Client story 2 – Lisa’s Story – Uncovering a Mother’s Grief
The call was like many others that day: a woman in a crisis pregnancy wanting to know how far along she was. Lisa had called several abortion clinics, but they couldn’t give her a price for the procedure without knowing the baby’s gestational age. She accepted our offer for a free ultrasound and came into Emergency Pregnancy Services the next day.
After reviewing her information on the intake form, I noticed that Lisa had already had several abortions. I asked how she felt after the abortions. My hope was that revisiting that pain would open the door to choosing life and spare her that suffering again. Unfortunately, she said she felt no remorse or pain as a result of her decisions. The fact that she had other children and had experienced all the joys of being a mother convinced me there had to be more to her story. Something must have drastically changed in her life to warrant this disregard for the life inside her. Lisa must have known that rush of joy holding your newborn for the first time, so what could be so overwhelming that it was numbing any desire to feel that again?
During our counseling session I was finally able to discover her reason for choosing abortion. Lisa told me that she had lost her 7-month old baby to SIDS the previous year. Since her son’s death, she wasn’t able to hold babies or even think about having another one. She was never counseled about the death of her son and her grief was complicated by numerous issues including not knowing her baby’s cause of death for months. Her repeated abortions were an attempt to protect herself. The overwhelming pain from the loss of her son was preventing her from opening herself up to love another baby.
During her ultrasound we found that she was 18 weeks pregnant and she began to cry. Lisa knew that an abortion clinic would still do the procedure, but feared that she couldn’t afford one since the baby was this far along. I was able to get several very endearing pictures of the baby and began to see some love and compassion in the mother’s eyes. After finishing the scan, I provided her with resources for dealing with the death of her child. She agreed to a referral for grief counseling and was given a book called “When Your Baby Dies”. By the end of our session, Lisa had already begun to consider continuing her pregnancy and seemed relieved that someone had identified the pain she was feeling. At EPS, we care about the woman and her baby. In order to protect this unborn child, I knew we needed to help this mother heal.
A few days later, Lisa called to set up another ultrasound appointment. She shared with us that she had read most of the book already and was even reading parts of it with her other children. So many terrible things happened around the loss of her son, and sadly, her unborn children were paying the ultimate price. She will always feel pain for her son, but after someone took the time to ask the right questions and get her much needed help, her heart began to heal.
Sometimes, hurts run so deep that we feel we can never love again and we believe that the pain of another loss would be crushing. While some women abort with callous disregard for life, many others are running from a pain pushed deep inside. The counselors at EPS are careful to dig beneath the surface when counseling abortion-vulnerable women, as the answers are not always what they initially appear to be.
Clients Stories 1| Clients Stories 2| Clients Stories 3 | Ultrasound video (Popup)