Drugs . . . The beginning of the end of who I was.  Getting involved in drugs was the worst mistake of my life or so I thought.  Actually, it was what happened as a result of taking drugs that changed me forever.  I can say it wasn't my fault, that I was influenced by another or perhaps by the era in which I lived.  But there is no one to blame but me.

As I think back to 1975, I shiver with disgust.  It was a time of fear and insecurity for me but, more than that, it was a time of self-loathing.  Only a few ever knew of it, and those that did could not begin to understand.

As I entered the waiting room of the women's clinic, I glanced around at all the others sitting there.  Some were chatting happily while others talked to no one and stared emptily at the floor.  I stumbled up to the desk and quietly whispered my name.  "Someone will be out to get you in just a minute.  Have a seat," came the reply from a matronly woman in a worn dress.  I stepped over toward the far corner where I sulked back into a chair hoping to become invisible.  

Feeling numb, I shook violently as I waited for my name to be called.  Then it happened.  The bright, young nurse in her starched white uniform and little cap came through the door and motioned for me to follow.  I was taken into a very small, rather dark office.  In it were an old gray desk and two metal chairs.  It was so impersonal, cold even, and my head began to spin in sickening dizziness. 

The doctor and nurse asked me a few questions about my health, as though I cared at that point, and then left the room.  The nurse turned to me as she went out and said that she would be back in just a moment with a gown.  I stared through her and didn't say a word.  She returned with a cotton robe and smiled weakly at me, knowing that I was afraid and wanted to run away.

When the doctor returned, he explained that the drugs I had taken would certainly have cause deformities or severe retardation in "the child."  He asked me if I was sure . . . I spoke then and said, "I have no choice."  The nurse put her hand on my shoulder.  Then, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.  A few seconds later, I knowingly, if not completely willingly, allowed the doctor to start the vacuum-like machine that would literally suck my baby's life from me, taking the air from his very lungs.

I clung to the nurse, soaking her in my tears.  She was crying with me, quietly sobbing and urging me to lie still.  I doubt the clinic had ever before or has ever since heard such tormented screams.  Oh, the screams were not due to physical pain, but because I now understood "agony."  ; My soul was frightfully at war with my flesh in a way I could never describe. 

Sickened by what I had done, the fear I felt earlier turned to anger and hatred.  But it wasn't the doctor, his tender-hearted nurse or anyone else that I hated.  It was me.  I didn't know who I was anymore.  I had loved children.  What had I done?  May God forgive me.

Today I realize that I did have a choice, and I chose abortion because of my own insecurity and self-ambition.  I never took a moment to consider that I was going to commit the premediated first-degree murder of my own child.  In my drug-induced mindset, it was what "had" to happen.  But it didn't have to happen. 

It took more than a decade for me to even talk about that day and the lessons I learned from it.  But one thing I know for sure is this: "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful.  I know that full well.  My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.  When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.  All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."  Psalm 139:13-16.

And I also know that, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." I John 1:9 (emphasis added). 

And so I go on and know that the Lord holds my baby in His arms every day.