“And they overcame him [Satan] because of the blood of the Lamb [Jesus] and because of the word of their [Suzi’s] testimony……” Revelation 12:11
“For your hands are stained with blood, your fingers with guilt, your lips have spoken lies, and your tongue mutters wicked things.” Isaiah 59:3My testimony begins January 1975 at age 16. Months earlier I learned I was pregnant by a man that worked for my parents. His girlfriend, a friend I thought I could trust, had told him that I was raped when I was thirteen. He used that knowledge and my fear of my mother to get me to have sex with him.Because I was a ward of the state, my social workers took me on December 16, 1976, to have a suction abortion at a clinic in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I didn’t understand all of it. I just knew that my foster mother said get rid of it or you don’t live here. After a long day, they drove me back home. I was still pregnant. The woman’s clinic said I was too far along to have a suction abortion. The word abortion wasn’t what was used though.

I remember on Christmas day my mother’s anger towards me. I was so nervous that I accidently broke one of her mixing bowls that had stuck to the other bowl. She was so upset, she was yelling at me, accusing me of ruining Christmas for everyone. To make matters worse I told the man I was pregnant and he told me to lie and to use the name of a guy he had been in the army with many years ago, because he didn’t want them to know it was him. I did, but they didn’t believe me, so I finally told them the truth. They spoke with him and he lied to them, and sadly they believed him and not me. It was truly the first time I thought of taking my life. When my mother told me that I was still lying – that he said he never touched me and yes I had come to his house to see the new kittens, (the story he made up in case someone saw me leaving his house). I was doing the dishes when she said they believed him. I was washing a knife and I laid it on my wrist with the thought of cutting my wrist to end it all.

My case workers set up an appointment with the hospital that the woman’s clinic said would do the type of abortion that was needed for being as far along as I was. Again we made the long trip to Pittsburgh, this time to West Penn Hospital. I remember the woman explaining all that would happen. She shared with me that it was not really a baby at this point but tissue like that of liver, not formed. She also said that the discomfort would not be any more than what I experience when having menstrual cramps. She explained that they would numb my adnominal area below the belly button and insert a needle. I don’t recall them ever using the word abortion, but using a word like “terminate”. Given I didn’t have the knowledge of things like teens do today, I didn’t understand everything. I just knew I didn’t want my parents angry at me anymore and wanted to get back to way it used to be.

My case workers brought me home and explained everything to my parents. They would pick me up and drive me to Pittsburgh on Sunday, January 5, 1975. We would stay in a motel that night and they would take me to the hospital, get me admitted and stay till my parents got there early Monday morning, January 6. Monday came and it was time to go to West Penn Hospital. Little did I know how that day would affect the rest of my life.

I remember going into a huge room with at least 25 or more hospital beds. There were all the usual things that nurses do, checking your vitals, questions, etc. To the left of me there was a woman in her middle to late twenties, having the same thing done and to the right of me a girl a year younger than me. We were all three just waiting for them to take each of us back.

They first took the woman to my left. She shared this was the second time she had this done. She told us it wasn’t that bad. She said the risk of spina bifida was very high in her family and that both times the doctors felt it was best for her to have it done, since her first child died from it. When she returned, I remember looking to see if she was hurting. She didn’t seem different so that eased my nervousness. A few hours later she was uncomfortable, I didn’t understand why and the nurses pulled the curtain so that we could no longer see her. After few hours she was discharged and left.

I was next. I remember the long walk down the hall. I entered a room with a doctor and nurses there. They seemed friendly. They had me lie down and they prepped my abdomen to keep it sterile. The doctor said that I would feel a little sting from being numbed. I thought, okay that wasn’t so bad and how my menstrual cramps are worse than that, recalling what they had told me weeks earlier, that it wouldn’t hurt any more than what your menstrual cramps do.

