In 1976, my wife of four years announced to me that she was pregnant with our first child. Such announcements are made in households around the world all the time. What made this event somewhat unique is that my wife was the youngest person in the state to have a heart pacemaker.
One of these new-fangled devices had been implanted under her breast more than a decade before at the University Medical Center when she was 17.
It had been replaced several times. Back then the expected life of a pacemaker was comparatively short – a couple years at best – as most of its recipients at the time were old people who were likely going to die soon anyway. Implanting a pacemaker in a young girl was a pretty unusual procedure. It caused lots of new situations to crop up for the surgical team and the pacemaker company: battery life needed to be extended, for obvious reasons; wiring and its insulation – even the size and composition of the pacemaker unit’s case – needed to be improved to compensate for the body’s natural rejection of foreign objects in it over an extended time, as well as for cosmetic reasons, given the age and sex of this recipient.
Since the University Medical Center was a teaching hospital, the ongoing relationship between the surgical team and the patient was pretty intimate, as she was Exhibit A for many young interns. The team got to know me over time as well, since we had been there as husband and wife several times for pacemaker related events.
When my wife discovered she was pregnant, she naturally wanted to share this news with her friends at the University Medical Center who, by the way, had never counseled us as a married couple about any prohibitions or procedures to take, or avoid, regarding possible pregnancy.
“Were you on Heprin when you conceived?” was their initial response. (Not “Congratulations!”)
“You should have been on Heprin. You should NOT have been on Coumadin.”
Of course, she’d been on Coumadin, the blood-thinning anticoagulant she had been prescribed since her pacemaker was implanted. We’d never even heard of Heprin. Turns out Heprin gets out of the system in a matter of hours unlike Coumadin which apparently takes days to get out of one’s system. We should have been on Heprin when planning to conceive, then be off the medicine for some hours before attempting conception.
Why?
Turns out Heprin could negatively impact the fetus some chemical way, but not nearly as negatively as Coumadin. That’s why she should have been on Heprin, so she could get it out of her bloodstream more quickly before attempting conception.
All of this was news to us. We hadn’t really planned this pregnancy. So, what’s the big deal about Coumadin anyway?
Turns out Coumadin is chemically structured like rat poison. Very bad. Would you knowingly help conceive a baby with a woman who had rat poison coursing in her veins? Me neither, but I did.
Operative word here is “knowingly.”
So, now what? Well, according to my wife’s longtime hospital pal, the Chief Cardiac Surgeon at University Medical Center, we needed to terminate this pregnancy immediately. There was no chance for a happy outcome.
None.
In the very unlikely event the child even made it to term, it would likely have to be institutionalized for the duration of its life, something remarkably expensive and emotionally debilitating. And then there was all the medical uncertainty surrounding the whole pregnancy/delivery process for my wife, the one with a pacemaker.
Official medical recommendation: Abort the baby.
As a Catholic, albeit none too good a one at the time, I couldn’t go along with that. I concluded we needed to have the faith to “give it to God” and see what might happen. My wife bravely concurred.
In the mid-1970s, by the way, ultrasound technology was very much in its infancy. As a result, we really did have to rely on faith – not science. VERY hard for us to do, admittedly. I ended up taking a job with a major corporation just to get its excellent insurance benefits in order to cover the child’s possible post-birth expenses.
In July of 1977, seemingly against all odds and the prognostications of many well-meaning medical practitioners, God provided us with a perfect, beautiful little girl!
Over the last 40-some years, our daughter has given me such joy and so many wonderful memories of her journey from childhood into adulthood! She looks so much like her mother. To have aborted her would have eliminated all of her magic from my life.
Absolutely unthinkable!
It would also have eliminated the impact of her own purpose from the world. Also, absolutely unthinkable! Today she has a Master’s in Education and lives and teaches in the Pacific Northwest. She and her loving husband have provided me with three wonderful handsome healthy grandsons, too! Who knows how many people her life has impacted over the years, and continues to?
Her mother knows all the answers, as she’s now in Heaven. I don’t pretend to know why or how God made it happen. I only know that, thankfully, we chose life. We chose to “let go and let God,” and He did.
Always put your trust in God. Always.
The smartest medical minds at the time could find no way that this miracle could come to pass – and yet somehow it did.
When our little girl was about 5, I began to write her a story titled “SHADOW” about her real-life kitten and some imaginary adventures her Shadow might undertake. The first few paragraphs of what is now the second chapter of SHADOWS FOR LIFE – A fable for our times are the very same ones I first wrote. But right after I had written them back then, my pencil suddenly began flying across the pages of my yellow pad!
The story was writing itself!
I had no idea what I was writing. When my pencil finally stopped, I was able to read exactly what I’d written. It was not at all the story I had intended to write for my little girl, but apparently it was the story I was supposed to write. Time will tell, I guess.
We all have a purpose. Perhaps this was mine.
Salient points to remember:
- Every life is important, each with a God-given purpose.
- Abortion is an unnatural act.
- Choose life. It’s the choice your own mother made.
- Trust God always. Always.