Newsletter – May

Many of us if given the chance to do things over again would do so in a heartbeat. Such is the case for the grieving post-abortive parent. A Baby’s Breath was created in response to a friend’s experience with abortion. She was lied to and not given factual information, so she proceeded to have her abortion. Barbara’s case was one of intimidation and a situation that we have found many times at A Baby’s Breath. If there’s no support given to the expectant mother, the chances of her choosing life are slim. The grief that post abortive men and women face is very under reported. It is for this reason why we are so grateful to Barbara for sharing her story. She is truly living through God’s grace in helping a place where life can be chosen and supported. As the Founder, I am very grateful to the volunteers we have at A Baby’s Breath including Barbara for being a part of creating a compassionate, non-judgmental place. -KP

Good morning, everyone:

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Barbara and I have been a volunteer at A Baby’s Breath since 2019.

I am here today to talk to you about my personal journey which started many years ago. I was a registered nurse for over 35 years and since retirement have been a volunteer for several pro-life organizations– totaling 14 years in all. My motivation to volunteer has been for the right to life for unborn children and for the protection of women who want to choose life for their children.

My story begins in 1976. Almost 50 years ago. I was a 21-year-old newlywed young woman. I had married a man that I had started dating as a teenager. I had a very strict upbringing in an Italian-American Catholic family. My late husband and I discussed having children when we first married and agreed our plan would be to defer having children for at least a few years while we established our careers.

However, only two months after we were married, I realized that I was pregnant. Actually, my late husband discovered it first. The doctor’s office called him with the pregnancy test results, instead of me. My late husband had already arranged for me to have an abortion and scheduled it before I even had a chance to react to the news or talk to the doctor. This ethical breach today would be unheard of with HIPPA laws and other legal considerations but this was 1976 and that’s how it happened.

I was shocked to hear I was pregnant but on the other hand, I felt happy. I really loved my husband and thought we would get by and it would all work out, in time. Unfortunately, my late husband was enraged to hear that I was refusing to abort our child and our discussions escalated into fierce confrontation and eventually physical assault and violence. I was battered physically by him and then battered mentally by my mother-in-law, who accused me of being selfish and punitive towards him. My own parents distanced themselves from the situation, feeling that this was a matter between us as husband and wife.

I had never heard of a Crisis Pregnancy center and I felt I had nowhere to turn. I was in such a state of despair and felt completely alone.

Finally, the doctor’s office gave me a deadline because I was approaching 6 weeks gestation. I was exhausted all the time and nauseous day and night. I caved in and had the abortion, totally despondent and beaten down. My stress level was through the roof and I left my late husband shortly after that.

Soon after the abortion, I became depressed. It was an inward depression. On the outside, I was very functional and doing well as an emergency room nurse in Philadelphia. But inside I was dying. I could not experience true joy anymore.

I viewed my life in terms of me before the abortion and me after the abortion. I was no longer the same person. I couldn’t relate to comedy on television or gaiety in social or family gatherings.

I thought of soldiers returning home from war and trying to blend in in their towns and not fitting in with the “normal” people anymore.

I had seen the dark side of human nature. Not just my late husband’s but my own. I could not forgive myself for caving in and submitting to the abortion. I wondered why no one had mentioned adoption or any kind of agency to work with me. I became, in addition to being depressed, a very angry rage-filled person.

My personality was changing. I also developed an eating disorder: anorexia. My weight dipped down below 90 pounds and I would end up feeling sick every time I ate. I remembered before that I was eating for the sake of the health of my baby and then I couldn’t eat anymore.

I started to experience triggers. Everyday experiences that vividly brought back the abortion procedure. To this day, I still have a particular trigger and it will never go away.

I was disgusted with myself and hated myself.

The years went by. My late husband and I reconciled. He regretted the loss of our first child and we went on to have four children together. But I could not forget my first child, no matter what. Not a day would go by when I didn’t think of my lost child.

Roughly twenty-three years later I felt suicidal. Again, functioning at a high level on the outside, dying a slow death on the inside. I could not make sense of my life. I had agreed for the life of my unborn child to be taken. How does someone move on from that?

One day, as I was sitting at my home office desk, there was a pamphlet about Rachel’s Vineyard on my desk! Who put it there? I didn’t recall seeing it there before. How did it get there?

I had never heard of Rachel’s Vineyard. I picked it up, read through it quickly, and saw a contact number for Mother’s Home in Darby. I picked up the phone and pleaded with the volunteer who answered the phone to help me! Please help me! I just could not deal with my pain anymore.

I attended Rachel’s Vineyard and that began my journey of healing. The priest at the retreat worked through my pain and agony with me in confession and assured me that God, our Father, loved me unconditionally, and wanted me to believe in His forgiveness and loving grace.

After I attended Rachel’s Vineyard, it was not an instant reversal of 23 years of mourning for my child. That regret continues to this day and always will. The daily remembrance of my first child will always be there.