Next, I saw the doctor with a larger needle. I remember her saying not to move and try to relax. No problem I thought since when they used the tiny needle to see if I could feel it, I couldn’t because of being numbed. She put the needle in and pushed it into my abdomen and the pain that went through my body was beyond words. (Even now as I write this the emotions affect me with tears and my heart is racing. I wanted to call my best friend that understands but didn’t want to bother her at work. God is so good because she just happened to call me, she shared that she been praying for me.) I started screaming for them to stop, the doctor was yelling at me to stop moving and I tried but the pressure was beyond words. She yelled for the nurses to hold me down. I remember nurses holding my arms, legs and one holding my head so tightly to stop me from moving. Fluid was shooting out of the needle. (Not knowing till years later that the fluid was the amniotic fluid that surrounds the baby.) She took a syringe and removed 60 c.c. of the amniotic fluid (I am sure they didn’t count what was coming out) then she took a large syringe and put in 180 c.c. of 23.4% sodium chloride through the needle to my womb which even made the extreme pressure worse. Once that was done I kept saying how I was in pain. Trust me the doctor was not patient or comforting, she kept saying don’t move. I was shaking, crying, sick at my stomach, the pain going through me was like nothing I had ever felt before.

They rolled me back to my room once they saw that I was a little more calmed down. Once in bed I laid there. I don’t recall them saying what would happen next. They then took the younger girl back. When she returned she was crying. I know it bothered me because I knew what she had just gone through. They don’t tell you the truth about the pain.

The nurse said that my parents were there to see me. My mom told me that they had been there earlier but that is when, well we know what was going on then.

The rest of the afternoon the young girl and I were alone. We talked about the usual things teens would talk about. My parents came back later that evening to visit, but didn’t stay long.

I remember thinking okay is this over, wondering if things had happened and I wasn’t pregnant anymore. I slept that night off and on because I remember I would at times feel this pain in my stomach area or something moving around. The nurses would give me some medicine that seemed to help. I was also hooked up to an IV.

January 7, early in the morning, things changed. I was throwing up. I was feeling something moving inside my lower abdomen and was having very sharp pain. I called for the nurse and asked her why my stomach was moving around. She checked my abdomen and told me that it was just my muscles tightening. (Sadly, I learned the truth years later. It was my baby moving around as she was slowing dying from breathing in the sodium chloride that replaced the amniotic fluid.) Then I felt pain and as if I was peeing myself.
Around noon, the pain got worse, sharp pain one after the other. I noticed that they pulled my curtain around like they did for the first woman that went before me. I tried so hard not to cry out because I didn’t want to scare the young girl beside me, as the reality was she would soon be going through the same thing. I remember grabbing the head of the bed as I would try to get through the pain, a pain that I didn’t understand. I thought it would never end. I noticed also that one nurse was staying with me more, coming in and putting her fingers in to check something (I didn’t know about any of this kind of stuff at 16 and had no friends that had a baby to tell me.) She would also press on my abdomen, and she put a bed pan under me. I could feel pressure and then I felt something come out. It felt like a sliding feeling and I heard it fall in the bed pan. The nurse started pushing on my abdomen again, and I felt a tugging feeling inside, not knowing what she was doing. She removed the pan, I remember she covered it up with a cloth and handed it to another nurse. She removed some pads that she placed under me before placing the bed pan. Afterwards she cleaned me up. She gave me some more meds and walked out of the room. I laid there not understanding anything that had just happened to me, wondering if this over now or was something else going to happen.

At this point it was little after one in the afternoon. Not even an hour after the nurse with the bed pan left, another nurse came in and told me they would be taking me down to make sure everything was okay. The room she took me in was the same room that I had been in the day before. I was scared but the male doctor explained to me that they wanted to make sure that everything had expelled. Being a teen, I didn’t understand what that meant. They would use a curette for the curettage of the endometrial cavity. Again I felt pressure that was uncomfortable but not as bad as the last time being in that room. He joked with me and it bothered me. Afterwards I was taken back to my room.

My parents came in. My mother had a gift for me and asked how I was doing. I said I was okay. She had no idea of the nightmare I had just gone through and I wasn’t about to tell her. The gift was a blue skirt. (I still have it to this day.) She took me to the bathroom and she brushed my hair, and washed my face. Again she asked how I was doing. I told her I was okay. It’s as if I felt she was happy. I was confused. The past history of her abuse, the last months of her anger toward me, why was she being so kind to me now? Was it because now no one in our town or their business would find out I was ever pregnant? I wanted to think that she was hurting for me – that maybe she felt bad.

