just chose not to go with her.

For that decision alone, I am chastised and kicked aside by almost all that I know. The people I thought loved me actually wanted me to die! The very persons I thought would support and stand by me, acted quickly to demonize me. After all, in their minds, I had interrupted “God’s plan”. Those individuals close to us were swift to show their true faces and lack of approval for my decision to continue living. Some even convinced themselves that it had occurred naturally so they would not have conflict with me or what I have done. It was more than a slap in the face that my life meant little compared to personal beliefs.

It seemed no one saw the courage and strength that this choice takes therefore my circle of family and friends has shrunk dramatically, and I have developed some problems with trusting people. My husband and I had to move quickly to restore some of the damage that had been done, both emotionally and physically. However there are some cracks that will never be filled, and some betrayals never to be forgotten. The cuts and bruises may heal but the scares (even the undetectable ones) remain.

We locked away the room with the white scalloped wooden crib, matching changing table, and pretty pink dresses. I took one last look around as the circular mobile moved gently, when the breeze from the air conditioner gave it reason to.

We locked away the dolls and stuffed animals with blank soulless stares that adorned their faces, while they waited patiently for a princess that would not arrive. Neither of us knowing what to do with them, nor wanting to deal with the hurt of the loss.

Only one month after the biggest decision of my life, she came back to me. And in eight months she was more beautiful than we could have ever imagined, she is also perhaps stronger willed than I. We opened the locked away tower room, and if the dolls and stuffed animals could have smiled I am convinced they would have. I realized they had waited for her more patiently than I had, and with greater hope. They seemed to know all along that she would be late to her ball, but that she would be there. She has shown me that this was a true test of time. That sometimes the hardest decisions in life are often the ones worth making yourself. But also that learning to trust your judgment as apposed to those around you is extremely important.

No one can possibly know what something feels like unless they are going through it themselves, and even then I am confident that it is still not comparable.

To this day I stand by my decision not to give up on my life for what others think is wrong or right. No longer will I let others make life changing decisions for me; if I have the right to choose the things that are appropriate for me, my family, and my way of life.

Now when asked why I feel the way I do about abortion, I need only to think of my children. My thirteen year old son (who still has a mom) and my four year old daughter (who along with me would not be here otherwise) they affirm my decision to abort and the right to have made it.