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Floundering
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Adrian
California,
United States
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41 YEARS OF FLOUNDERING
Floundering—according to Webster dictionary, it means: “to struggle to move or obtain footing.” That pretty much defines the last 41 years of my life. Hi. My name is Adrian, and it seems no matter how much I’ve tried to change my life, move forward, or grow, things just never happened. It was like being on a treadmill, actively moving, but going nowhere. It was as if I spent 41 years in a desert, just like the children of Israel, always going around the same mountain.
It all began with one incident in my life. This incident is something that many other women have experienced, are experiencing now, or may experience in the future. Not all have been, or will be, stunted emotionally like I was, but I do believe everyone who has had this experience will never be the same.
I started my senior year in high school just after I turned seventeen. Like a lot of teenagers in the 70’s, we played around with our sexuality as if there were no consequences. We thought we were already grown up and able to handle the responsibility that came along with having sex. In reality, we were still just kids playing grownup.
Like most teens, I was fraught with confusion. Lack of self-esteem caused me to see myself as very ugly. But I longed for the fairy tale. I dreamed of finding a prince like in the fairy tale of Cinderella. I loved movies. The girl always got the guy when she had sex with him, even if in the end one or the other left. I wanted to be loved. I thought this was the way to get it.
During the last two years of high school, I dated three different guys. However long or short our relationship was, I stayed with the one until we broke up before I moved to another one. One of the guys attended college in a town not far away. We saw each other in my junior year of school. Right before my senior year began, we broke up.
To dull the pain of his rejection after he broke up with me, I reached out to one of the other two young men. We picked up right where we left off, seeing each other fairly regularly for three months. Then we didn’t see much of each other in December.
However, in February, I remember getting sick. I thought it was the flu, but I kept throwing up. My mom suggested I go see our local doctor.
I remember that day. The sun was shining. It was cold, but not unbearably cold. The doctor’s waiting room was full of patients. When my turn came to go in, I explained my symptoms to him. He had me lie down on the examining table. After pressing on my stomach several times he said point blank, “You are about three months pregnant.” I can’t even describe how I felt. Shock is the best word. He might as well have told me you have stage 4 cancer with a month to live. The weight of his diagnosis hit me full force. When I started to cry, his consoling words were, “You should have cried before the horse came out of the barn.” As true as that statement was, it was not the best thing to say to a very distraught teenager. He did ask me if I wanted to leave by the back stairway to avoid the roomful of patients. I gave an affirmative reply.
As I left, I thought, “How could this have happened?” Well, I know how, but how could this have happened to me? Unlike today, contraceptives in the seventies were not handed out like aspirin. To most girls, this was the guy’s responsibility. However, none of the guys I knew took this responsibility seriously. Anyway, I just thought it would never happen to me.
I became angrier with every step I took. I headed straight for the one person who was partly responsible for my predicament. I’m not even sure I looked at him standing behind the counter at his job. I simply said, “We need to talk,” as I walked toward the back of the store. Between my tears of anger, I told him I was pregnant. After a small discussion on what not to do, that is tell my parents, we agreed to take care of this “problem” ourselves.
Abortion was legal in some states for those that were eighteen year old. This presented a problem for me because I would not be eighteen until June. I had to find a way. I felt I had no choice. We needed to get this done. No one would know. Our lives could go on as if nothing had happened.
I borrowed a friend's ID, which meant I had to trust someone else with my secret. We found a clinic in Ohio. I’m not sure if it was fortunate or unfortunate, but when it came time for the pre-examination questions, I responded too slowly when she called me by my friend’s name. This made her suspicious. They turned us down. We drove all the way back to West Virginia with “our problem” still inside me. Now, I had to get my parents involved.
My parents loved me. They wanted only the best for all their children. Being irresponsible by having sex outside of marriage and getting pregnant was not the best. I faced my parents alone for this disclosure. I felt their anger and disappointment. I talked my dad out of pressing charges against the young man by confessing that I knew what I was doing. I insisted on having an abortion, giving them all my reasons. I’m not even sure I asked them what I should do. My mom said she would call and make an appointment.
