Today, I am a Woman of Passion

The Story of Leslie T. Dean

 

Eleanor Cunningham

   
  Today I am a whole woman with a whole heart.

However, it was not always that way.  In deep despair and hopelessness, I once wrote this poem:

Most things can be broken only once.
Some can be mended.
The heart is an exception to that rule.
The heart can’t be mended.
It just goes on breaking into smaller and smaller pieces
Until nothing is left,
But some remnants of love.

Having been a product of the “free-love” 1960s, I was of the pro-choice persuasion and saw nothing wrong with abortion.  During my last year of nursing school, I married my first husband and became pregnant almost immediately.  The timing was inconvenient, and “I needed my education.”  So, with the encouragement of my husband and parents, I chose to end it.
 
A year later, I became and RN, and one evening I was asked to assist a doctor with three second-trimester abortions.  I had no idea that the hospital even performed abortions.  When the request was made, I felt instantaneous and inexplicable fear.  I couldn’t understand because I saw nothing wrong with these women’s right to choose.

In the next three hours, I vacillated between nausea and concern.  I watched the myriad of emotions the women experienced as they shared the reasons for their choice.  One lacked money and a father for her baby.  One had just accepted a new job.  The last one affected me the most: she had discovered her husband was having an affair and wanted him to pay for his unfaithfulness.  How?  By telling him that the shock of finding out had caused her to miscarry!

As these women went through an almost normal delivery process of contractions and pushing, an undefined conflict stirred in me.  When a fully formed, perfect little boy with a gestational age of approximately six months was delivered, the horror of what I had participated in became reality.  The doctor had warned me if the baby’s eyes were open, we would have to resuscitate.  A rough exam by the physician determined the baby’s eyes were fixed shut, and he dropped him in a bucket on the floor.  For what seemed like an eternity, I heard and saw him moving, until finally…silence.

I told the doctor I was not feeling well and went home.  I slept little that night.  Within the next few months, my marriage ended.

Over the next few years, I found myself experiencing symptoms that I later learned indicated something known as “post-abortion stress.”  I drifted in and out of destructive, abusive relationships, tried to numb my pain with alcohol and drugs, and had horrific nightmares.  I was unable to attend baby showers or be around babies without an overwhelming sense of guilt.

I married again, thinking I could lose my pain in a new relationship.  I had a baby right away, a substitute for the one I had aborted.  Within a year, I was pregnant again.  This time I begged for my baby’s life, but my husband was adamant and threatened to leave me.  I went through with it, but made them put me to sleep so I would not feel nor remember anything.  I did not anticipate the voice screaming in my head: “This is a horrible mistake; get up and run!” However, I was already mediated and unable to even talk.  The anesthesiologist patted my arm, telling me everything would be okay.  The thought I had was that nothing would ever be okay again.

Three years later, with two children and a third on the way, this marriage also ended.  I became increasingly depressed and was diagnosed with “post-traumatic stress disorder” due to past abuse and abortions.  Miraculous circumstances led me to a church where a dear friend guided me to a counselor who could help me with my issues.  The love and compassion of my Christian counselors helped me to see what I desperately needed—the grace and forgiveness of Jesus.  Through my relationship with Him and much counseling, I recovered from my symptoms.

I wondered how many others suffered these same symptoms.  I learned it is a very real epidemic.  Women needed to be reached, not only for counseling, but also with the love of Jesus.  My desire to help other women led me to open a pregnancy center.  Over the next two years, many women went through our counseling classes.  After the center closed, God laid on my heart to write a book about my life.  It took some time, but Forgiven Much was published in 2006.  My book fueled a passion in me to end the holocaust of abortion.  I joined the Silent No More Awareness Campaign to be a voice in the public arena. 

The poem I wrote long ago represented a shattered heart I felt could never be mended—but then came Jesus.  If you could see my heart today, you would see how He has pieced me back together.  Those remnants of love are now bursting with passion for others who have been wounded like me.