At eighteen I was a troubled young woman who had been brought up in the sixties with parents who were experimenting with "open marriage" and had become agnostics. I was deeply in love with a young man and had left college and home to be closer to him. I found myself pregnant within a month (not surprising since I used birth control only sporadically despite my best conscious intentions).

I had strong values of self-independence, caring for all children that were brought into the world, service to the poor and oppressed, and self-determination of women including their right to chose to bear children or not. I had plans to attend medical school in the future. There was absolutely no question in my mind that I ought to have an abortion and have a stiff upper lip about it. My boyfriend loved me very much but had his own career plans and did not feel financially able to move in to an apartment with me, let alone support a child.

Even as I called Planned Parenthood to inquire about abortion I found myself craving foods, developing breast changes and fantasizing about my baby. I looked up and wrote down recipes, I looked up the stages the fetus would be in, I thought of names. I procrastinated, intellectualizing that I was only ten weeks along because I knew the date of conception and not realizing that pregnancy is always dated from the last menstrual period.

When I finally made the appointment I was really twelve weeks along and on internal exam they told me I appeared to be fourteen weeks. They almost required me to delay and get a second trimester abortion. In this emergent rush I mobilized all my defenses and cut off all my feelings. Though I was given "counseling", I replied that there was no other option and that I was determined to have an abortion. In my mind there wasn't any other option. I loved this baby so much that I didn't want to hurt it by being a bad mother or by giving it away to someone else. I had no conception (no pun intended) of God's grace: I had to do it all myself. Within the same visit, with no time for second thoughts, an abortion was performed.

I was unprepared for the physical pain that I experienced. Though I had studied it in technical detail I was also unprepared for the death of my unborn child. When I was left alone for a moment in the procedure room I lifted the cloth that covered the bell-jar into which the uterine contents were sucked. I think I expected to see a little baby there, sleeping peacefully, to say goodby to. Of course, instead I saw red mush. Though this has given me emotional pain ever since I am glad that I saw it: I had to grieve and I knew why. I suddenly realized I'd destroyed, physically killed, the very baby I had loved so much and wished to protect.

My understanding was only momentary: I was surprised by how sad and grumpy I was. I resented the fact that my boyfriend hadn't come with me, though I'd told him I'd be strong enough to go alone. He and I began to talk about when we'd be able to have children, what we'd name them. It was as if this baby would come back again.

I returned to college, graduated, and enrolled in medical school. In the first month there, when I was twenty one, I found myself pregnant again. This time I responded with shock and dismay, but only for about three minutes. I was angry with myself for repeating this mistake. I punished myself by not attaching at all to the pregnancy, being very efficient and scheduling an abortion right away. I was not open to the tentative interventions of the nurse practitioner or her mentor, a Christian physician. I had the abortion, this time with a friend and my boyfriend driving me there. Due to the valium I was given I don't remember the pain or the procedure. But this turned out to be my bigger loss.

After the first abortion I had unusual dreams and my depressive tendency was worse in late November, the month I'd had the abortion. After the second abortion my relationship with my boyfriend fell apart, though it took about a year. By the time I reached my residency training I did some brief (weekend) therapeutic work on grieving about my baby. Later I became interested in delayed grief reaction in my patients and used some of the visualization techniques to help myself remember the abortion and try to heal. In my mind I'd "dealt" with it. I was actually surprised I'd have to deal with it at all as I'd always been told that contrary to old teachings, women who had abortions had no increased psychological difficulties. Certainly then, I'd dealt with it more than enough!

But then I met the man who has become my husband, and I began having nightmares about death as our relationship deepened and the possibility of marriage and children became real. I did not understand why even then! We got through that time, married, and had two children. When my children were born, however, I suddenly realized that my first children would never be back. It was very clear to me that these were two totally different personalities and different souls than before. Along with being a new mother, I was thrust into dealing with my old grief.

