Dear Friend,
I’ve been meaning to write to you for quite some time. 24 years to be exact. As I’ve gotten older, I find it easier to tell my story – to tell my truth.
I’ve heard your pleas, arguments and shouts about your stance on abortion and I think it’s time you hear mine. I’ve been hesitant to tell you my story because let’s face it, some of you “Christians” are bit aggressive with the words whore, slut and phrases like “keep your legs together.” Can you tone down your aggressive rhetoric a bit? I think you’ll accomplish your mission more effectively if you consider doing so.
ABORTION. It is such an ugly word. The thought of a human soul being sucked out by a vacuum, from the womb of her mother, is morally repulsive to most people. It is to me as well. But I don’t pass judgement on women who consider this option because I had to consider it 24 years ago and at the end of the day – I chose LIFE.
The choice I made gave me a beautiful, intelligent and compassionate daughter. I am eternally grateful her soul made the safe journey from wherever she came from, to my womb and into my arms.
Yet by choosing life for her… my life path was forever changed.
For better or worse my destiny was now set. By choosing LIFE I had to leave behind a life I thought was mine, a love I thought was mine and a destiny I thought was mine. I had to let go of what I thought was “my path” for an unknown path that was less certain and clear.
The man who impregnated me was practically a stranger. I had known him for less than five months. My story was a real-life version of the movie “Knocked Up.” Marrying him wasn’t on my “to do” list and being a mother wasn’t on my radar, yet nature had other plans and this is where my story gets a little messy.
I arrived at the clinic determined to abort and move forward. I had stuff to do. A life to live. Plans to carry out. Dreams to achieve. This baby growing within me was not part of my life plan at this point in time. I was feeling trapped.
In a strange role reversal, it was me crying “he trapped me” as I denied any responsibility for the precarious position, I was in. Never mind the fact that the only birth control I practiced was saying “pull out please.” It was his fault and I was sticking with that story.
The clinic completed an ultrasound which determined how far along I was – 8 weeks. I was considering an abortion that very day but the physician wouldn’t do it. He said I needed to wait 24 hours and then schedule it – per policy. I left the clinic more confused than ever and I tried to ignore the loud and intrusive protesters who seemed more hateful than helpful. “F*ck you” I thought as I walked past one male protestor who smelled like alcohol and could have passed for a homeless person. In my head I was having a full-blown conversation with him; “F*ck you for trying to tell me how to live my life while you are out here hungover and looking like a pile of cow dung trying to preach to me from the sidewalk!” “Do these people have nothing more to do with their life other than shout out bible verses?” “Do any of you folks have a day job?”
Perhaps my assessment was wrong though. These loud and intrusive humans could have been angels sent from above for all I know, but in my mind they were aggressive hypocrites and their shouting and yelling had ZERO impact on my choice at that moment in time.
Something you need to know about me is at that point in my life I was severely hearing impaired in one ear and profoundly deaf in the other ear due to a progressive hearing loss that was first detected when I was just two years old. I had not yet received cochlear implants so listening to music AND actually understanding the lyrics was extremely difficult. About three miles along, after leaving the clinic, a country song came on the radio, “When You Say Nothing At All” by Alison Krauss. On this particular day, in 1995, the lyrics to the Alison Krauss song played crystal clear in my car. So clear that I had to pull off the road to catch my breath. How am I hearing AND understanding this I asked myself?
Alison Krauss sang her soothing song and waves of tears poured from me as I listened. I felt as if the soul in my belly was talking to me -asking me to let her make a safe passage. The lyrics were as follows;
It’s amazing how you can speak right to my heart
Without saying a word, you can light up the dark
try as I may I can never explain
What I hear when you don’t say a thing…
The smile on your face lets me know that you need me
There’s a truth in your eyes saying you’ll never leave me
The touch of your hand says you’ll catch me wherever I fall
You say it best, when you say nothing at all
Perhaps my body was being flooded with estrogen making me overly emotional or perhaps I was having a mental health crisis – an emotional break down because the choice before me was about to change my life one way or another. Perhaps it was what some people call a “God moment.” Regardless of what it was, at that very moment, I decided to choose life. I took a leap of faith and decided my life path would just have to wait – that her life path was going to come first. I heard my daughter’s cries in the lyrics and real or not, it was a life changing moment for me.
The additional blessing in my story is that my daughter’s father was adamant that I not have an abortion. He didn’t want to consider an abortion for even a second. After I returned home from the clinic, he fell to his knees and begged me to “make the right choice.” When I told him “my choice is made – let’s have this baby” he was beyond elated. He wanted a marriage, a house and a white picket fence and all the middle-class family dreams that I wasn’t able to picture with him just yet. Who the hell was this man on his damn knees? I was trying hard not to resent him for throwing the curve ball that changed the trajectory of my life path.