Later on that evening the nurse told me that things looked good and I could go home that evening. BUT, something happened that would change me wanting to leave that evening. The girl that was younger than me started to go through a lot of pain and throwing up. Her mother wasn’t there. It bothered me to think of her going through this alone. The nurse once told us that there have been times that every bed was filled in that huge room. Well this evening that wasn’t the case and so I lied to the nurse and told her that my stomach wasn’t feeling well and was still having pain. I know my parents were not happy from the expression on their faces when the nurse said they would like to keep me overnight to make sure there were no issues.

Things didn’t go as quickly with the young girl. Her water had broken and she had not passed the baby. She was in pain all night. I would call the nurse when she needed her, and I even sat and held her hand.

January 8, 1975, that morning while still dark outside, things started happening and they pulled the curtain. When the nurse wasn’t there I talked to her through the curtain. I knew what she was about to go through and I cried in my pillow for her as she cried out in pain.
The nurse told me that my parents would be there soon. The young girl asked if I had any change because she needed to use the pay phone to call her mother to come get her. We did keep in touch for a short time. She wrote me a letter saying how she appreciated me staying with her. She knew I lied so that she would not be alone. She even taped the change she borrowed to the letter. She told me that I would make a great nurse and I had a kind heart. That was the only letter I received from her. I never forgot about her and even to this day wonder how she is doing. I wonder if she also learned of the truth of how they had lied to us or if she struggled or found peace, healing, comfort and forgiveness through Jesus. Did someone come into her life as someone did mine by the name of Karen Cross that changed my life through hearing her testimony? That there could be healing from the painful memories, that Jesus loved her and that He forgave her and one day she would forgive herself and all those involved with her abortion.

January8, I was discharged. My parents didn’t say much to me. As we drove down the road my dad asked how I was doing. My mother spoke up and said that we would never talk about this ever again. We stopped at a store and they bought me a pocket camera. As I look back was it a reward for having the abortion. I wanted things to go back to normal or should say the way things were before all this. Get back to school, band, working in my parents restaurant. But, things would never be as it was.

I went back to school. My mother told them I had a kidney infection and had to go out of town to a hospital. I tried to be who I used to be, but that would never be. I had nightmares. I wondered if people knew, I didn’t want to eat lunch with the other girls and would go and eat in my English teacher’s room. I used the excuse that I wanted to do school work. I kept thinking of how the man lied every time I saw him working at my parents business, the times they invited him to have dinner with us. I thought of taking my life because I didn’t understand the pain but I wanted it to stop and I didn’t want to see that man’s face every day. My foster older brother knew I was now more the black sheep and he would lie to mom and make it worse. She would say I messed things up in the home. But I held it all in, trying so hard to make her and my dad proud of me.

A few months after my abortion, while waiting for my mom to have tests done at the local hospital, I saw a Newsweek magazine (March 3, 1975 edition) and on the front page it said in white letters and red background “ABORTION and the LAW,” I saw a picture of a baby on the front that was inside the sack and below it were FIVE words I read that threw me into a spiraling reality of what I had done and how I had been lied to and I was 18+ weeks along. The five words were “A 16-Week-Old Fetus.” I can’t even express in words the emotion, thoughts going through my head. I remember running out to the car and sitting there screaming, “They lied to me, they lied to me.” It was a fully-formed baby, not tissue like liver that I had been told. I sat there crying. The image of that picture of that baby was burned into my memory. My mother came to the car and asked what was wrong and I told her. Sadly, I can’t repeat what she said to me. Clearly she wasn’t showing an ounce of understanding or sympathy.

