No newlywed couple using two forms of birth control expects to get pregnant. To say I was surprised that a rabbit died 3 months into my marriage would be an understatement. I was still adjusting to my new life as an Army officer’s wife living over a thousand miles from my family. I certainly wasn’t ready to start a family of my own.
Yet there I was, sitting in a doctor’s office being given two stunning pieces of news. First, I was definitely pregnant. Second, the physician was recommending an immediate abortion. Two weeks earlier I had been in this same military medical facility undergoing testing to determine the cause of severe respiratory distress. Not even suspecting I was pregnant, I had submitted my body to x-rays. Subsequently upon being diagnosed with pneumonia, I had been treated with several medications that would prove detrimental to the brain of a developing fetus. The doctor said the combination of those two things would render my pregnancy “unviable”. If by some slim chance the pregnancy went full term, I was told I would, in all likelihood, deliver a tissue mass with no central nervous system. The doctor matter-of-factly suggested this whole situation could be “taken care of” within the week.
Pro-choice advocates would tell me how fortunate I was that I could make a decision to end my pregnancy and simply move on with my life. But as Tim Tebow’s mother, Pam so eloquently shared at www.focusonthefamily.com , the decision about this pregnancy had already been made. As a survivor of violent crime years earlier, {see “Breaking In, Breaking Through” on this blog, August 2009} I had previously been faced with the decision whether or not to end a life, even one conceived in a violent forceful manner. It was a painful situation in which I realized that circumstances of a conception do not mitigate the facts…a pre-born baby is a future human being. In those moments of darkness I fully embraced the concept of choosing life.
My son will soon turn 23. This child whom 3 different doctors ultimately declared I would not carry to term entered this world just as the God who created him had intended and he is living with passion. He is engaged to be married this summer and visions of future grandbabies…though probably years down the road…are already stirring in my head.
As I listened to Pam Tebow elaborate on her story, her words resonated in my spirit and I was deeply touched by her convictions. We live in a culture of convenience and instant gratification, glorifying our personal rights at the expense of innocent children…over 46 million of them in America since Roe v. Wade in 1973. To trust an “unseen” Creator in the face of such dire circumstances seems simple-minded, naive, even foolish given our circumstances.
I think Mrs. Tebow would agree with me when I say emphatically, those are labels I can live with.
I consider myself immensely blessed to have two beautiful sons…one by birth, one by adoption…neither of them merely by choice but by God’s grace.
Livin4Jesus 