Walking into the clinic in Boulder, there was a barrier between the front door and the street. Regardless, I had seen the group of protestors outside as we parked. As we got closer, I could hear them chanting “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee”. I knew their intention was for me to suddenly find my mother’s heart and leave. Not to abort my baby girl. What they didn’t know was as a Catholic, the prayer comforted me and was what I needed to hear to keep going through the door. Only Mary, a woman who was told she conceived a child by the Holy Spirit that was destined to die so the human race could have everlasting life. Only Mary could know the unspeakable anguish of watching her child die in an unthinkably horrific way. Every cell of her body and her mother’s heart was screaming in agony and she prayed and likely bargained with God to spare him. I don’t know when the acceptance came that she was chosen especially as the mother of God on earth because she could endure the end. Every mother who has had to abort a very loved and wanted child to spare their innocent souls an earthly life of pain and agony has also been chosen because they had the love and strength to choose to spare their child suffering and endure it for the rest of her time on earth.

A year after having our son, I knew we needed to add one more child to make our family complete. As if blessed by God himself, the idea quickly became reality a month into trying to conceive. Ten weeks into the pregnancy and we found out we were having a healthy baby girl. The joy was indescribable to have our perfect family and to give our sweet boy a little sister. As the cliche goes, my second pregnancy was flying by as I was busy chasing a toddler. All routine and well, we headed into our second trimester anatomy ultrasound blissfully happy. The scan was fine, the tech just recommended we return in four weeks since they couldn’t get a great look at our baby’s face. When I went back for the follow up a month later, I didn’t even wait for my husband to be home from work. My mom was with me and was excited to see a real ultrasound first hand. It was going to be a nice bonding moment between three generations of women.

The ultrasound tech didn’t say much. As she kept moving the wand over and over my 22 weeks pregnant belly, her lips kept tightening in concentration. Finally she stopped. Wiped off my belly and told me she thought she saw a problem with the baby’s heart and that baby girl was measuring a full two weeks smaller than she should be. I shakily walked to the exam room and my OB tried to reassure me that our Children’s Hospital had the best cardiovascular specialists in the state. We would fix her if we needed to. But he also made a same day appointment with the maternal fetal medicine specialist and I was on my way to that office.

The specialist was very serious and very kind. The ultrasound technician listened to me recount what my OB told me and tried to make sense of why I was there same day. She was very thorough and very kind. When she was done, the doctor looked me in the eye and told me it appeared our baby girl had Down’s Syndrome. Closed tight fists. A heart condition common for T23. Rocker feet. Immediately my mind screamed denial. I had the blood tests taken at ten weeks to prove he was wrong. I learned that day those tests are just blood screening to find likely problems. We did a amniocentesis on the spot and as I held my sore stomach, the nurse kept reassuring me and warning me not to fall down a Google research hole. It would only cause more stress and anxiety as we waited.

The Christmas before my High School graduation, I was talking to an older woman who was a friend of our family. I casually mentioned I only had one semester of High School left and she laughed. So much of a woman’s life can be spent waiting and counting down. To graduation. College graduation. To start her first job. To her wedding day. For her first baby to be born. We don’t often speak of the anguished waiting we do. To know if our beloved children will be healthy. We had to endure an entire weekend of waiting before the doctor called us on Monday. That phone call is a searing pain I will always feel deep in my soul.

“I have your test results and I have to say I am surprised”. The doctor’s deep, serious voice floated out into the air as my husband and I held our breath and waited. For a fraction of a second, I had hope that his previous suspicions were wrong. As it turns out they were. “She has T18, Edward’s Syndrome”. Total and utter shock. I hadn’t followed the kindly nurse’s advice and looked at my original blood screen results again. They were 99.9% negative for T23, T18, and T13. The most common Trisomy abnormalities to affect children. In my shocked state, I heard the doctor continue “this is incompatible with life, I am so sorry”.

Through the tears pouring down my face, I shakily asked the doctor if our baby was in pain in my womb. He matter of factly told us they don’t know what an unborn child can feel prior to 24 weeks. But if we carried her to term, she would feel the agony of intervention to keep her alive. Even if we chose to let her return to God quickly, she would feel the pain of her ill formed body before returning to the other side. Graham and I looked at each other with the same thought “But I am past 20 weeks here in Georgia. I don’t have the choice to spare her that pain now”. The doctor gravely told us he could refer us to a clinic in Boulder, Colorado to help us at my current 24 weeks of pregnancy. It is run by a very compassionate and very old man who provides care to women from around the world. Women who cannot be cared for in privacy with their trusted obstetricians due to the laws of their home states.

“Ma’am, would you like to call us back. You sound like you are in shock”. I had to get through the worst phone of my life and ask this Abortion Clinic to please accept me as a patient to ensure my baby girl would not suffer. In a voice broken by deep sobs, I asked the nurse what they do with the babies. Surely they wouldn’t just throw away our beloved baby. The girl who was going to complete our family and who we desperately wanted. I calmed down enough to hear the nurse guide me to their website. It would detail the exact procedure. There were resources for families like us, who abort their children for medical reasons. I called my minister and a therapist. I prayed.

I prayed every second of the next week as we waited to fly to Colorado. I prayed as I forced myself onto the airplane. I prayed during the confirmation ultrasound at the clinic that would once again verify the medical records my doctor sent them. I prayed as I laid down on a table, in a very old clinic largely funded by its own patients. I prayed as I felt a needle enter my uterus and stop her heart. I prayed to God to receive my baby home and thanked him for not letting her suffer any pain. I prayed that the only existence she knew was the love and warmth of my womb. I promised her I would be with her as soon as God deemed my time here was done. Only then would my heart be whole again.

The following two days I endured in a fog. The preparation of my body for the D&E. The pain. The blood. Choosing an impossibly tiny urn. Filling out the paperwork to give her a name and have her physical body returned to us. Finally it was the final procedure day. The plan was to let me “labor” and deliver her so we could hold her and say goodbye. I began hemorrhaging early and they couldn’t wait. Their quick action meant my son would still have a mother. It also meant there was nothing to hold of our baby. In a numb, surreal and awake state, I felt her physically taken from me. The agony of losing her and giving her back to God was too much for me to even cry. It was too ineffective a response for that magnitude of pain.

It wasn’t until we were boarding the airplane back to Atlanta that I started to sob. Irrationally I felt like we were leaving her alone in freezing Colorado. The tears kept flowing. We finally received her ashes and took her in for a blessing at our church. Our minister called tears Holy Water. Our girl was surely anointed by our Holy tears. I read her a book that was my prayer to her. “You’re my angel, my darling, My star… and my love will find you, Wherever you are.”