After that day, things truly were never the same. To this day I don’t trust doctors. I went into depression. I remember hanging out with one of the women that worked in our restaurant that had a newborn baby. I held her baby because she was doing something and she was fussy so she handed her to me. As I was holding her I looked down into her face and I just burst out in tears and I could not stop crying and crying. My friend took the baby and laid her down and then came to me and asked what was wrong. I couldn’t tell her. Finally in time I did.
I hated myself, I hated everything about myself. I didn’t care about myself and I tried two times to take my life. I went to church but felt such shame. I thought there was no way God could ever forgive me. I hated that the guy that lied to my parents still worked for them. It would make me sick to see them laugh together or sit in my home. In my mind, I would scream “tell them the truth!” I wanted to put a gun to his head and scream tell them the truth. The abuse with my mom and brother worsened.

My dream was to be a nurse. But, my mother felt that I was not smart enough and said I should do hair. I so wanted her to be proud of me. She reminded me time and time again how I messed things up. So I went to beauty school.

There are things women that have had an abortion will do to deal with the pain. Some drink, do drugs or some become overly sexually active because they just don’t care who uses them. Well, I was the latter of the three. I didn’t care. I felt there was no one that could love me.

Even while going to beauty school I did end up living at my English teacher’s house from high school and her husband was a pastor. I went to church with them. There was a revival and they mentioned the babies that were dying from abortion. I sat there trying to hold it together. Then they sang this song and I slowly got up and went outside and cried. My teacher came out to check on me. I said nothing but she said, Honey we will talk when we get home. Once home, I was downstairs doing schoolwork and she came down. She looked at me with such kind eyes and said, “Suzi when you were in high school did you have an abortion?” I couldn’t believe what came out of her mouth. I started to cry. I asked who told you. She said no one – she saw the change in the girl I used to be. How I pulled away from people. She could see the signs of depression, pain in my eyes. I didn’t laugh and smile like I used to. She sat and held me as I cried and told her what happened.

After finishing up going to beauty school, I went home for a while and tried to help my parents in their business. I met a man that was older than I. I think it’s because he was soft spoken and kind. We dated and my mother hated him. By then I had moved back to Morgantown. We even lived together. Four and half years into the relationship I learned I was pregnant. I was surprised because my boyfriend had heard some people talking about a young girl that her mother forced her to have an abortion and that the girl didn’t know it but her mother had them tie her tubes. When he told me this, he realized when I shared about my abortion that it was me they were talking about because the guy had said my mother’s name. I thought was this what the guy was really doing that day that my baby was aborted. Tying my tubes? I had no means to find out. So when I learned I was pregnant that was an emotional release that it was nothing but a rumor. He had been divorced, raised his kids and really didn’t want any more kids. I also knew how my parents – especially my mother – would react. So since I had one abortion and it was later, maybe with this one being early wouldn’t be as bad. I really didn’t want to go through with it but I was drained with fighting so I went to the Human Services Department, got a Medical Card and contacted an abortion clinic that was about hour away from where I lived.

So we drove up, stayed at a motel and went early the next morning to the clinic. He said that he needed to find a dentist because his tooth was bothering him so I went upstairs alone. I remember going in and being handed all the forms to fill out. I sat there for about hour. A woman took me back to confirm the pregnancy. She asked me about the information I had put down and asked about the first abortion. I remember this sick feeling as I recalled. The anger of being lied to. I told her about how they lied to me about the pain. That it was not tissue like liver, that it was fully formed and so on. She said how traumatic that kind of abortion was on a girl so young. She informed me that since I was I think only ten weeks that I was not to worry that it was not formed yet.

She took me back to a room where I got undressed, put the gown on and laid back on the table. She talked with me as we waited for the doctor to come in. She told me what he would do. That he would numb me to. I remember me saying I don’t want numbed. She said I needed to be and I said NO! I felt that I deserved to feel the pain because of what I was about to do. She held my hand and as the pain was so intense she kept telling me to look at the different colored dots they had on the ceiling to look at. I cried and cried through the pain. I remember the pressure – I don’t really remember the sound. I do remember an instrument he picked up that hurt when he used it, but I kept it in as much as I could because I felt I deserved the pain.

Afterwards she helped me get dressed. My legs felt funny, like I couldn’t feel them and she helped me back to the room to lie down. She asked if I wanted some juice or some crackers I said no. I sat there just crying and looking straight ahead.

