Birth Story: USA
Submitted to Abort73 by a 16-year-old woman on January 1, 2012.
My birth mother, we'll call her Leah for privacy reasons, was living with her boyfriend when she discovered she was pregnant. I have one picture of her. She gave me a lot of her characteristics; dark hair, dark eyes, and short. She was a body builder. Unfortunately, body builders often use drugs and she did too. Up until discovering her pregnancy, Leah used crystal methamphetamine. That basically makes me a drug baby; I wasn't an ideal human anymore and might have a poor "quality of life." Her boyfriend, also a body builder, had no interest in a child, seeing me as a nuisance and bother, not a life. After all, Leah had taken drugs and that's not the best thing to do to ensure the health of a baby. He told her that if she didn't get an abortion, he would kick her out. Simple enough decision. She had no where to go. My very existence was an inconvenience that a basic procedure would fix, ridding her of her "fetus."
I wonder what the doctor told her. I wonder how the nurses assured her. What words did people use to convince her that I wasn't a life, that I had no future, that killing me was a practical choice. I wonder what they would think if they met me.
Leah made her appointment. Drove to the clinic. Walked in the door. Went into the room. Lay down on the table. Jeremiah 29:11 says "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." Me dying that day was not part of God's sovereign plan. Leah later told my birth parents what happened.
As she was lying there on that table, waiting for the doctor to go to work she heard God speak to her. He told her "No, you can't do this." She sat up, walked out, and never looked back.
My adoptive parents had been trying to adopt a child for 7 years. They had almost given up hope. But at the perfect time, God brought Leah to them through a private adoption agency. My parents were ready to quit and Leah was alone in the world. God was bigger and His plan larger than the pain they were feeling at the time. Despite Leah's drug relapse right before my birth, I popped out, a healthy baby girl.
Sometimes, I wish I could meet Leah. I want to thank her. I was inconvenient, I brought her suffering, but she, by God's grace, gave me life.
I don't know where you are in your life. I don't know your story. You might be a grown adult. I encourage you, vote for life. Do not support any legal measure that gives women the ability to kill their own children. If you are a parent, whose daughter has made a mistake, encourage her. Give her the support she needs to continue in her pregnancy and help her make a decision between keeping and raising the child or giving him up for adoption.
Leah never even told her parents about me. She knew she would receive only judgment and anger from them. Never tell your daughter that ego or other people's opinion is more important than her baby's life.
If you are a young man who has become a father, be a father. Don't act like Leah's boyfriend, who was so important to himself that he encouraged her to make a choice between his convenience and my life.
If you have a close friend who is pregnant with an unwanted baby, let them know that you and God love that baby. Offer whatever aid the mother might need. Tell her about her options. Be available to drive her to a counseling center or to a doctor. Do not gossip about her.
Finally, if you are a woman who is pregnant with a baby you don't want, who will inconvenience you, or you can't take care of, you have options. Thousands of couples can not have their own children and must wait for years before they can adopt. You can legally leave your baby on the door step of a Fire Department and they will find a home for him.
My mother chose life. I admire and love her for it. My life has been a continual road of blessing after blessing heaped upon me. Jeremiah 29 doesn't stop at verse 11 but continues with, "Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart." God has revealed himself to me and I have found Him. There is no greater joy. Your baby has the right to that as well.
I don't enjoy sharing this. It is personal. But I don't think God's miracles are meant to be kept secret. I hope and pray that my story may change some people's minds.
Age: 16
Location: USA
Date: January 1, 2012
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