I continued to attend my high school, pretending everything was normal. That was hard to do since I did not weigh over a hundred pounds, and only one part of your body showed changes. I lived in denial so much that I thought no one would notice my stomach even in a body suit. One day our school guidance counselor called me into his office. I had never had a meeting with him, so I wondered why he wanted to see me. Remember, I lived in denial. As I recall, he never directly asked me if I was pregnant. However, he seemed to be very nervous talking to me. Nothing ever came of the conversation.
I wondered what was taking so long to get an appointment for the abortion, but I never questioned my mom. It never occurred to me that my parents were hoping I would change my mind. As I waited, my sister, who already had a couple of children, volunteered to raise mine until I finished college. I imagined too much in that scenario, mostly the pain of someone else raising my child.
I felt changes in my body that I didn’t like. One day, in my anger, I plopped down in the living room chair, frustrated that things weren’t moving along. Both my mom and my sister told me I could hurt the baby by doing that. By this time, I had believed all the jargon of it not being a baby but just tissue so, I didn’t care. However, it was on that evening that I felt the first fluttering in my stomach.
Several conversations took place between the father and me during this time of waiting. One day after school, I stopped by his job so we could talk. Before I went in, I had made up my mind that if he wanted the baby, I would keep it. When I asked him, he said he was too young to be a dad.
The thoughts of how difficult it would be to raise a baby on my own trumped all thoughts of having it. I think I stormed into my mom’s presence after talking with the father. I wanted to know, “What is taking so long to get the appointment?” Later that night my mother told my Dad, “We’re going to John Hopkins.” This was now towards the end of April.
Memories of the last day in April are sketchy. I don’t remember the drive to John Hopkins, which was at least three hours. Someone else summed it up perfectly. Once a woman makes up her mind to have an abortion, it’s like someone else is taking the steps. It is almost like being in a trance and remotely taking the necessary steps to complete the task. I answered the doctor’s questions and signed papers. Since the sonogram proved I was 22 weeks pregnant, they would have to use the saline solution, which would burn the infant to death and then produce labor pains in order to pass the fetus. Although they explained everything, I still had no idea what to expect.
When the labor pains hit, I cried out. I remember the nurse’s sharp tongue as she told me to shut up, along with other hateful remarks. The nurses were not kind, which only added to my distress.
Once they confirmed the baby had been born, I asked to see it, but the nurse told me that would not be a good idea. She was right, I’m sure, but I’ve always wondered if it was a boy or girl. If it had just been a blob of tissue, why would I have wondered the sex? Deep down inside I knew the answer.
One of the things that has haunted me for 41 years is that the doctor told me that if I had waited one more day, they would not have taken me. One more day! Just one day would have made my life so completely different. One more day and I would have carried the baby full term.
Emotional, spiritual, and psychological changes took place immediately. These were changes that I would not detect until about eight years later, and then only partially. I went back to high school as if nothing had happened and graduated with my class. I tried to live like nothing had happened, but something had happened, and it would affect all my decisions for the next 41 years. And so my “floundering” began.
That summer, after the abortion, I attended the Upward Bound Program at a local college like I had for the last three summers. During those summers I discovered a love for stage acting. Acting was the only thing that really sparked my interest. I wanted to be an actress more than anything.
Since it was my last summer, the drama director asked me to help direct the play, “Jesus Christ Superstar”. Depression had set itself deep within me and I told them no. I did not really know why I said it, especially since I really wanted to do it. None the less, the director of Upward Bound saw my talent. He talked to the director for the Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York on my behalf and convinced him to cut the price of admission in half. The director at The Academy of Dramatic Arts sent me a book of monologues. My parents offered to pay for me to attend. Everyone wanted me to go. I wanted to go. In the end, I backed out with the excuse that even if the price was half, Mom and Dad couldn’t afford it. So the effects of having an abortion began to manifest themselves in my life, effects that I would not recognize until the early 1980’s. I was floundering.