My boyfriend was in the waiting room and I overheard the nurse telling him that I seemed to be in shock. Just to wait and let me talk when ready. I cried all the way home. I went to bed and cried and cried and cried. I didn’t eat. We didn’t speak though he tried to talk with me. Two days later I pushed it all in and went to work. Put on a false face to get through, would go home and to bed and cry. I cried so much that my face was drawn on one side from the stress. Every day for a month I cried. A few months later the relationship with the gentleman ended. To this day I don’t remember the date, day, or time of that abortion. I only remember that it was November the week before my state boards. A year after almost to the time of that abortion the father of that baby tried to get back with me. He cried and said how sorry he was for pushing me to have an abortion – that he had no idea the emotional pain that it would have on both of us. The next day after coming to talk with me he took his life.

Months later a friend asked me to go to church with her. I struggled because I wondered how God could forgive me. Not only did I have one abortion but I had two. Now churches were speaking out more about abortion, the killing and taking the life of the unborn. Each word a pastor would speak or someone speaking on it would stir up flashes of memories and emotions and shame. I would slip out, go home and cry. I would go to another church. Again, the same guilt, shame to even ask for God or Jesus to forgive me or even more what if other Christians knew I had two abortions? What would they think of me? How would they judge me?

So I didn’t go to church as often. I met my future husband through a co worker where I managed a business. We started dating, got engaged and few months later I found out I was pregnant. We married. My son was due the latter part of August. I remember the first time I felt him moving, my thoughts flashed back and I thought, “oh my God, what I felt at sixteen was my baby moving around inside me.” Then my water broke, and I went into labor. The reality of what happened back on January 7, 1975, began to hit me: my water had broken, I had been in labor and I had delivered a baby.

The emotions were running high. First my son was not due for another six weeks. I began to think because of my abortions he was coming early. When we got to the hospital they said because my water broke that I would have to stay there. My husband said he would go home because the nurses said it would be a while since it was my first child. They were concerned because they knew he was coming too soon. I did sleep some and at four something in the morning the labor pain hit. My brain registered that I had felt this pain before. They tried to get ahold of my husband but they couldn’t so I was there alone giving birth and scared I would lose him because of coming too soon. My son was born and I heard that first cry and they said he had all his fingers and toes. Then when they were letting me see him they rushed him out of the room. My heart sank. I could tell by their expression something was wrong. They rushed him to NICU because of being born so early. I didn’t get to hold him for a whole week. As I looked into his face, I thought about the two babies I would never know.

When I held him finally so many emotions ran through my mind and my heart. Such joy to hold him, but in the back of my mind I thought of the two babies I would never hold.

As time went on I wondered if Jesus came now if I would go to Heaven. I had enough head knowledge of the Bible but not as much heart knowledge because I felt no way could I be forgiven. I also felt He would take my son for he was an innocent little baby. So I started watching Christian TV, I started praying. I didn’t talk about my abortions when I prayed. At times I asked God to forgive me after my first but I thought could he really forgive me because of taking their lives? Even when people would say they felt I was forced, I still struggled whether I could be forgiven.

When my son was about three years old I started going to a new church, Covenant Evangelical Methodist Church. I had only gone there a couple of Sundays and really liked it. I loved the family friendly church, loved how the pastor gave the message. But, one Sunday I went, my emotions really flipped on a roller coaster. It was a Sunday in January known as “Sanctity of Human Life Sunday.” I didn’t understand what it was about.

Pastor Ed got up and started to speak after the praise and worship. He told us what the Sunday meant and said they had a special speaker that would be sharing her testimony. As he spoke he talked about babies that die daily from abortion. That since Roe v Wade so many babies had died. I wanted to get up and leave but I thought I can get through this.

My mind was trying to tune him out and I was starting to get angry. Then he introduces this very well dressed, beautiful blond named Karen Cross. She began to talk, saying that she had her notes, but felt God wanted her to use the blank pages. (God had other plans of what she was about to say that changed a person’s life that day and I am sure others in the room as well. I am glad she didn’t use her notes.) She shared about what the Sunday meant and she talked about women that have had abortions. Shared how the babies die from different types of abortions. I wanted to scream at her to shut up. I was having major flash backs of my abortions.

