Delightful news danced in my heart as I practically skipped up the sidewalk to my house. I was pregnant with our third child! Wonderful news! The excitement was greater than my fear that my husband may not welcome another child. I burst through the front door and blurted out my news, eager to see his response.

In a single moment, my joy turned to anguish. My husband threatened to leave me if I gave birth to this baby. “You can get an abortion,” he said, “or you’ll have three kids to raise by yourself. You decide.”

I was shocked. I was devastated that he could so callously tell me to abort our child. I was pushed into a dark prison where sorrow and confusion were my cellmates. Lose my husband – the father of my two growing children? Lose a baby I hadn’t met? It was an impossible and unfair choice. My heart ached with the weight of the decision. Do I follow my husband’s wishes? Do I have a baby that he doesn’t want and risk him walking out on my children and me?

Abandonment took on a new meaning for me. I retreated into a world of “what if” thinking. I felt incapable of standing up to his threats. There was no one I could talk to. If I told my Christian parents what he was suggesting, they would be appalled. I knew that I would never tell them if I chose to have the abortion. Satan uses secrecy as a weapon against us – and he certainly kept me from going to godly people who could have given me wise counsel to help me make a right choice.

I thought about talking to someone at the small church I was attending, but again, I couldn’t even fathom talking to Christians about aborting my baby – or admitting that my husband was pressuring me to do such a horrific thing. My own sense of inferiority kept me from reaching out – I would pick up the phone to call the pastor or a church member – but the fear of condemnation always caused me to hang up quickly before anyone answered. I also lived with the fear of my husband’s anger if he found out I had talked to anyone about such a personal matter. I had experienced his jealous rages in the past over much less important matters.

I told myself I just needed to get some facts. My mother was a nurse, and I had access to her medical books. I looked for answers about when a fetus became a baby. I couldn’t seem to find a clear answer – and because I didn’t have a car, it never occurred to me that a library might have more information. Nothing was clear to me – now I know that one of Satan’s trademarks is confusion. I was utterly confused.

I’m not sure if I prayed or not – I just had this overwhelming feeling that I had to figure everything out for myself and by myself. I had strayed very far from the God of my childhood – I was now idolizing my spouse who did not know God.

As the clocked ticked and the days dragged on, I began to feel I had no choice. I lived with the daily threat that he would leave me. My heart ached as I looked at my two little boys, ages 2 and 4…I would deprive them of a brother or sister or I would deprive them of their father. How would I feed them and clothe them if their father left me? Who would care for them if I had to go to work? I loved their father. I did not want the disgrace and heartache of divorce to touch my little family. I decided to terminate my pregnancy. I had no idea of the life of grief and sorrow that lay ahead of me.

Members of my husband’s family arrived as the day for the “procedure” drew near. They would help with the children during my “hospitalization”. I wanted to talk to his sister and plead my case for giving life to my baby. But I couldn’t even talk about it. I assumed she would support my husband, so I didn’t discuss it with her at all. My husband made all the arrangements at our local hospital, so it would be “safe.” As we drove to the hospital I wanted to scream, “Stop the car! I can’t go through with this!” Didn’t he see my face? Didn’t he know my heart was breaking?

My family waited in the lobby and drank coffee and read magazines while I was taken to the fifth floor. A large kindly man told me to take off my clothes and put on the hospital gown. Random thoughts floated in and out of my head. I wondered what my jealous husband would say if he knew this man stood there and watched me undress. I remember feeling so violated and helpless and vulnerable.

I wondered what would happen if I just told this doctor that I didn’t want to end my baby’s life. I wanted someone to know my pain – I wanted someone to provide a way out for me and for my baby…but crazy thoughts kept invading my mind: “This man works here – he’s not going to tell me not to do this…and besides, my husband is waiting downstairs… if I don’t do this, he will beat me up.”

I felt lost and totally unable to control what was happening to me. I hated myself for allowing it to proceed. I screamed inside, but no one heard my cries. They put me on a stretcher and parked me in a long line of stretchers, all filled with other women waiting for their “simple, safe procedures.”

A nurse rushed by me, carrying a bowl that appeared to be filled with blood and tissue. I kept repeating “I can’t do this”, but no one seemed to be listening. They gave me an injection to calm me down. When I tried to yell, the words would not come. I tried to get off the stretcher, but I could not move.

When I woke up in the recovery room, I muttered “Thank God it’s over” again and again. I wanted attention from the nurses – but they were all business and gave me no extra care. I remember thinking, “this horrible nightmare is over and now life can get back to normal.” I was so wrong. My life has never been the same as it was before the abortion.

That night and every night for months and months, I cried myself to sleep. My husband never asked how I felt or why I cried. He slept through my tears. But my desire for him and my love for him died completely. How could he want to kill our baby? How could he say he loved me and let me suffer this tragic loss? I distanced myself from him and withdrew into an angry hardened shell. Two years later we were divorced. How ironic that the marriage I had sacrificed my baby for was doomed to fail anyway!

Several years passed and God began to call me back to Himself. He rescued me from the downward spiral of the years following the abortion. I had drifted into a lifestyle of immorality to drown my sense of worthlessness and depression. Guilt and shame consumed me and I could not stop crying every time I thought about the abortion. I tortured myself with thoughts of how old my child would be; I would see children in the mall and envy the mothers who had chosen life. I missed my baby every single day.

I saw a therapist once a week for nearly 18 years after my abortion. He encouraged me to put the past behind me and move on with my life. As I matured in my Christian walk, I stopped seeing this secular therapist and turned to a Christian psychologist for help. She believed the abortion was the root of my depression and asked me if I had ever heard of a Bible Study called “Forgiven and Set Free”.

Feeling little hope that God could forgive me, I reluctantly followed her advice and contacted the local ministry that offered this Bible Study. I knew it was time to put the abortion behind me, but I also knew that it was something I could not do on my own.

The tremendous peace and understanding that I experienced in each one of the twelve sessions of the Bible Study gave me comfort and assurance. I began to really believe that God’s forgiveness, grace, and mercy were gifts that He meant for me to experience!

A new hope was born in my heart as I came week after week. Other women were looking for healing and forgiveness, too. They understood my pain – they had lived it, too. The two women who led the class had also experienced the pain of abortion in their own lives. Their prayers and God’s intervention allowed me to experience true restoration.

The abortion was 30 years ago. The healing continues, even today, as I write this testimony. Satan laid a trap that he meant to use to ensnare me for a lifetime, but God has rescued me. He confirmed to me through the Bible Study what I had always felt in my heart: I have a daughter to hold when I get to Heaven. Her name is Melody Rose and she is safe in Jesus’ arms until I get there to take her into mine.

Since abortion was legalized in 1973, women have believed lies that have led to the slaughter of millions of innocent children…children like my own precious Melody Rose. Every day the Accuser tries to return me to the past to wallow in regrets and the what-ifs – but I remind him that IN CHRIST JESUS I AM A NEW CREATION! I don’t deserve God’s grace towards me, but I am SO THANKFUL that my sin is covered with the blood of Jesus and my slate is wiped clean.

~ Melody Rose’s mom

Hope Pregnancy Centers

Broward County, Florida

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