Again, I could not face it, and had no psychological help at any time that realized how important the abortions were. I ended up in three years of progressively worse therapy, deluding myself into thinking that I'd been satanically abused as a child by my family. This in itself is a long story that I believe is too common right now, and I suspect is often connected with ungrieved abortions. The rage and fear and grief I felt came out in images of others harming myself or my children because the true reality wasn't being faced.

Fortunately, I love my living children very much and wished them to have a spiritual upbringing. I reached out to my husband's childhood faith and ended up being baptised a Christian. Through a long spiritual path I finally began with God's help, first to search for the truth, and then to forgive myself for my delusions and my parents for my poor upbring.

However, I continued to grieve. I found myself uninterested in sex, wanting another child, having bad dreams. Why, when I'd worked so hard, accepted God's forgivenesss in general, and specifically for my abortion, was I still so broken? I recently realized that I'd never really faced the second abortion. Getting pregnant that second time had been a way of trying to undo the first abortion. I thought I was just replaying the first abortion again because I never allowed myself to feel anything. Now I realize that I have to face that pregnancy and that loss just as much. I am still in the process. And I work now on asking God to heal me of "my incurable disease" because I realize now that a mother's grief is never fully healed. I think sometimes of Mary and her loss when Jesus died. I am just beginning to hope for an afterlife where I will be able to meet and know my first children.

I dread the loneliness of a big city,
whose dark, bare,winter streets are unfamiliar.
I have never woven paths in it before.
Where will I go to be at home?
One lofty, smooth building stands isolated from the rest,
determined to ensure against suffering.
It contains a busy babble of prudent people
who do not have enough time,
yet hurry as if there is plenty of it.
A strange place to go for comfort,
yet hidden in the folds of this tower is a peaceful, quiet chapel,
with a trickling fountain at its entrance
and flickering candles in its silence.

Now I remember the place of loss.
It had white walls and white divider curtains
and a thin white cotton blanket
spread over me afterward.
I can't remember what happened there
but the tranquility of my amnesia
has brought me no peace.
I didn't see the red blood
yet I know it was there.
Years later I still ache inside
and the white room appears to be an everlasting pale green room,
where yet another baby sprouting within me
was efficiently uprooted from life.

And now come other memories:
watching birth for the first time-
a Caesarean section viewed through the window
of an operating room door:
The miracle of a baby
suddenly appearing from the green draped mound
of the woman's belly where there was none before.
The thankful mother, awed and weeping,
reaching for her child.
Then, a scene long ago from an unknown motel room-
where there was a glass shower stall
instead of a tub.
The mysterious translucent door
opened and closed with a crisp click
in my childish hand.
I could see ahead to where I was going
and go back and forth as often as I liked.
Last, an image of my little sister
standing outside of our wooden bathroom door-
staring, surprised,
at her partially severed fingertip,
the echo of the slam now gone,
the leafy wallpaper hidden from view.
Later, I delivered her floppy sage bunny
to hold for comfort while her hand was sewn.

But I have no comfort
for the bonds of love are broken and strength can't repair them.
I can't go back to start again
and I'll always yearn to hold that child.

Only the emptiness is left to cradle:
a bleakness which by now is familiar.
I cannot retrace my steps.
How can I find my way home?
Trading truth for the smooth stones of reason
has left me hungry.
Rushing past providence, desperate for perfection,
I missed precious opportunities
and now find those doors are closed.
It's a strange way to find comfort,
yet I search deep within my being hoping to find peace,
thirsting for love,
longing for life.

I'll journey to the city this Advent
and remember what I lost-
for as I turn toward the truth
it will open my heart.
A graceful, glowing dome welcomes me like a beckoning star,
pouring out light into darkness.
Take this comfort, all of you, and drink from it.
This is the story of a mother's love,
an everlasting love,
which I share with you now.
All will be forgiven while none will be forgotten
and my sorrow will shine and face
in the eternal ebb and flow of love.

Alice
Epiphany l997