I kept saying in my head shut up, shut up. I wanted to slap her face off and tell her to just stop. After I felt I could take no more I went to get up and leave. I couldn’t. I tried to rise up again and couldn’t. It’s as if there were hands pushing me back down, holding me there. She kept talking and then she said, “Jesus can forgive women that have had abortions.” It caught my attention, especially when she talked about healing from the nightmares, pain, depression, thoughts of taking your life, healing and forgiveness for those that either pushed for the abortion, forgiveness for those that performed the abortion and so on.
She shared about her own pain and I realized someone understood, as if she was talking about the very emotions and struggles I had been living with for years. At that point I couldn’t wait to go up to her and learn more about the post abortion bible studies that help women with healing. I did and she was so kind, she shared with me information to find the help needed. (If she only knew what I had thought of her just less than half hour before.) That Sunday changed my life and helped me realize what an amazing Heavenly Father I had and what Jesus did for me on the cross.

I did go to the bible studies, and events that were pro-life. Even a couple of weeks after meeting Karen Cross that Sunday, I ran into her at an Amy Grant concert. Of all the thousands of people there I saw her. I ran up to her and gave her a hug.

After that and the bible studies I realized Jesus had forgiven me. I had a peace that I had not felt in many, many, years. I also had to learn to forgive myself. It was easier to ask Jesus to forgive me but forgiving myself was another thing. In time I realized that not forgiving myself was putting me above Jesus and what he did for me. Saying that his dying on the cross was not still enough for me to even forgive myself.

Through the time of healing, learning more about the truth of what abortion does to not just the babies but the women, and the families. Karen and I became closer friends. I even started working at the state office with Karen. Wow the huge, huge amount of information. I admit some of the pictures I would see were hard to look at. I remember the first picture of a baby that had died the same way my first did, then to see the pictures of how my second baby died. I even had a chance to be the speaker at a few Walk for Life events. During my time at WVFL I became pregnant with my second child. Again near the end of the pregnancy I started having contractions and I feared that I would have her early. I began to understand about what effects abortions could have on a woman in the future. My son came early and my daughter was trying to as well. She did manage to come closer to her due date. As I began to share more I decided to take and write for my records from West Penn Hospital. I called and they sent me the forms I would have to fill out. This was late 1990; sixteen years after my abortion at West Penn Hospital. I received a fully stuffed envelope, with the postmark date, Jan 22, 1991, from West Penn Hospital.

I didn’t open it and waited till I would get back to the office the next day so that Karen could be there with me. As I opened it, it had all my records from those three days. As I read I thought more lies. Especially how well they said I did, or what they called it: “Saline Therapeutic Abortion.” “Therapeutic.” Are they kidding me? I began to feel the anger I felt when I first realized how they lied to me. I learned that my baby was a girl, she was 21 cm. and she was 5 2/3 oz.

I cried and cried and Karen held me. I was so thankful to have her there with me. After calming down some, I began to look through the rest of the papers the hospital records sent. Then I came across one that no words can express the emotion I felt as I looked at it. I began to truly lose it with uncontrollable tears. Before me was a copy of a death certificate. “A DEATH CERTIFICATE!”
I was never told that there would be a death certificate. After some of the shock was over, we continued to look at the rest of the papers. Then we came across one that we both just stood there. It was the pathology report. Remember the baby was aborted Jan 7, the date on the report was Jan 15. It said “specimen and consists of fetus of indeterminate sex which is macerated.” Wow, eight days my baby sat in whatever they had her in to the point they could not tell her sex.

After seeing all this – especially the death certificate— I thought if there was a copy at the hospital there had to be some record of her death at the state vital statistics. So I called their office, again received the forms I needed printed out and few weeks later received my baby’s death certificate that is recorded for all those that died on Jan 7, 1975. But there was more to this certificate, there was the state seal, as well as on the bottom a funeral directors signature. It also had marked “cremation.” That hit me like a ton of bricks.

