'how can anyone think an abortion isn't killing a baby?'

Thu. Sept. 6, 1990

     Things have been going along fairly well.  Guy didn't have to work last weekend but he might this weekend if there are any reservists coming in.  But he'll have to go in Sat morning to find out.  Friday is his regular duty day.  So he's got this aft. off.  We'll probably spend it running errands.
     For about a week now it's been where I have to force myselft to eat sometimes.  It's like once I begin thinking about fixing a meal or eating.  I start feeling nauseous.  And I guess the tiredness is starting to set in.  There have been a few times when I had trouble getting to sleep.  One morning I woke up at 2:30 and didn't go back to sleep til after Guy left - I went ahead & ate breakfast with him and he fed Chief.  And yesterday & today he fed Chief before he left so I was able to sleep later.  That's helped I think.
     I called nurse Kathy Friday & she said she thought she'd told me she was leaving.  She said she was ready for a change and might even go back to school.  My new nurse is Tricia Benson.  Kathy described her to me but I'm still not sure who she is.  It'll be awhile before I see her since we're doing the weekly shots ourselves.  I hope she's nice & easy to talk to. 
     Friday we got a thank you note from Betty Martin for the cross-stitch magnet I made & gave to her the last time she was at the Empty Arms meeting.  I'd been putting off calling her to tell her about being pregnant but decided to go ahead & do it.  I called her office but got the answering machine.  With it being a holiday weekend I thought she might not call back til Tues. but I'd forgotten about it by then.  She called Tues aft. after Guy got home.  I talked to her about 20 minutes or so.  I hadn't intended to really 'get into things' with her but as she said, she was glad to shed some light my way.  I told her we'd decided to tell Kathy & Brigette after the meeting last week but didn't after Larissa dropped her bombshell at the last minute.  She's a young black girl who lost twin girls at about 5 months I think, a couple of months ago.  She said she'd been going through some old things and discovered that the date she lost her twins was the same date she'd had an abortion six years ago and now she felt so guilty about it & thought that she lost the twins as punishment for the abortion.  She said a lot more than that but that's the basics.  Everyone gasped and started crying when she first said it.  At first I thought 'that's awful that it happened on the same date.' Then the more she talked the more the feelings came out about 'how can anyone think an abortion isn't killing a baby?'  She said that since coming to the group she realizes that's what she did when she had an abortion and she felt even worse when she knew that people tried so hard to get pregnant & couldn't and that people lose babies at that point (11 weeks) and it's really a baby they lose.
     Before that all happened, Ann had gotten out a model of a 12-week old fetus.  She had mentioned it before but I think something another couple said made her dicide to go ahead & get it out.  I just saw it out of the corner of my eye.  I told her I didn't want to look at it - and it was bigger than I expected it to be, maybe 4" long.  That made me wonder more than ever how come I didn't know when it happend (her miscarriage a year prior).  Guy looked at it but he didn't say anything then or afterward (since then) about it so I don't know what he thought or felt about it. 
     Ann called me the next day to see if I'd been upset by that and/or what Larissa said.  I told her I was at the time but was better.  She said she'd been as shocked as everyone else when Larissa said all that.  She stayed & talked to her some afterwards but Ann said Larissa is going to need a lot of help to work through this.
     Something else was new at that meeting.  Bill, the chaplain, isn't with the group any more.  He announced at the previous meeting (which we missed cause Guy had to work late) that he was leaving.  Ann said that his wife was working & living somewhere in NC (she said where but I can't remember) for the past two years & she thinks he probably quit so he could keep his marriage together.  I don't know if they'll send another one.
     Also, there were several books that they bought with the money that the graduating nurses class donated to the group.  They're to be checked out only by members attending the group.  I checked out one called Still to be Born.  It's about going through a pregnancy after losing a baby.  A lot of stuff it says are things I've been thinking and feeling.  I've asked Guy to read it but he hasn't read anything else I've asked him to read so he probably won't read this either, especially since I have to turn it back in on Mon.

My mom and dad went to a group made up of people that had either lost babies through miscarriage or had trouble getting pregnant.