While we're on the subject of ultrasound images of masses of pregnancy tissue:
At first, the pregnancy tissue didn’t seem aware of the cannula. It gently probed the pregnancy tissue's side, and for a quick second I felt relief. Of course, I thought. The fetus doesn’t feel pain. I had reassured countless women of this as I’d been taught by Planned Parenthood. The fetal tissue feels nothing as it is removed. Get a grip, Abby. This is a simple, quick medical procedure. My head was working hard to control my responses, but I couldn’t shake an inner disquiet that was quickly mounting to horror as I watched the screen.
The next movement was the sudden jerk of a tiny foot as the pregnancy tissue started kicking, as if it were trying to move away from the probing invader. As the cannula pressed its side, the pregnancy tissue began struggling to turn and twist away. It seemed clear to me that it could feel the cannula, and it did not like what it was feeling. And then the doctor’s voice broke through, startling me.
“Beam me up, Scotty,” he said lightheartedly to the nurse. He was telling her to turn on the suction — in an abortion the suction isn’t turned on until the doctor feels he has the cannula in exactly the right place.
I had a sudden urge to yell, “Stop!” To shake the woman and say, “Look at what is happening to your pregnancy tissue! Wake up! Hurry! Stop them!”
But even as I thought those words, I looked at my own hand holding the probe. I was one of “them” performing this act. My eyes shot back to the screen again. The cannula was already being rotated by the doctor, and now I could see the tiny body violently twisting with it. For the briefest moment the pregnancy tissue looked as if it were being wrung like a dishcloth, twirled and squeezed. And then it crumpled and began disappearing into the cannula before my eyes. The last thing I saw was the tiny, perfectly formed backbone sucked into the tube, and then it was gone. And the uterus was empty. Totally empty.
4 comments:
Ah...brings back happy memories of my miscarriage, when the doctor showed me my uterus and it was empty. Totally, blessedly EMPTY.
One woman's dead baby is another woman's blessing!
Wow, what a cold statement.
I'll remember that when I'm holding my two deceased BLESSINGS in heaven for the first time ever.
My miscarriages were anything but happy.
Would you be so blissfully content if you (or a friend) had a dead toddler instead of a dead fetus?
Army wife, I am honestly sorry for your losses.
But I had nothing but JOY about my own. I was talking about me -- not you. Where is it written that every woman MUST he happy about every pregnancy, in every situation?
A similar situation: Someone I knew was her grandmother's caregiver. Her grandmother was mentally ill and abusive, and made her life hell. When she finally died, my friend felt no sadness or sorrow -- nothing but great relief, deliverance from a bad situation. My friend has truly happy memories of her grandmother's death.
I did not take her story personally, even though losing my own grandmother was very hard.
I repeat: One person's blessing is another person's curse. One person's joy is another person's sorrow.
And I am talking only of myself and my own feelings, not others.
L.....I would suggest that your icely, cold comment is indicative of a total lack of any maternal emotion and you should have been sterilized BEFORE you had an occasion to celebrate your childs death! Surely you have happily undergone that procedure and thrown yourself a large party by now!?
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