I can’t express what it meant to have Karen there with me, who is my best friend and today very close like sisters. Through the years she has been there for me when a memory would come back or an emotion would bother me and sometimes I didn’t know at the time it had to do with my abortions. Like when I told her my mom was cremated and it upset me so much that she was and then it hit me why.

Because my second child tried to come early I had to stop working for WVFL. Though I would do what I could to help get the truth of abortion out there: help with mailings and educate people about the truth.

In 1994, there was a young lady that was going to be speaker at the WVFL Convention. Her name was Gianna Jessen. As I heard who this amazing woman was. There was a heaviness in my heart at the thought of meeting her. She was a young lady that had survived the very type of abortion that my daughter died from. I struggled with going to the convention. How could I look into the face of someone knowing what was done to my daughter? The day came and trust me my nerves were on overload. As I walked in the room there were people there speaking with her and her mother. Karen knew I was very nervous meeting her. I had gotten her a small gift. I first spoke to her mother. Karen was with me, we then went over and Karen introduced me to Gianna. I looked into the face of a beautiful young woman. The emotions overwhelmed me as I tried to hold myself together. I shared why I was nervous to meet her. What happened next still today was from God. She looked at me and then gave me a warm hug. It was so healing. She and her mother shared how they pray for women like me that struggle with their abortions. When I first went in I had a feeling of such guilt and shame to meet her, but I walked away with knowing more of God’s love through a young girl that didn’t know how healing it was to meet her.

In 1995, I was pregnant with my third child. Things were going along fine with the pregnancy until the last few months when she dropped down so low that they put me on a six week bed rest. Again my baby was trying to come early and the reality was the floor of my uterus struggled to hold the babies where they should be until the due date. She ended up being born just a few days before her due date. Praise God.

Matter of fact, when I was pregnant with my third child I was 38. Usually having a baby this late they would do an Amniocentesis test. Both of my doctors were pro-life and knew of my testimonies about my abortions, especially the one at sixteen. They didn’t want to do the test because it required them to put a needle down to the womb to get some amniotic fluid. They felt that doing that would be very unhealthy for me because of the emotional trauma of that abortion and could cause me to lose the baby I was carrying.
Between my two girls, I had a miscarriage. After the miscarriage I had some problems with bleeding and they needed to do a DNC. I was so nervous knowing what they were about to do was what they did after my first abortion and for my second abortion. The nurse could tell that I was struggling and she asked if I wanted my friend Cindy to come. I said yes and the nurse also said she would be praying for me. As they both held my hand and they started. Emotions flashed back to my abortions – both of them. I started shaking and crying and I told the doctors that they feel abortion is so good for women but they don’t’ realize the long-term trauma they go through and how it affects them many years later.

In 2004, we learned that my oldest daughter had cancer: Neuroblastoma. It required that we not only go through chemo where we lived at the Children’s Hospital but also go to Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh. Because she had to have stem cells removed, I remember one night unable to sleep watching her sleep and watching the tube move with each beat of her heart that was in her neck removing the blood that would be going through a machine and then returned to her body. As I sat there I thought that just across the city at another hospital my first baby girl died from an abortion.

I cried out to God. I knew he was with me through my daughter’s cancer because of things he was showing me. Yet, the mixed emotions of remembering my first daughter and not knowing if my second daughter would make it through all she was going through. My faith was strong. I had grown a lot in my walk. I also wasn’t going to let Satan start with his attacks either like we know that he will try to do. I remember telling my daughter when she asked if she could die from this. I told her God would heal her one of two ways: either He would heal her here on earth and we would share in the glory of what He had done or He would take her home and she would stand in His glory. I could say that because I learned through the post-abortion bible studies how wonderful my Heavenly Father was, how amazing my Lord and Savior was and how GREAT their love was. I will say that she did make it through the chemo, the surgery to remove the nine pound tumor and the stem cell.

At this point one may wonder what she went through has to do with what I went through with my abortions. Well, a year after her treatments and she was off the meds that had stopped her periods because there were times her platelets got so low she would have severe nose bleeds. They were concerned if she continued to have periods she could bleed to death. We made an appointment for her physical with an OB/GYN doctor and told them she had not started. The doctor said that can happen when a teen as young as her, (she was 12 years old when we learned of the cancer) that it can take some time. But, she said they would do tests to see how her hormone levels were.

