I Am a Christian and I Had an Abortion (Part 1)

7...14...21...28, 29, 30, 31... 32. Thirty-two days since my last cycle. I was late.

In fifteen years I had never been late. Which only meant...

"Wife? What's wrong?"

My husband calls me "wife," I call him "husband." We were engaged for nearly two years and calling him "fiancé" had tasted like vinegar in my mouth, even worse so when he was "boyfriend." Those nouns just hadn't cut it when it came to what he meant to me. So when we got married I got in the habit of happily calling him "husband;" it was the only word that was sufficient.

"Wife?"

"I'm late. I still haven't gotten my period." I was shocked; teetering on panic... and he knew it.

"You're not pregnant. It's something else."

He tried to comfort me, but I knew better; my body was more regular than the 9 o'clock news. I had kept close track of my cycles... and when we were sexually active. After looking at the days and doing period math, the timing was perfect... well, perfectly IMPERFECT.

I took a pregnancy test and it didn't even take a full 5 seconds before I saw the second line. It was a bold, blue "+" sign.

I had been irresponsible; I wasn't taking birth control. Plus, I wasn't paying attention to my time of the month when we had sex.

Ten years of sleeping with the same man and I hadn't gotten pregnant. Before seeing the affirmative plus sign on that stick, I had started to think that perhaps I was infertile. Well, hoping that I was anyway. I figured that God understood how I felt about having children and was gracious to just take the possibility away (Yes, I'm WELL AWARE of how stupid that sounds now).

I had grown up in a conservative Christian household and while the topic of abortion was never talked about (taboo), THE CHURCH of course had plenty to say about it.

"Life begins at conception."

"Every life matters to God."

"It's murder."

I knew all the arguments. I knew how Christians felt about abortion. Hell, I even went to a Christian conference where Lou Engle spoke about how there was a "War on the Seed" and women were being called to be the voice for unborn children.

"I'm not keeping this baby," I said with resignation.

"I know," my husband replied; understanding.

And that was it. I thought there was going to be a fight... pleading, even. The topic of children had always been a sore spot in our relationship. I was vehemently against having children and my husband had changed his desire of wanting kids after we had been married for a few years.

"What? You're not mad?"

"I know that if I were to make you keep this baby, it would ruin our marriage and I would lose you."

HUSBAND. It was times like these that I remembered why calling him ANYTHING else just did not suffice.

We immediately started looking for a place to have the procedure done; since the doctor who performed abortions at Planned Parenthood was on vacation. -_-

All the places I called asked me the same question; "How far along are you?"

"3 weeks."

"Oh... we can't detect anything until you're at least 5 weeks along. Any earlier and there may not be anything to show up on the sonogram."

PAUSE.

Five weeks? I KNOW that I'm pregnant NOW. If I wait another two weeks, that's two weeks worth of further development. Two weeks worth of grown cells, two weeks worth of... what develops in the first month? Spinal tissue? brain cells? Nerves?

"Would you like to schedule an appointment for two weeks from now?"

"....no. Can I just schedule for next week and find out if they can see anything?"

"Sure."