Woman to Woman

When my mom passed away a few years ago it made me re-process our life together.
She was only forty when she died. A life half lived. It was ironic, really.
She was the most passionate person I ever knew. She was fearless.
But she was taken away while people who are afraid to live their lives keep on breathing.
(I felt the need to pity myself just then.)

When I was in college I went to visit her.
We were riding in the car and out of nowhere she told me that I am
"the best thing that ever happened to her."
I just sat there. Stunned. We just didn't have conversations like that. We just didn't.
Getting teary eyed she continued  "Having you, saved my life."
 I remember the silence.
And I remember the question burning in my mind....

One day, at the confusing age of twelve, I went with my mom to one of her prenatal appointments. After they weighed her and marked some info on her charts, the nurse led her to to a back room and I had to awkwardly stand and wait at the counter where they had left me. She was due any day with my youngest brother Caleb. Flipping through my mom's chart I saw records of the births of my two younger brothers. I saw my birthday:) and then I saw something I didn't understand.
There were three other pregnancies.
Well I knew about one, mom lost a baby when I was seven.
but the others were...abortions.
It felt like time stopped. The last two dates were not much older than I was.
I didn't understand. I suddenly felt panicked. Was I going to get in trouble for reading this?!

There in the car with her I felt like I was twelve again. She was still driving but had grasped my hand.
I don't even think I was breathing. (It's what happens when I am concentrating really hard.) Truthfully I was scared to death. My mom and I had a really dysfunctional relationship. We loved each other so much, but not in a way that the other could understand. We had accepted it and waved the white flag. Did I really want to reach out to her? Not daughter to mother... but woman to woman?

"Momma?"
"Yeah baby?"
"Did you ever have an abortion?"


Silence. Lots of long, sad, silence.
I honestly think I would have passed out had it gone on longer.
I can close my eyes and still remember the sound of the drone of our car, the wind whipping my hair through the barely cracked window and the sobbing my mother held inside because she would never let me see her sad.

She spoke softly, I then realized she was holding her breath too.

"Yeah, I did...

.....It was horrible

.... No one should ever get an abortion,

..... My body was never the same."

 Her voice began to crack

"You know they just sent me home. There was no counseling. Nothing. I never really got over it."

She seemed so fragile then. Her face told me she was somewhere else. Somewhere I've never been.
I wanted to tell her she didn't have to say anymore.
I wanted to make it okay.
But I couldn't. She had a pain I couldn't touch.

I just took her hand in both of mine and scooted next to her (gotta love them bench seats)
She freed her hand, pulled my head near and kissed my face. We stayed that way for a long time.

I had saved her life.... and still it seems so strange because she was the sixteen year old girl

who took a chance

and let me live.


I love you momma.
Thank you for being the bravest woman I have ever known.
I miss you.

Is a Fetus a Baby?

No.

No more than a child can be an adult can a fetus be a baby.

 Embryo, fetus, baby, child, adolescent and adult are all stages of human development.
You and I were once fetuses, we looked exactly like a baby (infant) but we were not technically, a baby.
We had hair (well some of us did:) perfect fingers, toes, and teeny fingernails. We sucked our thumbs and kicked our legs and loud noises startled us just like a baby.

Is a fetus a baby?

No

Is a fetus a person?

 Yes.




This, my dears, is a perfect 10 WEEK OLD person. This is not a cluster of cells. Or a photoshopped creation. This is a real, untouched photo taken by a medical student in India.
(Source here http://www.flickr.com/photos/74896762@N00/3166520949/in/photostream/)
The mother had cancer in her uterus and it had to be removed while she was ten weeks pregnant..... a ten week old human is already so perfect.

A closer pic.



I have a little cousin, Portia, who was born waaay premature she weighed about a pound. You could put your ring around her leg .  I remember how perfectly her eyelashes curled (she was Black and Caucasian and I LOVE how black people's eyelashes curl) and I remember seeing her heart beating through her translucent skin. I was in awe of her. 
She looked just like this.

She was a 6 month old fetus when she was born. We prayed and prayed that she would live.
She did, and she is perfect.
Portia should have been a fetus for the next 3 months. 
But she was born.
She couldn't breathe, eat or stay warm on her own like an infant should.
Developmentally, Portia was still functioning as a fetus.
Did we call her a fetus? No. That would be weird.
Did the doctors call her a fetus? No.
What freaks me out is that if Portia hadn't been born early and her mom wanted to have an abortion Portia could have been killed. The beautiful girl with dark hair, tiny hands and beating heart. Gone.
Her birthday would have been a very different day.

By the time the average gal finds out she is preggers, her fetus' hands and feet already look like this! So cool. When I found out I was pregnant I imagined that my baby looked like a little blob with my husband's features! But...she looked like baby!

Not my baby but just as purty:)

If you want....talk to me.

I want to...

    I've had trouble sleeping the past few years and last night was retarded. I'm sure you have experienced the same mad rush of thoughts that come crashing like an avalanche through your head right at the point when you would give anything to sleep.

I try not to keep track of those thoughts, but God does...

    and he told me so last night.

I was mulling over a secret and costly ambition when I received a text message from a precious and ridiculously prophetic friend of mine (which, by the way, being prophetic won't ever help anybody if you won't open your mouth. That's my southern sass for the moment)

   Anyways, one line of the text stunned me. I was wondering
"How on earth can anyone know what I was thinking about at that exact time?!!!!"
Then I sheepishly acknowledged that Holy Spirit will tell you nearly anything if you ask Him nicely.
The text said.... well..... I just realized I deleted all my texts today. How embarrassing. Ha!

 Moving along. In the text my friend was encouraging me in my gifting of helping others realize and go after their dreams and he said to me "and DON'T YOU LET GO OF YOUR DREAMS EITHER!"

   I was shocked. After being married a little while and having a daughter and making sure my husband could reach his full potential no matter the cost.... I HAD let go of my dreams. I began to believe it was my role, my portion, to relinquish my passions for the sake of using that energy to serve others.

Wow. That's dumb.

Why? Cause' it means I was relying on my own strength. You guys gotta hang on cause the more I write the more things make sense. I'm having a moment right now.

Okay. So here it is.

I want to...




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Discreetly provide young undecided women with the opportunity to see this....