Life Matters

People who know me well know that I am politically minded, perhaps to excess. I am a news and political commentary junkie, and express my opinions on current issues openly in face-to-face conversations. 

I have dialed back some of the vigor with which I engage in debate, and I hardly ever enter the fray online, since I find the lack of accountability and overall vitriol associated with the "mask" of the internet counterproductive when trying to have a legitimate conversation about the things that really matter. 

But I won't hold back in my opinion on this particular topic. First, because it has been a moral absolute for me since I was a teenager. Second, because it is so closely tied to everything I am dealing with in my own life right now.

Life matters.

I've said this before, in a variety of contexts. In some circles, it is met with nods of agreement and understanding. In others, it leads to a discussion of exceptions and extremes. And sadly, it has also been met with anger, accusation and demeaning attacks.

Life matters.

We are a day away from what I honestly, in the deepest parts of my soul, believe to be the greatest tragedy perpetrated against mankind, by mankind-the day that marks the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision of Roe vs. Wade. 

I am not debating the merits of the case that has redefined personal politics for over 40 years. 

I am stating something that I know now, more than ever to be true.

Life matters.

Since October, I have said goodbye to life. I firmly believe my first lost pregnancy in October was a twin pregnancy. I have no medical proof of that. I do have intuition and spiritual knowledge that has helped me to know that. Those babies came and went in the blink of an eye, but left an indelible mark on my life. And they were, contrary to what many would say, babies. Small as a grain of sand, but they were babies. They were life. 

My more recent loss, a little over two weeks ago, was more tangible. Pictures on the ultrasound tangible. Felt like a miracle tangible. A baby. A life created by people with the help of a talented physician and some powerful medication. Small, only a centimeter. A miniature peanut on the screen. An absolute life. 

The political fracas over abortion makes my head spin. Makes me sick. It always has. Now, more than ever. Because if those babies who are aborted 6, 8, 12, even up to 24 weeks are not life, then what are my little angels? 

Are they not life too? Were the moments I felt my heart connect to them and communicate with them nothing? Does the grief I feel over their in-utero deaths not exist?

We have devalued life to the point that we don't even recognize the miracle that exists when a life is created. It is an absolute, undeniable miracle.

I have watched dear friends lose children at different points. Some, when they were teenagers, and a gaping hole like none other has been left in the wake of their magnificent, sparkling, joyous lives. Others have lost babies after only days, and sometimes, minutes, of their birth. The hole left behind is no less real. Those lives mattered. They were miracles.

After three and a half years of trying to create a life, I am now, more than ever, convinced of its' majesty. It is no accident. It is not something to be made into a political fight. It has nothing to do with privacy. To end it, at any point, is a tragedy and I daresay, a sin that I cannot comprehend. 

I don't say this to ruffle feathers or pick a fight. 

I do say this to plead and implore that we each reexamine the value we place on life. 

There are medical considerations related to this subject that are hard to fit into my moral framework. I have had to work through those. My recent miscarriage came with the option of a D&C. I chose no, with the understanding it may become medically necessary. These things happen. Thank the Lord above for amazing medical advancements and technology.

But ending life out of choice, to stave off inconvenience, to run from responsibility, and sadly, even to avoid painful situations that leave horrible emotional scars, is something I cannot understand and will never support.

Life begins with the miracle of conception. Every life has a purpose. Every life is beautiful. 

Today, and for many days to come, I will weep for my own sweet angels, whose lives DO matter, and will matter forever.

I will also weep, as I have for many years, for the more than 55 million lives of babies that have ended since 1973. Their lives mattered. They DO matter. They will matter in the hereafter. 

I pray for those who have lost children, at any age, including before birth. I pray without judgement and with endless compassion for those who have chosen abortion in their own lives, that they will find peace and healing. 

I pray for us as a collective humanity, that we will see the value in all life - no matter how small. 

I close with the words of the blessed Mother Teresa from her courageous address to the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in 1994, for she has said perfectly what I feel in my own heart. 

"But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even His life to love us. So, the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love, that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts.

By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems. And, by abortion, that father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. The father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion...

But what does God say to us? He says: “Even if a mother could forget her child, I will not forget you. I have carved you in the palm of my hand.” We are carved in the palm of His hand; that unborn child has been carved in the hand of God from conception and is called by God to love and to be loved, not only now in this life, but forever. God can never forget us."

~Mother Teresa, February 5, 1994,
The National Catholic Prayer Breakfast

Life matters.

Loss

For eleven days, we lived a dream. 

For eleven days, we were parents.

Fourteen days after our third IUI, there were two pink lines. Something I had waited years to see. 

There were kisses and tears and excitement flowed between us. We tempered our excitement with realism, knowing we needed to have a blood test for confirmation. The blood test came back positive. But my HCG levels were low. Only a 24. Low, but ripe with promise and potential. 36 hours later, they were at 60 and on track for a steady rise. We scheduled a 6 week ultrasound. 

We let close family and a few friends know. We held each other close. I prayed every day, saying "strong baby, healthy baby," over and over. I named our little angel "nugget" and hoped that he or she would hold on and be ours forever. 

I bought pants that would stretch with me for a few months. I started thinking about paint colors for the guest room. I read everything I could about having a healthy first trimester.

My body changed. I was exhausted. Sore. In desperate need to upgrade my bra size. Moody. Hungry, Bloated. Slightly crampy. Nauseated. 

Then, nine days after the test, five a half weeks into my pregnancy, the pain started. Tuesday and Wednesday nights were awful. I didn't sleep. I couldn't go to work. I clutched my tummy and just prayed it was progesterone side effects. The pain stopped. I went to work on Thursday morning. I started bleeding lightly. I threw up in the bathroom and left work immediately.

I went home, called the doctor frantically. I went in for a scan, and the ultrasound didn't show anything. No yolk sac. No heartbeat. It was still early, and possible that nothing would show up. I was sent to get blood work done. We held out hope that things were okay. 

Friday morning, there was a gush of red, and we knew. Our angel was gone. Tears and sobs and desperate aching. My blood levels showed a miscarriage. "Spontaneous abortion" was the official diagnosis.

So now I wait. Wait for the bleeding and pain to stop. Wait for the nightmare to end and dawn to break. Wait to be able to choke out a sentence without feeling like I am going to vomit. 

Three years. Three IUIs. Countless shots. Thousands of dollars. A million wishes and prayers and hopes. Gone in a moment and in a rush of blood.

I am exhausted and weak and broken. I do not understand. 

I awoke this morning with a horrible thought. The thought that I flushed my baby down the toilet yesterday morning. 

There are those that will try to placate me and say, "it was so early." Or, "it wasn't a baby yet."

They don't understand. In that magical moment when divinely appointed conception occurs, it is a baby. It is a life. It is full of hope and promise and that baby, small as a poppy seed, contains all of the promise of life. 

I know that early miscarriages happen because things aren't right. Genetically. Developmentally. They are Heavenly Father's way of mercifully taking care of things as gently and naturally as possible. 

Mercy hurts like hell. 

So we wait. And we pray. And I bleed. And I yell and cry and hit the wall. And I love my little angel that I miss desperately already.

We're not ready to talk about things in depth, but as we have opened our life and struggle to so many, we share the new of this tragedy and our deep sorrow as well. 

We'll try again. And again. And again. We will have a family.

And someday, we will meet our angel baby and my tears of sadness will turn to tears of joy and understanding.