Voices: Even if you’re pregnant by choice and want your baby, Roe being overturned could destroy your life

“Your pregnancy is not going to work out. If you remain pregnant, you will miscarry. I can’t tell you when it will happen, or to get it removed,” my doctor told me as she looked at her watch. “You have five minutes to decide what to do, as I am going on Thanksgiving vacation and will be out of town so I need to find a doctor to do the surgery.”

I sat on the flowery couch in a room adorned with photos of smiling moms and cute babies, tears welling up in my eyes.

Getting pregnant had been no easy task. I had prayed for a miracle, thought I had received it — and now my hopes had been shattered, my prayers unanswered and smashed to pieces.

For weeks, there had been concerns about my pregnancy. The heartbeat wasn’t strong, so I’d been inserting progesterone pills to help the pregnancy move forward. Now I’d been told it was all for nothing.

“Please find a doctor to help me,” I said.

But the person I was given a referral for was a “pro-life” doctor. I had no idea until I walked into his office.

He examined me and said, “There is still a heartbeat. I will not help you.”

“I don’t understand,” I replied. “I was told there is no chance this is a viable pregnancy. It’s at 40 beats a minute. Why can’t you do the surgery?”

“Does not matter,” he responded. “There is a heartbeat so you would be killing your baby.” For the next hour, he told me repeatedly that if I proceeded with surgery, that would make me a “murderer”.

“So what do I do?” I asked. “Just sit and suffer and wait to miscarry, since there is no chance for the pregnancy to progress?”

He said yes and then added that if I really wanted surgery now, I could go to an abortion clinic. I’ll never forget his words: “They don’t care — they will help you kill it.”

Shellshocked, I called a family friend who is a family medicine physician. She sympathetically and calmly explained to me what I was experiencing was early pregnancy loss: “Any doctor can tell you that when you are eight to nine weeks into your pregnancy, the heartbeat is not supposed to be at 40 or 50 beats per minute. It should be at about 140 beats. This is not a baby, it is a group of cells and not a viable pregnancy. They should be providing you with routine medical treatment, such as a D and C.”

This friend helped me research a clinic to go to, and told me the doctors there would offer better care and more options.

I had never thought of needing an abortion clinic, and was further traumatized as upon arrival I was greeted with protesters shouting obscenities and holding posters. I felt judged and shamed. I had wanted more than anything for this pregnancy to be viable. These people didn’t know my story or my relationship with God, but they felt fit to make assumptions and yell disgusting things at me. There was no compassion in their actions.

The clinic had security guards to protect the patients in case any protesters turned violent or tried to follow us in. I sat in the waiting room; it was very quiet, and no one was smiling. I overheard one woman explain to the lady at the desk she was there to pick up birth control pills, another said she was there for a routine medical appointment. I pulled my baseball cap down so no one could see my face. I couldn’t take any more judgement.

The intake lady led me to a medical examining room and asked me the reason for my visit. I explained I was having a nonviable pregnancy that I had been desperately trying to save for weeks, to no avail.

Tears streaming down my face, I told her of the other doctor who had shamed me and tormented me by calling me a “baby killer.”

She responded with kindness, said she would examine me, and explained, “But you know here in Arizona there is a 24-hour waiting period to get an abortion and I will have to explain all the ramifications of your choice, according to state law.”

“There is nothing more than I want than a healthy pregnancy,” I said, bewildered. “How is this considered an abortion if it is not viable and there is zero chance of this developing into a baby?”

“Well if there is a heartbeat, you just have to wait 24 hours — that’s the law. Unfortunately that means we will have to wait until after Thanksgiving as we are closed for the weekend.”

She started to check me and I started to sob uncontrollably. “But I can’t wait another five days,” I said to her. “You don’t know how badly I want to have a healthy pregnancy and every moment that this is not working out and I am waiting for a miscarriage is torture. It is preventing me from healing so I can try for a healthy pregnancy.”

She squeezed gel on the ultrasound tool and rubbed it over my stomach, starting to perform an abdominal ultrasound.

I thought to myself: I have money. If they are forcing me to wait five days knowing I could miscarry at any moment, I will fly to California. This emotional pain is too much.

I was so distraught she had to stop the exam.

“I don’t want you to have to go through this invasive checkup twice while you’re so upset, so why don’t I have the doctor do the whole exam?” she suggested. Then she put her arm on my shoulder and assured me I was going to make it through this difficult time, and that everything would be okay. She was the first medical professional I had met during that time to show me any empathy.

Then she left the room.

The doctor was exceptionally kind and asked if she could perform a thorough exam. I nodded, unable to talk. She did a transvaginal ultrasound, which requires a wand to be inserted into the vagina which can both see and hear on the machine if there is a heartbeat, as well as one on my stomach. She didn’t find a heartbeat either way.

She apologized for all the emotional turmoil and told me she would treat me immediately. She also referred me to a new OBGYN after hearing what mine had said to me.

They performed the surgery at the clinic and I went home and cried for weeks.

To add insult to injury, the pro-life doctor’s assistant called me a few days later and asked what happened. Caught off guard, I responded, instead of hanging upon her.

She said, “Oh, so you killed your baby.”

A little shy of two years later, I gave birth to a healthy baby boy. I sent the clinic a thank-you note and a donation. They were the only medical professionals that treated me with dignity, respect, and cared about not only my physical wellbeing but my emotional and mental state.

I find the overturn of Roe v Wade morally repugnant, and I think it’s also important to note that in states like Arizona, women were living under oppressive abortion laws already. I had the money to fly to another state if I needed to. Many other women would not have had that option.

My experience was psychologically abusive, shaming and cruel. I was denied basic healthcare and physical autonomy at the lowest point of my life.

God help the women of America now, because being forced to carry a pregnancy to term or to carry a nonviable pregnancy until you miscarry without medical intervention is its own kind of hell. Babies who are born after forced pregnancies will no doubt endure the psychological effects for decades.