Late-Term Abortion in Wanted Pregnancies

Here is my very long and detailed story about our pregnancy loss and later-term abortion at 19 weeks:

Even though it was winter and bitterly cold after a big storm hit our city, my husband and I decided to go with our son to the beach to take our annual holiday card photo.  In front of the powerful waves we both loved to watch, my husband set up the camera to get a full-body view of me and I made sure everyone would be able to see my pudgy, protruding belly by accentuating its form with my hands.  The waves would be a good symbol, I thought, for the strength I’d need during the upcoming labor and birth of our second child.  Everything was rosy in our family and the pregnancy had gone as planned for 18 weeks–joyful and easy.   When I look at that photo now, I remember all of the excitement that came with that pregnancy–wondering what our future family would look like, if our baby was going to be a boy or a girl, trying to imagine the exhausting yet exhilarating first days of our new baby’s life.  The powerful kicks in my tummy were constant reminders that all was well and that I’d finally made it to the half-way point in the pregnancy.  Soon, we’d be on our way to every pregnant couple’s favorite doctor’s visit: the level 2 ultrasound appointment when you get to finally see that clear ultrasound image of your baby, know for almost certain that everything with the baby is okay (and for sure, it would be!) and finally, to find out if “it” is a boy or a girl (I was secretly hoping “it” was a girl).

In the first trimester, I had “passed” the Nuchal Translucency (NT) and AFP blood screenings for chromosomal disorders and heart defects with flying colors, so when I went in to get blood drawn for the Triple Screen in my second trimester, I felt confident that we’d receive similar good news.  I had every reason to believe that we were going to soon be honing in on girl or boy names for our perfect, little baby as we looked admiringly at a clear level 2 ultrasound image.  But that belief was set aside when we received the Triple Screen results indicating a “positive screen.” At that time, we were told that many positive screens for the Triple Screen end up being false positives due to maternal age and to not worry too much, especially since our first trimester screens gave us a low chance of abnormalities.  In any case, I would need to get an amnio and have a level 2 ultrasound immediately. While giddy, chatty couples flipped through parenting and baby magazines in the lobby, my husband and I held hands in silence, trying to muster up courage and cling onto the hope that we’ll leave with ultrasound images of a perfect baby, maybe even giving us a thumbs-up that all was okay after all.  The technician came in and started to take many measurements of the baby’s image on the screen.  After every measurement she took, the look on her face got more and more serious and she remained nearly silent the whole time.  I tried to lighten things up by smiling at her and asking her in a friendly tone, “What measurement is that?” or “How can you tell what that is with such blurry images?” or “Is that the leg or the penis?”  I’ll never forget her lack of response and that cold look and demeanor of hers that day.  I think I must have begun to go into some sort of denial at this point because under normal circumstances, I’d be able to put everything together and know that something was very wrong, but in my hope that she was just a rude person, I kept asking my questions.  Then, I noticed my husband no longer had the fake smile on his face and had a look of worry and fear instead.  When I asked the technician if she could tell if it was a boy or a girl, she gave me the curt answer:  “I’m not even thinking about boy or girl right now, I’m really not.”  As if she had a reason to be mad!  And then she walked out of the room in a hurry.

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