On this very day last year I publicly shared my testimony and wanted to share it on this blog as well. I woke up that morning and immediately my mind wandered, just like it does most of the time. I knew that day was coming; I had thought about that day for years. I hadn’t planned to blog about the significance of that date but there I found myself writing. I started writing just to let go of the baggage I carried but also so that one day my boys could read about their momma’s testimony and know how much I wanted to be their mommy. On that day, I decided to share with whoever was reading whether it was just one person or 3,000 people what that day means to me.
I prayed and pleaded with God about what He wanted for my life. I finally let go and let God speak to me. This is what I heard, “My love, you think you’re finished with your story, but you have no clue. There is one thing that you and I both know you think about secretly in the dark that I want you to bring to light. HELP my children.” He told me to deal with this, speak the word, and finish my story.
Today, I’m wishing a Happy 16th Birthday to my UNBORN BABY… due date January 5, 1998.
Why am I telling something so personal? Believe me, I NEVER wanted to. God convicted my heart one day and it hasn’t stopped yearning for these unborn babies. I want to help the people who have made this decision to forgive themselves and I want to hopefully convince someone who is contemplating abortion that you don’t just “do it” and it’s over. You have to deal with this for the rest of your life. I have eleven years of school pictures I’ve missed out on and I want them to understand that this decision will affect them for the rest of their lives. Here’s my story:
Matthew 19:14 Jesus said, “Let the little children
come to me, and do not hinder them, for the
kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
I found out a few days before I graduated from high school that I was pregnant. I didn’t believe in killing a baby and I didn’t want to kill this baby. A baby made out of sin, yes, but it was my baby. My boyfriend didn’t want me to keep the baby and even told me I didn’t have a choice, that I was having an abortion. I begged him to let me keep the baby and even told him child support wasn’t needed. I was already showing and attached to my baby. I was almost at the limit to have an abortion which made it that much more difficult. I was over three months. I had been reading up on pregnancy and trying to eat healthier so my baby could grow big and strong in my womb. I was willing to do this as a single mother and never ask one thing of him, but he didn’t care.
I had always believed that a baby is a human from conception and you could never convince me otherwise. Others told me it was just an embryo and to think of it like it was a fish. But I knew its heart was beating and God knew that baby before it was in my womb. Regardless, I allowed myself to be taken to the abortion clinic. I cried as we were walking up. As I lay on that cold table with my feet in stirrups, looking at the doctor that was going to take this life out of me, I wondered if he had kids. I wondered what he thought about what I was doing. I wondered if he knew I didn’t want to do it, that I had been threatened and convinced otherwise. When he stuck that ultrasound tool on me to see where the baby was and how far along I was he didn’t move the monitor where I couldn’t see. I looked at that perfect baby floating around and moving in my womb. I saw life. In less than one minute, that life would no longer be in my womb, it would stop growing instantly and there would be no more creation inside of me. It was already a human being growing, forming, so it could look like me and every other human being that God had created. Two years from that moment, it would have been giggling and jabbering and writing all over the walls. I saw creation and life, even through my sin.
I had an abortion that day, with a baby that was due in January of the following year, a baby that I think of everyday of my life and always will. That baby was made out of sin, and so have a million more babies that have grown up to serve God in powerful ways. I left that clinic that day, and I was no longer pregnant. God cried that day and I cried with Him. I was sick with myself. We had just eliminated a problem that would have only been in the way of our future. This baby needed my womb to survive in a little while longer and it had been destroyed, without even knowing how to fight or cling to me for dear life.
That day I did something I would take back right now, only to see that child’s smile, only so I could have been a better person a lot sooner. I look around my house, and sometimes my imagination runs wild enough to imagine that my now 16 yr old child would have been a Christian by now. Maybe if it was a girl, we’d be getting pedicures together today or maybe if it was a boy, he’d be pitching the baseball to my husband. Maybe this child of mine would have braces and be coming up to me right now to ask if their friend could spend the night. Just maybe…. I wish this part of my life could be turned the other way around. Maybe I would have considered abortion but in the end decided against it and had the baby. Then I wouldn’t have to wonder who it was. A boy or a girl? My child would have a name and a personality and a LIFE.
There’s always reasons, they say, that life turns out the way it is. What reason was there for this? I had just killed my own child. How could God ever love and forgive such a shameful act when I couldn’t even forgive myself? My baby never had the chance to breathe one breath outside of my womb. Babies fight for their lives every single day and parents grieve because their baby didn’t make it. How could people be so selfish and how could I now be one of those people? I never got to see what God could have made out of such a tragedy.
I was now going through the worst depression of my life. The pain of holding my stomach and no longer eating for two and preparing for our future hit me hard every single day that my belly wasn’t growing. I never felt those first kicks. I never got that chance. Being a mommy was all I wanted since I was 13. I was 18 now and didn’t have a clue where my life was going. I was so depressed that I just did not care about anything. I tried so hard to move on. I wasn’t happy and really never moved forward or tried to get my life back on the right path. The depression kept me in the same cycle and I found myself pregnant again just 4 months after my first abortion.
Yes, I had gotten pregnant again. I became angry all over again, total opposite of what I thought I would feel to have the chance to be a mommy again. What I had imagined wasn’t what I was feeling at all. This time I was mad that a new baby was in there when the other baby should have been in there. I resented this pregnancy because I shouldn’t have been five weeks pregnant; I should have been seven or eight months pregnant. I was so blurred and clouded with confusion, that I didn’t beg this time, I didn’t plead to keep this baby. We’re supposed to learn from our mistakes. I hadn’t learned from mine. I lay on that same table with my legs up in stirrups, and I don’t mean to make light of this situation. To me, I saw it for what it was. There is no way I would have been pregnant if I had not had the first abortion. I should be wobbling around with a huge belly and feeling the baby move and curl up inside me, feeling life. Instead I felt nothing. I didn’t deserve to be a mother.
By this time I truly felt that I didn’t deserve happiness or anyone to love. Not after what I had done. I deserved to be condemned to Hell, the place I wouldn’t want my worst enemy to be.
Through my abortions, I’ve learned that life can be redeemed, that I have been redeemed. I’ve learned that God does forgive me and that He does still love me. I’ve learned that I do deserve to be loved and I’ve learned that my friends still love me, despite my previous choices. I’ve learned that abortion is not an easy answer and the problem isn’t gone within minutes. I’ve learned that the effects of abortion are life-long. I hurt every day and every year for the children I do not have in my arms.
I had always worried about judgment from others. I no longer worry about that. I’ve figured out that even the “perfect” people have baggage and they too have made mistakes. But know this, I only share my testimony because I want people to know who I am, why I believe in a God I’ve never seen, and how I long to fulfill His purpose through me. I know what abortion is and I know the effects they cause a woman. Choose life for your child and don’t make the same mistakes I did.
-Shayna