Audrey: A Survivor's Story

From Peace Needs Water:

"I was a survivor of abortion. I can remain silent no more." --Audrey

One day when I was in third grade, my mom and dad asked me to sit down for a talk. They began by saying that since I was very little, my parents always found me sleeping curled tightly in the fetal position, buried in the covers and always to one side of the bed. I had a recurring nightmare of being trapped in a room with a window blocked by a knife, and they said they often found me talking to my "other self." My mom said she though these were signs telling her to confess something she had done and hoped I would forgive her.

She told me how, at 39, with her 5 children grown... she had found herself pregnant. She had been pressured especially by a particular friend to abort because she was too old and it would be "ridiculous" at her age, to have a baby. This was 1952, and her friend told her a self abortion method. ....

She started to cry and told me never to believe them when they tell you it is not a baby, but just a blob of tissue. Tracing a tiny outline in the palm of her hand, she said "he was this big and a fully formed baby." She could hardly continue. .... She cried to heaven on that cold bathroom floor and asked God to forgive her and promised Him if she were ever to become pregnant again, she would NEVER abort a baby. She flushed her little son down the toilet and said she lay on the cold floor crying until she was numb.

No one knew, except her and her so called "friend." Later, she still felt pregnant. .... And the first part of September, I kicked her! The doctor was amazed that I had been a hiding twin and survived the abortion attempt. She told no one of her pregnancy except my dad, and later, my youngest brother....

.... She asked me to forgive her. I asked if she loved me NOW because she did not know me then. She sobbed and sobbed and said, "Yes. I love you with my very life." I said, "Ok," and walking back down the hall to my room I could still hear her heartbreaking sobs. ....

Years came and went. My mom's "illness" without a name was cyclical and caused her to take to her bed from the end of June to the beginning of September. Sometimes she flew into rages, or walked the floors night after night, or went on buying binges. She suffered from paranoia, and gobbled down her doctor's pills. This led to stays in mental hospitals, filled with psychotropic drugs and painful electroshock therapy. Part of the therapy was to tell her it was shame abortion was not legal then, because she could have gone to college, had a career...and not wasted her talents. ....

Three months before my mom died, I asked her why all the breakdowns June through September every year. Why? she broke down in tears and said it was on Elliott's birthday (the end of June) that she aborted my brother and when Elliott had died tragically at age 27, she felt she had caused the death of her first born son when she aborted her last son. By September she remembered the day I kicked her and how happy she was, and that would bring her out of her moods. She could not trust herself and hated herself for aborting her baby! How could God forgive her? It was a form of self punishment for a crime she felt she could not be forgiven. I told her that is why Jesus died and that God forgave her when she found out that she was still pregnant with me. He trusted her to give me life. She never saw this until the day I told her. Three months later she died, but at peace, and forgiven.

....

I can remain silent no more. I was a survivor of abortion. Life is never a mistake; life is always a blessing from God. Every single person has a divine mission that only they can fulfill.