I said to him with all seriousness;” I can’t even remember what your middle name is.” “Does it even matter” he said as he smiled and kissed me on the forehead. He was right. It didn’t matter. We were having a baby regardless of what society and our family said about us. I was about to become his baby mama. He was about to become my baby daddy (and by the way the terms “baby mama” and “baby daddy” didn’t even exist back then). Never mind that we weren’t married and barely knew each other – the choice was made.
I was breaking family traditions and societal rules. Rules that were more rigid in 1995 than they are today. Society could label me a slut, a whore and the girl who couldn’t keep her legs together, after a night of binge drinking, but society with all her harsh judgement could go f*ck herself!
I was now officially a poor, single, unwed social worker and mother-to-be living in a four-room shack in Miami County, Ohio – eligible for welfare but definitely too proud to stand in line and collect. Uncle Sam could keep his welfare money – I was going to keep my pride and figure this out on my own.
1995 was indeed a memorable and transformative year for our family! Looking back, my sweet parents took some tough hits that year. I broke some long-standing family moral codes by being a little too single and ready to mingle. How was I going to explain to my conservative mother that I got drunk and had unsafe sex out of wedlock with a guy I wasn’t dating exclusively. A guy I hardly knew.
“Who is the father?” my mother shouted. “Oh shit” was her reply after I answered. A reply she would later call “thoughtless and stupid.” I forgave her.
It was also the year that I came to understand my mother a whole hell of a lot better, as she also became pregnant out of wedlock some 33 years earlier. A fact she would deny for many years until I learned to do baby math and put it all together. History does have an uncanny way of repeating itself.
My mother’s destiny and my destiny was transformed and altered by an unplanned pregnancy but once we came to peace with our decision we both found a way to shape our life to be exactly what we needed it to be.
My mother stayed with my father for over 50 years, until his death and I’ve been with my husband Jeff (the guy whose middle name I couldn’t remember) for over 24 years now. Jeff went on to become not only a wonderful father and husband but a great son-in-law and my mother would be the first to say that Jeff was like a son to her. Her “oh shit” response to my pregnancy was something we could eventually laugh about together.
Abortion. It is such an ugly word. It is a word that divides political parties and creates extremists on both sides.
In 1962 my mother was given NO CHOICE, as abortion was illegal.
In 1995, I was given a CHOICE but I had to wait 24 hours to make that choice.
Yet choice had no bearing on the outcome. Our decision was made with our hearts and not by politicians. Nothing could have stopped my mother from getting an illegal abortion in 1962 and nothing could have stopped me from getting a legal abortion in 1995. The 24 hour wait period certainly helped but the real deciding factor was my own internal moral code that every woman has within her. Mine just happened to come to me as a country song.
My beautiful, intelligent and compassionate daughter was born on March 17, 1996, on St. Patrick’s Day of course! Luck of the Irish indeed!
But was it just dumb Irish luck that allowed her a safe passage into my arms? Was it God? Was it a 24 hour wait rule? Was it her father falling to his knees and begging for her life? Or was it a country song speaking to my heart?
I can tell you with certainty, what did NOT save my daughter’s life and influence my decision to allow her a safe passage to our world; judgmental and loud protestors outside of the clinic. Their impact was ZERO. I am sorry Mr. Loud and Hungover hypocritical man holding the bright red sign that said “Abortion is a sin.” Sir, you need to get a day job because REAL change comes from inside the human heart. Not YOUR human heart Sir– but the mother’s heart.
The truth is ugly and my vocal and loud pro-life friends will not like this truth but it needs to be said…
We can pass state laws to ban abortions but women will just cross state lines. We can pass federal laws to ban abortion, but women will just travel to Canada or Mexico. We can picket, protest, yell, hold up signs and post nasty memes passing judgement on women who have abortions but such aggressive tactics will not change the human heart or the lives of babies not yet born.
My story is this…In the fog of a human CRISIS– when things seem dark, unclear and scary – we can often hear our own internal moral code whisper or SING to us, if we just PAUSE long enough to listen. It’s why I want all my pro-life friends to hear this one simple message – put down your “abortion is a sin” signs, stop your aggressive memes and strong-arm tactics targeting scared, pregnant women. Stop using the words whore, slut and welfare mama and start asking yourself why you never say welfare daddy.
Just remember this one simple truth; the way into a woman’s heart is with a message that is gentle, non-judgmental, loving and subtle…like a beautiful country song.
“It’s amazing how you can speak right to my heart
Without saying a word, you can light up the dark
Try as I may I can never explain
What I hear when you don’t say a thing…”
Sincerely,
Teresa McIntosh-Hall
(Wife, mother, writer, blogger and social worker who chooses life but understands and respects choice)
Such a beautiful, brave story.
Very good. One of your best narratives.
Wow what a beautiful story and I couldn’t agree more! I love your transparency…and you!
Thank you Debbie! Hugs!
Beautiful Teresa!!
You do not have to hear, to listen. . .