In 1977 I moved to Hollywood, California, and surrendered my life completely to Jesus. Abortion may have been legalized to the world, but now I knew what it really was. It was sin. On this subject I remained silent. How could I speak against this sin that I had willingly committed? It was hard to agree with those who did speak out against it because I thought I would look like a hypocrite. So I never talked about it.
God in His mercy will not let you walk around wounded but so long. He will bring you around to face your past sooner or later. I moved back to West Virginia in 1979. In the early 80’s, God brought back to my memory the time when I was molested so He could began healing me. It took over twenty five years. About that same time our youth group (remember I stayed seventeen emotionally for years) traveled to Pittsburgh for a Melody Green Right to Life conference. I remember walking past her exhibit of the various stages of a baby’s development in the womb. I went numb. Inside I wanted to run. I asked God, “Why am I here?” His gentle response, “It’s time to be healed”. Even when they asked for women to come forward who had had an abortion, I did not go forward. Fear that all my church friends would know stopped me from going for prayer. It would take another thirty-two years for me to face this and let God heal me enough to finally share my story.
Some healing started at the conference, but it was painfully slow. I remember reading a pamphlet describing the emotional effects of abortion on a woman. I recognized all the symptoms printed as my own: low self-esteem, not able to make decisions, obsessed with children, obsessed with the gender of the child aborted, crying, depression, intense grief, nightmares, suicidal tendencies, difficulty with relationships, fear of intimacy, hating men, a need to make the situation right by marrying the father and having another baby or just having a baby, as well as seeing other children and wondering what yours would be like or look like at that age.
I moved to Georgia in 1986. Ever so slowly, I began to open up. I shared my experience with one young lady at my church, because she shared her experience with me. I still was not an open book.
I moved again in 1992 to Ventura, California. Now I was in my late thirties. On my parents fiftieth wedding anniversary I visited them in West Virginia. The Lord had been dealing with me that it was time to talk to the father. He still lived in the same town. We had a pleasant conversation. I apologized to him for robbing him of the opportunity to be a dad. Neither one of us has children. He, too, had changed his perspective on abortion, seeing it as wrong.
After this encounter, I obtained the medical records from John Hopkins Hospital. I had to know the baby’s sex for sure. I always had a strong feeling that it was a boy. The records confirmed it. I could have had a son. These records are all I have of the only child I will ever have. I named him Seth Eugene. I’ve had some counseling to help with the healing process. Even though my baby is in heaven, and I have never had the opportunity to hold him or raise him, I know I will see him one day just like the woman who loses a baby by a miscarriage. She is that baby’s mother. It is the same with those who have abortions. We are still a baby’s mother. Counseling is helping me realize this fact even if it is sometimes still hard to grasp.
If anyone tells you that there are no side effects to having an abortion, I’m living proof that the side effects can be devastating. Not only do you rob yourself of a person that would enrich your life, you rob all your family as well. This may be the only time you will be pregnant, like me. I tell you the pain of that realization is excruciating.
Abortion is not the answer to an unwanted pregnancy. The very act that you think is helping you is, in fact, doing the greatest harm. Even if you don’t acknowledge it, you are going to suffer some form of trauma, either emotionally, spiritually or possibly physically. It may take years before you even realize what emotional damage you’ve been living under. Once you face that reality, then you try to live with that decision, and it is one that you will never get over. Does a woman who miscarries ever forget that baby? No, so you will never forget the baby you aborted?
I believe God is calling the church to step out of the shadows on this atrocity. There are too many women who have had an abortion. There are too many men who stood by and let it happen, or whose pleas to stop it went unheeded. There are too many parents, friends, teachers, and even pastors who have counseled in favor of it. Jesus wants to heal the pain and suffering. It’s time to stop being silent because of guilt and repent of this sin and be healed. The more people speak up on their own experience maybe it will help other girls and women choose life for their babies.
Jesus loves you. He cares what happens to you.
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