Choosing Not To Keep The Baby

[Lil Red]

+J.M.J.+
[url="http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/16/choosing-not-to-keep-the-baby/?src=twt&twt=nytimes"]http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06...amp;twt=nytimes[/url]
two parts that stuck out for me:
[quote]For my first trip out and about since learning I was pregnant, I went to meet with the director of an adoption agency. He was so supportive and sweet that I walked away choked up but not in tears — it was the first day I didn’t cry. Even though the adoption agency can pay my medical costs and set me up with adoptive parents for maternity shopping, grocery shopping, birthing classes and all kinds of programs, it didn’t feel like enough. I told the director how scared and lonely I’ve been and he just said, “I know. I can tell. We’ll take this one step at a time.” So many of the comments urged me to consider adoption but I already feel so attached to the little zygote inside of me (my friend named it Ziggy) that I don’t think I could carry a baby to term just to give it away. The mere thought of handing my child to someone else, as altruistic as it is, breaks me.[/quote]

[quote]One good thing that came out of this is that the father of this child stepped up to the plate —– not financially, maybe, but emotionally. I wasn’t expecting him to because, after knowing each other for 12 years, I thought I had him figured out. But he has surprised me. Even though he agrees that terminating the pregnancy is the best option for both of us (he’s broke and I’m going to school), he’s trying desperately to do the right thing. He is scared out of his mind but still managed to offer me a ride to the doctor. Telling him that “everything is going to be all right” made me more confident that abortion is the best option. I firmly believe that there’s nothing to regret here and we didn’t do anything wrong. Birth control fails. People get scared. They underestimate themselves and each other. Everything will be okay. After all of this, I am glad to have him to talk to because I know someone who feels exactly the way I do: angry, frightened, selfish, and desperate to grow up. We may not keep in touch after this ordeal but, at least for now, we’re trying to be stronger and wiser than we are.[/quote]

[quote]Once I came to the decision to terminate the pregnancy, so much of the guilt and sadness I’d been feeling melted away. I felt happy for the first time since finding out and I feel like my family is supportive of my decision. I’m focusing on the child I’ll have in a few years from now with someone I feel safe with and supported by. The life of that child will be infinitely better than this one and, sometimes, I wonder if such a miserable, lonely woman could even have a healthy child. There’s more to being a good birth mother than avoiding alcohol and eating right and I just don’t know if I have it. I’m a responsible girl but maybe that means knowing when you’ve put too much on yourself and it won’t work out.

In some ways, I feel like I’ve given up. I didn’t want to go down without a fight, I wanted to be a tough mother who braved the world for her child. But maybe that’s the truly selfish decision, to expect my baby to understand why there’s no father and no money and no time to spend with mom. How could I raise a confident child under those circumstances? I know it’s been done but I want to do better — that’s the future I envision for myself.[/quote]
pray for this woman and the awful 'choice' she has made.

[CatherineM]

My mind just doesn't compute stuff like this.

[Lil Red]

+J.M.J.+
mine either

[Resurrexi]

+AMDG+

[Nihil Obstat]

It feels like there's a break in the chain of reality somewhere in that story. There are no words...

[Sojourner]

She's attached to the baby, so much so that she can't give it away ... but she can kill it??

I am more and more convinced that people just do not understand the idea of love. We are so very selfish ... "If I can't have it, no one can" is how we see things. This woman demonstrates she has a possessory interest in her child, not love.

[VeniteAdoremus]

A close friend of mine has said exactly the same. I didn't understand her then and I don't understand it now.

[Archaeology cat]

[Brother Adam]

There is a serious societal mental illness there. They've convinced a woman its emotionally good to murder her child.

[homeschoolmom]

[quote name='Terra Firma' post='1894215' date='Jun 17 2009, 08:44 AM']She's attached to the baby, so much so that she can't give it away ... but she can kill it??

I am more and more convinced that people just do not understand the idea of love. We are so very selfish ... "If I can't have it, no one can" is how we see things. This woman demonstrates she has a possessory interest in her child, not love.[/quote]
Yep. It's the "It hurts ME less to butcher my baby than it does for ME to wave good-bye" line of reasoning. All about ME.

[she_who_is_not]

It is such a vicious cycle. Women choose not to carry a new life to term and contribute to the scarcity of domestic adoptions. Then those wishing to adopt feel justified in undergoing fertility procedures that often result in discarded embryos or the reduction of multiple fetuses.

I know several women close to me who desperately wish to have a child and can't. I pray that the hearts of mothers will be opened to compassion for both their unborn and for the prospective adoptive parents.

[Sojourner]

[quote name='homeschoolmom' post='1894232' date='Jun 17 2009, 07:54 AM']Yep. It's the "It hurts ME less to butcher my baby than it does for ME to wave good-bye" line of reasoning. All about ME.[/quote]
Exactly. And like she who is not noted, this has an effect too on the millions of infertile women who would love to adopt domestically.

[tinytherese]

It's so sad. I once had a conversation with my best friend in high school about it. We were discussing abortion and I said that the mother can give the baby away in adoption instead and she said that she understood that but it isn't easy to carry a baby for nine months and then to give birth to it. It's a good thing that her mother didn't think that way or else she wouldn't have been born.

Haha, and here I am with an avatar from the movie bella.

[virginiancatholic]

O...my....(sob)...gosh.


No life at all is better than a life lived in less than ideal circumstances?

What about love?


God forgive them, for they know not what they do.

[MissScripture]

I just don't understand people!

Why do people not understand babies are GIFTS?!? And you don't always get more! Especially if you reject the ones they try to give you! (And how can you NAME the baby, even with a NICKNAME and still kill it???)

I was listening to Relevant Radio once, and one of the guys (I don't remember which show, sorry) was talking about adopting his daughter, and how he had people say to him that they could never do that, they could never raise a child that wasn't theirs! And he commented on how his daughter was a gift from God, exactly how any other mother and father recieves a gift from God when a baby arrives.

It's just ironic, we have problems at both ends of the spectrum, because people don't veiw children as gifts. They are viewed as commodities.

This just breaks my heart!