When the doctor called, I could tell in her voice something was wrong. As she started to share with me the test results she started to cry and said she was so sorry but my daughter was like a woman in menopause and that she would never be able to have children. I cried, I could not find any words. All I could do is tell her thank you for calling. I was home alone and I cried and then I thought of my abortions. Here my daughter can never have a baby and I had taken two babies’ lives. Satan was trying to have a field day with that one. But, I began to pray and stand on God’s word. I had to tell her and it was so hard but she seemed to handle it OK. They even sent us to a reproductive doctor that told us the same thing I stood on the fact that God was the ultimate physician.

Six months later my daughter said she wanted to tell me something and she didn’t want me to get all upset or excited. I had no idea what she was going to tell me. I sat down on her bed and she said she had started her period. Mind you it took all my energy not to jump up and down and praise God. I told her how important it was for her to have them at her age. She cried, she said she didn’t want them. I joked with her some to get her to smile. I told her I can imagine her going to sleep and telling God that next time mom is praying for something to come to her first. Sadly when she married and got pregnant, she miscarried.

As a mother of two aborted babies, I don’t forget about them. I know they are with Jesus and one day I will meet them along with the baby I miscarried. January 7 of last year was harder than most years remembering my baby. A dear friend of mine that had been sick was in the hospital. Her time to leave this world and stand before our Lord was nearing. I was at the hospital all day with her family. I talked with my dear friend, talked to her about Jesus, told her I would keep her dear husband in prayer. They were so very close. I sang Amazing Grace to her. Through it all there were moments I had to go and be alone as I was remembering where I was forty plus years ago. I thought how she would be seeing her loved ones that went before her. What a reunion, then I thought of the day I would see the faces of my babies.

Through the years we have heard more and more about people that have survived being aborted. Karen loaned me a book to read, “You Carried Me.” As I began reading there were times that it took me back. One point in the book I just broke down and cried and cried. It really hit home for me, I could so connect with what her birth mother went through. Being forced to do something that she didn’t want.

I could share so much more with my journey of healing from my abortions. The healing is a journey, you can be going along in life and something flashes you back to that day, an emotion that you may not understand why something is affecting you so deeply. I can’t even imagine where I would be if I hadn’t been sitting in that church that day and hearing Karen share. I know I am so thankful and so blessed by the friendship that grew over the years. She has seen me through the roughest moments through my healing, through seeing my daughter go through cancer and hearing my cries when told she could not have children and how I struggled with the guilt. Even as I was writing this as I shared, she called when I needed her encouragement and prayers.

I must say that God knew long before that Sunday that one day my healing would begin, that I would share with others my testimony, that I would receive my records and in it be a copy of something so powerful that when I have faced those, especially politicians that are pro-death and challenge them that babies are living and alive in the womb. I ask them why someone would be given a death certificate. The answer is always because they have died. Then I ask what happens that the doctor announces the time of death. The answer is that their heart has stopped. Then I show them my daughter’s death certificate. I tell them to look and see how she died. Then I tell them if she is counted for dying in Pennsylvania, has a death certificate that means that she was alive before January 7, 1975.

I must share that not only the prayers of those praying helped me get through 21 pages of memories, but also recalling my daughter Heather sharing something with me months ago when she read in John 5:8, where Jesus held a man and told him to take up his mat. She said that it was interesting how he didn’t just tell the man to just go. But, he told him to take his mat. That mat represented who he used to be. A man that spent years and years on a mat unable to walk. I can imagine the man saying, see this mat, I laid on it year after year because I could not walk, but Jesus came and healed me. In the beginning my testimony was the mat, but I sit here now not laying on my mat but standing healed, sharing the truth about the lies of abortion, sharing with women the love, hope, forgiveness and healing through the blood of Jesus. The truth is the sword that cuts through the lies of those that fight to hide the truth of what happens to the babies and to the women and families that go through abortions.