Note: This post is about suicide loss, suicidal ideation while pregnant, postpartum depression, and my views on abortion. If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts, please call the Suicide Hotline. 1-800-273-8255.
Had someone asked me five years ago whether terminating a pregnancy was murder, I probably would have nodded vigorously, casting no doubt that abortion was wrong. There was no gray area. God had a plan, and abortion wasn't part of it.
But my life has changed drastically since then. I lost my brother to suicide. I fell into the pits of grief, despair ruling my world, darkness overcoming my body, my life, my marriage.
Of course, it wasn't always bad.
Even in grief, I could find little pockets of joy. I even became pregnant just two months after Christian died. I was elated thinking this was a gift from God, maybe even a little blessing from my brother telling me how sorry he was for leaving. I treated my pregnancy like any other overjoyed mother-to-be would. I raced to make my first obstetrician appointment. I immediately told my parents, my friends without a second thought. I smiled. I cried. I expected everything to be perfect, even in the midst of grief from putting my little brother in the ground at the age of fifteen.
I wasn't okay.
Something they don't tell you is that pregnancy and grief don't mix well. With hormones raging and anger looming, a woman's thoughts turn sinister. I felt immense guilt about my brother dying. It was bad enough that I couldn't do anything to save him. Why should I be able to experience the gift of life? How could I be a good mother if I couldn't even pay attention enough to recognize the signs that he was hurting?
The intrusive thoughts came violently. I wanted to die. I should die. But then I would be labeled a murderer for killing my baby. No one would pay attention to me if I died. They would merely label me a baby killer, giving no thought to my mental state, that maybe I shouldn't have been pregnant at all. Of course, the shame set in, and that only made matters worse. I didn't deserve to live, to be a mom. How could I when this is how I thought?
Only...it wasn't me.
But how could I tell these things to my obstetrician when I had read horror story after horror story of women who had been arrested for opening up and asking for help. There was no way I would risk having my baby ripped away from me. I just had to survive.
Miraculously, I did.
I had a beautiful baby girl, a beautiful birth. I was going to be okay. Gone were the days of suicidal ideation while pregnant, of being scared that I might actually hurt myself. I forgot all about it as I stared into my darling little girl's eyes.
Until I fell pregnant again just four months later.
At first, I found it amusing. It was going to be an interesting ride. But ultimately, we would be okay. Right?
Wrong.
I had a hard pregnancy. It was painful just like the first one. My grief from losing Christian wasn't as fresh, but it still lingered in the background ready to pounce at any given moment. It did. Many times. Top that with pregnancy pains, a husband with a brand new job that kept him from home longer than expected, and the frustrations of being a new mother, and you've got yourself a recipe for prenatal depression.
Despite the intrusive thoughts and suicidal ideation returning and the shame nestling into the core of my soul, I made it. Again.
On the day before my scheduled induction, I tripped and fell while walking to my car. Right on my stomach. I froze. I couldn't answer the EMTs when they got to me.
They took me to the hospital--but not the one my OBGYN had scheduled me to have my son.
Because I was only 38 weeks despite having excess amniotic fluid which was the reason for my induction, the doctor on call for L&D refused to induce me right there. It was fine. She waited to see if I would dilate to a four and would then admit me to have the baby. She said she would break my water once I reached six centimeters to help me along, but per the hospital rules, she couldn't help me until that point.
She lied. She never came to see me until the very end. The point where I had been writhing in agony for upwards of five hours from a failed epidural, and intense pressure that told me I needed to push. Five. Hours. I was screaming. The nurse told me to be quiet, that I just needed to breathe. I tried to no avail. I asked for the OB. She said she was busy. I needed to push. She wouldn't let me. She said my body wasn't ready. But I knew it was.
I tried to advocate for myself. I pressed and pressed to have her break my water. It still hadn't broken, even at nine centimeters.
I don't remember what choice words I used in my delirium from the pain when the OB finally graced us with her presence, but I finally convinced the woman to break my water. Isaac came twenty minutes later. With a bump on his head from sitting in the birth canal for too long. I knew my body. I had known all along.
The birth experience alone gave me PTSD that lasts till this day, but my postpartum period was far scarier than anything I had experienced while pregnant mental health wise.
I won't go into detail for the safety of myself and my readers, but my experiences through pregnancy, birth, and beyond are the reasons why I and my husband have decided I will not be going through another pregnancy.
For the sake of my children and marriage, more babies are not in the cards for me or my family. The quality of life I want to provide for my kids supersedes any societal pressure to have more mouths to feed and bodies to clothe.
As soon as I was able, I met with my gynecologist and started on the pill. I was good for almost two years, but my mom brain took control, causing me to forget the pill more often. This obviously wasn't acceptable due to our family plan, so I recently switched to an IUD for more security.
But the PTSD and anxiety over the potential to get pregnant is still there. I am still traumatized by the grueling pregnancies I suffered despite the beautiful humans that emerged on the other side. I am still terrified, even two years later, of getting pregnant again. So much in fact that I rarely ever want to be touched. After all, birth control isn't one-hundred percent effective. But I'm a married woman who deserves to have a beautiful sex life, who shouldn't be subjected to the idea of celibacy in my monogamous partnership.
Why don't I just get a hysterectomy? Get my tubes tied? Or even removed?
Women's bodies are regulated every which way in America from birth control to tubal ligation to abortion. As a twenty-six-year-old woman who has only had two pregnancies and two children, it would be borderline impossible to find a doctor to perform any lasting surgeries on me. Most doctors and insurances require a woman to either be 35 or have had three or more pregnancies before they would even consider putting a woman under to give them permanent birth control.
Should my IUD fail and I fall pregnant, I would likely get an abortion.
Why?
Because at the end of the day, my children deserve a mother who is mentally fit, alive even, to be there for them. To hold them. To comfort them. To love them.
How would it be fair for my children to lose their mother because some random person who has never spoken to her thought she shouldn't be allowed to get an abortion? That somehow putting her own mental health and her children's quality of life above a pregnancy is grounds to be labeled a baby killer?
Words hurt. They cut like knives.
These faceless women being cast aside for terminating their pregnancies were handed an impossible choice. More often than not, a woman doesn't want to get an abortion. It's the last resort. But many have only allowed ignorant judgment to reign.
Choice isn't about loving or promoting abortion. It's simply allowing a woman full autonomy over her body, knowing what is right for her and the circumstances in which she finds herself.
I have never had an abortion, nor do I ever hope to be faced with a decision to have one performed. But I do hope that my story can shed some light on the matter, and maybe open up someone's heart to be filled with compassion for the impossible, painful lived experiences of women who have ever considered or had an abortion.
