If God Forbid, One of My Girls Has to Experience What I Did They Could Be Charged with a Crime
I’m not here to take a pro-life OR pro-choice stance or try to convince anyone of what they should believe, but legislation that various states are trying to pass once Roe V Wade is overturned should scare the crap out of us all. Male, female, LGBTQ+, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles. All of us. Under some of these proposed laws, women can and will be charged with a crime if their bodies don’t do what ‘they’ think they should.
Let me back up for a minute and tell my story. In the spring of 2006, I found out I was pregnant. The pregnancy wasn’t planned, but my husband at the time and I, along with our other children, were very excited. Like other pregnancies before, I began to have morning sickness almost as soon as I found out I was pregnant. I made an appointment with the OB who had delivered my son the previous spring and she suggested we schedule an ultrasound. As I walked into this appointment alone, I had no idea my excitement would soon fade to heartbreak. The ultrasound technician seemed to take forever to complete the scan. I had a feeling right away that something was wrong when she turned the screen so that I couldn’t see it. I heard clicking and typing for what seemed like an eternity. She finally ended the scan and said someone would be in to see me shortly. I said, “Is everything ok? Can I see and hear the heartbeat?” Again, she replied, “Someone will be in to see you.” My heart sank, but I still clung to hope. Then, I received the heartbreaking news. My baby had stopped growing and did not have a heartbeat.
Because the baby was measuring two weeks less than how far along I should have been, it was recommended that I have a D&C immediately. I couldn’t wrap my head around this. There had to be some mistake. Maybe I just wasn’t as far along as I thought I was, the baby would catch up, but it was just too early to see the heartbeat. So, instead of scheduling a D&C, I asked to schedule another ultrasound. The doctor was rather annoyed with me and tried to assure me that my pregnancy had ended and nothing was going to change that. I refused to believe it. I still felt pregnant and I just couldn’t get past the feeling that I was making the choice to end my pregnancy prematurely. The OB finally agreed to the second ultrasound. I came back the following week and nothing had changed. My OB said I had no choice but to schedule a D&C as I was suffering from a missed miscarriage and there was a real concern about me developing an infection. I cried and begged and pleaded for more time. She reluctantly agreed to yet another ultrasound the following week but also scheduled me for a D&C right after the ultrasound appointment. My head knew what the outcome was going to be, but my heart didn’t want to believe it.
I spent the next week praying. Praying for a miracle, praying we’d see a heartbeat, but also praying for peace in the event the D&C needed to happen. The day of the third ultrasound appointment and D&C arrived and I felt like my legs were made out of lead as I made my way into the hospital. My OB would be performing the ultrasound this time. She looked nearly as heartbroken as I felt as she told me we would indeed need to proceed with the scheduled D&C. My world crumbled and I cried as I’d never cried before. She held my hand and teared up and told me she was going to be with me the entire time and everything was going to be ok. They began prepping me for surgery and all I could do was cry. A short while later my OB came in and once again took my hand and said it was time for me to be put under. I was still crying as I drifted off to sleep. When I woke up I felt a sadness and heaviness, unlike anything I’d felt before, or have experienced since. She gave me some medicine to help with the pain and sent me home.
When we got home, I curled up in bed and cried and just willed myself to fall asleep so I could escape the emotional pain I was feeling. The next thing I know I’m waking up in excruciating pain. I’d never been through a miscarriage or a D&C, so I didn’t really know what to expect and just assumed this was part of it. It was time that I could have pain medicine so I took it and tried to lay back down. The pain kept getting worse and worse and then I developed chills. I called my husband at work and told him I was hurting very badly and he asked if I had taken my medication, said he was sorry I was hurting and maybe the medicine just hadn’t had time to kick in. I went to the bathroom and had way more bleeding than I thought was typical, based on what the OB had told me to expect. I immediately started experiencing even more pain and I began rolling around on the bathroom floor in agony and finally came to rest curled up in a ball on the floor. As I began shaking uncontrollably, I decided I needed to call the OB’s office to see if there was something stronger she could give me for the pain. I was able to leave a message with her nurse and was told someone would be getting back to me. A few minutes later I received a phone call saying my OB had called in a stronger pain medication to my pharmacy and I was advised to take it as soon as possible. I couldn’t even stand up, so I knew there was no way I could make it to the pharmacy. I called my husband, at the time, back and asked him if he could go pick up the medicine. When he brought it home, I was writhing around on our bathroom floor, moaning. He gave me the pills and asked if this was normal and if I should be in so much pain. I said I wasn’t sure. He felt my forehead and said I was burning up, so he waited with me for a few minutes to see if the Tylenol and new medicine kicked in. As the minutes passed my pain increased, my shaking grew more severe and I just knew something wasn’t right. About the time we decided to call the OB back, my phone rang and it was her. I explained what was going on and she said I needed to report to the emergency room immediately.
By the time we arrived at the hospital, I was in so much pain and shaking so badly I couldn’t even move. He ran inside for a wheelchair and wheeled me inside. The woman at the admissions desk was asking me questions I couldn’t answer. I could barely think and things seemed to be fading. I was freezing, I was shaking, I was in tremendous pain and I couldn’t make myself focus. I was admitted and tests were run pretty quickly. We were soon told that I had developed sepsis from the missed miscarriage, had gone into septic shock and my kidneys were shutting down.
If you don’t know what septic shock is, it’s when your body is overcome by a widespread infection. This life-threatening condition causes low blood pressure and organ failure. If treated promptly, most people with mild cases (I was told mine was not mild) usually recover quite quickly, but more severe cases have a 40% mortality rate. I still get chills thinking about what could have happened if we hadn’t gotten to the hospital when we did, or worse yet what would’ve happened if I had continued to put off having the D&C procedure or had refused it altogether. Thankfully, I fully recovered after a week in the ICU and multiple IV antibiotics.
This is where we circle back to my reason behind sharing my story. This is why I am terrified, shocked, and angered. If these laws pass and one of my daughters has a similar experience to mine she can be denied the very same procedure that saved my life. My baby was already dead and I would have died too if I hadn’t sought treatment when I did. If she is able to get the procedure, she could be charged and treated as a criminal. Regardless of what your stance is on abortion, this shouldn’t sit well with you. I can’t wrap my head around any woman, or man, thinking this is ok. My medical paperwork says I had an abortion. I loathe that word and I loathe the fact it’s on my records as such. I had a life-saving procedure that removed my deceased baby from my body because my body failed to do so on its own.
As much pain as my experience caused, I can’t imagine having to go through losing a baby and either being denied treatment or being treated like a criminal because my body failed me. This is what our daughters and granddaughters could be up against. 26 states are ready to proceed with various bans on women’s bodies as soon as SCOTUS overturns Roe V Wade. I live in Missouri, a state that is already gearing up to pass legislation making IUDs and the morning-after pill illegal for women. So, we’re telling women they must carry their baby to term regardless of if their life is at risk, how she came to be pregnant, or any other factor and we’re also slowly taking away the options she has to prevent such a pregnancy. It’s time to wake up, use our voices, and demand to stop being treated like our lives and bodies don’t matter.
If you want your voice to be heard, GO HERE to sign the Ban Off Our Bodies petition, and join a local march near you (May 14, 2022).
If you are grieving the loss of a pregnancy, CLICK HERE for Pregnancy & Infant Loss Support.
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