But, it was the beginning of a long journey back into the light, slowly restoring me to my former self and accepting God’s unconditional love for me. I was treated for PTSD for several years, utilizing different treatment modalities. Part of my journey also included accepting responsibility for my decision, regardless of the circumstances.

There could be no rationalization, otherwise, in my eyes, I could not ask for God’s forgiveness and expect to be forgiven if I did not confess to my sin, my culpability in that fateful decision in 1976.

Finally, in 2009, I was in a better place, many thanks be to God, and I made a purposeful decision to talk publicly about my abortion. It had been over 33 years and I knew I had to warn others about the psychological carnage and destruction that abortion causes.

Young women have a right to know this. They need to hear from post-abortive women. How can the pro-abortion lobby say they care so much about women when they want heartbroken post-abortive women to go away and be quiet? Or they frequently discredit us post-abortive women saying we were psychologically damaged anyway.

In the medical world, which I was in for over 35 years, every patient had the right to know everything about their medical procedures or products. This is called Informed Consent, every patient’s legal and ethical right: to know ALL the information available. This is not happening today in abortion clinics. This also motivates me to speak out.

While a volunteer at Pennsylvanians for Human Life, I spoke to juniors and seniors in high school classrooms and to pro-life clubs and other audiences. I was healed enough to talk openly and publicly about my abortion. Many women, though, cannot do this. And I have learned that if they are not healed, it’s a mistake and should not be pushed on them. It’s too painful and traumatizing. I have seen this firsthand.

I am encouraged, however, that more post-abortive women are coming forward and speaking out publicly about their abortions and the psychological damage afterward because– I fervently believe that post-abortion women can lead the charge to dispel the myth that abortion empowers women greatly; quite the contrary.

That’s why Crisis Pregnancy centers like A Baby’s Breath are the definitive outreach arm to women in crisis.

This is pro-women work on behalf of women and families.

Normalization of abortion on demand is anti-women and anti-family.

Thank God I am here to talk about it. Others have committed suicide. I have met many many post-abortive women at retreats, conferences, seminars, and just impromptu discussions- talking about their abortions, confidentially and candidly. NOT ONE woman I ever talked to emerged unscathed psychologically from their abortions. All were harmed in different ways. All suffered to some degree from post-abortion syndrome which is a sub-clinical diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder.

The grim statistic is that at least 65% of abortions are coerced. My story is not uncommon, sadly. Every year women are forced to have abortions and even murdered when they refuse to. I read these depressing stories online on Life News and the national news.

I feel compelled to warn others, not just for the sake of the lost children but for the survivors of abortion- the parents, even grandparents -who have been known to mourn the loss of their unborn grandchildren.

I wish just one person would have been in my corner. I wish I could have gone to a crisis pregnancy center like A Baby’s Breath and talked to someone privately who cared about me. Away from all the threats, all the yelling, and the negativity I was facing at home with my late husband daily.

A center that offered what A Baby’s Breath does would have been a safe haven.

I needed to feel protected and have the confidence to exercise free agency for myself and my unborn child.

When there’s so much pressure to abort and a lack of a support person or support system like a crisis pregnancy center, a woman can start to doubt herself and give up.

I needed someone to reassure me, to calm me, to work out the logistics of bearing a child-whether I would raise my child myself or give my unborn child the gift of life through adoption. That my instinct to protect my baby was natural. Advocates at A Baby’s Breath are there to do this every single day. 24/7

Ultrasounds are so important! Ultrasound imaging reveals what no one else wants to say; there is a baby involved here. The image represents the truth. It’s a baby; not a blob of tissue, not a clump of cells, or DNA material. An ultrasound image immediately changes all of that. What about the baby? It can give a mother the strength she didn’t realize she had- she is not all alone. Someone else in the picture – a child, her child – needs protection. And those who want to help.

You know… I have noticed a bitter and sad irony at many post-abortive gatherings in the past 35+ years. Women as old as 80 are still crying for their babies; not crying for their blob of tissue or clump of cells or DNA material. They all cry for their babies. They say over and over the word they never heard in an abortion center or from the abortion provider: BABY. Saying the word BABY will get a worker fired at an abortion center.

The more that young women know about the existence of crisis pregnancy centers and are reminded time and time again about what they offer and how they can help, the greater the probability that they will remember the centers in their time of need OR someone they know will remember seeing something or hearing something. Time is of the essence!

It’s not lost on me, of course, during these years at A Baby’s Breath that my life could have been different if I had had a center like A Baby’s Breath to go to many years ago and had access to their constellation of services, not to mention kindness and caring.

And the fact that everyone is a volunteer at A Baby’s Breath not only impresses me but completely amazes me and overwhelms me.

I want to point out that today I am grateful to and comforted by the Catholic Church’s inviolate position on the absolute right to life for unborn children. — A sane voice in an insane culture of death world.

I would like to thank Karen Patota for allowing me to speak to you all today. God has been good to me and I am grateful for His saving loving grace.

And also would like to thank all of you for your kind attention.