My husband and I were faced with a decision about abortion due to the Dalcon Shield IUD that was found to be defective.

In March, 1975, I went to the doctor with what I thought was a stomach virus. I had been ill for several days and it wasn't getting any better. The doctor asked me to draw the IUD, which I did, even though I thought that it was an unnecessary request. After he examined me, he did a pregnancy test which was positive.

The next shock, after the one about being pregnant, was that I could not have this baby. The malady with this IUD was that if you miscarried, which was almost a certainty, was that you would either have to have an immediate hysterectomy because of the infection that would spread through your body, or you could die.

At this time, we had been married 7 years and we had a 5-year old daughter. We had not planned for any more children. I am a Christian and have been my whole life. My father is a minister and, of course, we sought his counsel. We also asked the advice of family members and other ministers. Everyone agreed that we didn't have any choice but to have the abortion.

My doctor scheduled the abortion at a clinic in Orlando, Florida. He, of course, would not perform the abortion. It was scheduled for a Wednesday.

When we arrived, it was an awful place. They had hard rock music playing, huge flowers on the wallpaper, and I was treated like a bad little girl. We were herded in like cattle, vacuumed out and sent to a recovery room.

Three weeks later when I was to go for a checkup, I refused to go back to the clinic and went to see my doctor. He did not do a pelvic exam, but did discover that I had an infection that was common in pregnant women, which, of course, I couldn't be because I had had an abortion.

I started taking birth control pills on Sunday following the abortion. I took three packs of birth control pills without having a period. I also rode Space Mountain at Disney World, took diet pills prescribed by my doctor, took antihistamines for my allergies and moved into a new home. This is when we discovered that I was still pregnant and had actually felt the baby move.

The next four and a half months were hell. I couldn't pray. I couldn't sleep. All I could do was worry about the condition of this child that I had tried to kill. I will tell you at this point that the abortion clinic would not talk to us at all. They would not tell me if they had taken a fetus or if they just missed.

The good news is that my baby was born weighing almost 10 pounds and was 23 inches long and was beautiful and perfect. He had red hair, blue eyes and dimples.

For the next 20 years, I worked very hard at hiding the fact that I had had an abortion. After all, I wasn't like other women who had been through abortion. I had a "medical" reason and I had my baby. I couldn't even say the word "abortion", let alone face it.

In February, 1994, I attended Pastor's School at Phoenix First Assembly of God Church, Pastor Tommy Barnett's church. At this particular Pastor's School there was a new ministry introduced called Truth Ministries. There were three ladies involved in the ministry, and between them they represented 11 babies that had been aborted.

My pastor's wife was sitting beside when these ladies were introduced and I just fell apart. Here I was being faced with the very thing that I had been so careful to hide. God bless my pastor's wife because she forced me to acknowledge that not only had I had an abortion but to also acknowledge that there had been a baby taken that day. I had known in my spirit all along that a baby was killed that day, but I would not let it surface.

When I got near the ladies of Truth Ministries, I literally could not breathe. I could not touch their table or any of their materials. Finally, my pastor's wife asked them to talk to me. Before I knew it, I was telling them everything. What loving and kind ladies they were! After all they had been through what I had. They told me that a Memorial Service was going to be held the next morning and that they had prayed that God would send the women to Pastor's School who needed to attend. God loved me enough to make sure that I was at Phoenix First Assembly at that time. Isn't that awesome!

The Memorial Service allows you to memorialize your child and grieve for that child and give that child the dignity that it deserves. The hardest part of that day for me was facing all the people I was angry with. I didn't think I was angry with anyone, but I was. I was angry with everyone who had had anything to do with the abortion and the decision to have the abortion.

I have not only received forgiveness from God for the abortion, but I have been healed of the pain, shame, degradation, and guilt. And that's what we all really need after forgiveness, is a spiritual and physical and emotional healing for what we have done.

God has been so merciful to me because He has let me see my child. I know that he is a boy, that he looks just like my son and I know his name.

We have brought Truth Ministries back to Florida and have Memorial Services on a scheduled basis. We can be reached through my E-Mail address or by calling the church office at 904-272-5774.