(September 6, 2012 at 8:22 am)festive1 Wrote: HUGE difference between a glob of cells that has to grow and be nurtured in a woman's womb and a child. Babies can survive as long as they have access to food, admittedly for an infant to grow into a functioning, healthy adult they need significantly more than just food, but also being held, interacted with, and taught by the examples of their caregivers with how to interact with other people and their environment. The potential baby has to be fed and grow inside a woman's body. At the very least, whether a woman wants to carry the fetus to term is that woman's decision, and hers alone. Adoption is often seen as the "gentler" solution, but as a woman who has carried two babies to term (one of which was an unplanned pregnancy), I know it is often the case that women become bonded to the fetus long before it is viable outside of the womb. How heart wrenching is it to become bonded to a life then give it up? Far be it for me to say how an unplanned pregnancy should end. I at least allow some room for the woman's feelings. If she doesn't want a baby, and doesn't feel she would be strong enough emotionally to give it up, it's not up to me to decide for her.
P.S. The medical term for miscarriage is "spontaneous abortion."
From my experience, both having an abortion, and making an adoption plan were both extremely difficult.
The abortion was hard because I have already brought four incredible, beautiful, and intelligent children into the world, and I was angry at my body for being too weak to carry it to term. It was an extremely hard decision to have to make. I did it for reasons I have already stated, and I am at peace with the decision now.
The adoption, believe it or not, was much harder. I did grow fond of the little guy kicking inside me, and I loved him just like my others, but I was so swamped. I had a 4 year old boy, a two year old girl, and a 4 month old girl, but it's not that I couldn't have handled it if I had to. It's that I wanted him to have the best life possible. I felt my other children deserved as much attention as I could give them, and so I made a parenting decision that I felt was best for my family as a whole. Being a mother, a woman naturally puts us in positions like that, where we have to make hard decisions.
If my body had been in better shape after having 4 c-sections, I doubt I would've had the abortion. I'm not sure what I would've done. I know I am suing the hospital who performed my tubal ligation. Because of all the internal scar tissue, my doctors now are still having a hard time getting to the bottom of why I continued to get pregnant afterward, but they're sure it wasn't goddidit.
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