We longed for our child and right from the point of the positive pee stick we were in a bubble of elation. I felt the first flutters, I marvelled over my body changing as our child grew. I proudly told the world and shared our news with anyone who would listen. We beamed.
The thoughts of a beautiful bundle of joy joining our family was a precious feeling. We all grasped onto the excitement and took heed with happiness to our unborn child's ever changing development each day... from a grain of rice, to a kiwi, a lemon, a grapefruit and so on.
We chose outfits and imagined what our child would look like. Every day the pregnancy bought us a little more amazement over the miracle of life.
We were blissfully ignorant to the fragility of our unborn child. We were naive that things would would run smoothly and completely unaware that bringing new life into the world could have had such a devastating path.
We didn't view ourselves as a statistic.
We wanted our baby with every ounce of our being.
And then our bubble burst and we were faced with the hardest and most horrendous decision of our lives.
We aborted our child, the child we shared elation for, the child we celebrated, the child whom became the quietest member of our family.
But we're not callous murderers, our decision was born out of love...
Having to choose whether to terminate your unborn child is possibly the hardest choice you will ever have to make in your life. I would not wish that choice on anybody. It's not something that you'd ever imagine yourself being faced with and for me it's something I will carry with me forever.
The worst thing is the judgement and opinions that society has placed upon you for your decision, and most often that opinion is formed without knowing the reasoning.
In reality not all pregnancies go to plan and sometimes your world is blown apart in the blink of an eye. It's not something foreseen or expected and is both soul destroying and heartbreaking.
Abortion was something I had never ever considered and never ever wanted to consider but in 2006 I was faced with just that, a harsh and brutal reality which I could not escape from.
It's a horrendous situation made all the more awful due to the stigma and taboo that surrounds it.
Abortions are most often perceived as a choice that is made because you don't want your child... but that's not always the case. I wanted my child with every morsel of my being.
I didn't choose abortion for any selfish reasons. For me, I chose selflessly to undergo a termination out of the love I had for my child, to stop their pain and suffering. The easiest option would no doubt have been to bring our baby into the world because I was selfishly unable to let go, into the world to exist without a quality of life, to live in a self confined darkness of pain and suffering, to not see or hear, not communicate, to not breathe unaided, to be trapped in a world of nothing, a void, to be totally reliant on others for every function to enable them to exist, if they were to survive the birth... would you want that for your child?
Many woman are thrown into this situation everyday. Their lives turned upside down. Woman who attend scans full of joy and excitement to peek into the world of their unborn child only to be faced with a harsh reality that things are devastatingly not OK.
It's a decision that smashes your heart instantaneously into a million pieces. A decision that changes you forever. A decision that you cannot run from and will carry on your shoulders every second of each day, your first thought in the morning and last thought at night.
I wanted my child with every single part of me. I would have given my last breath in exchange for her living, her being, her growing up happily and grasping onto the world. But sometimes things aren't rosy. I've written more about what happened in this blog post: The Daughter That's Nestled in our Hearts.
My hope is that by telling our story it may help somebody else who is afraid of judgement who is faced with a situation like ours.
In the cold light of day we have to live by our decisions, we chose a termination out of love for our child. She slipped through our fingers when we so desperately wanted to hold on. And I grieve for her.
I cry for her.
I long for her.
Constantly.
Deborah is better know as Mrs FD on her Family Days Tried and Tested Facebook Page where she chats and shares daily about the reality of family life and how to make every day more enjoyable. You can read more by Deborah at familydaystriedandtested.com.