Comment by nineplay

I have seen many people like you respond here, but I felt a need to talk to you. I have a different story. I have convinced 2 partners over my younger life to have abortions. I was young and stupid. I thought life would continue in the grandest way it seemed then, and got caught off guard and was terrified. I have since had 2 children, and the sorrow and devastation of my past choices now haunts me. The love I lost. Not getting to hold and care for them.

You might say "get over it and stop feeling bad - you have something good," and I know I do, but the past hangs over me like a never-ending storm. How can I ever forgive myself for what I did? The thought of them safe in their mother's wombs and being ripped out...I can hardly bear it. I carry this pain daily. I have since learned that having kids is the best thing that ever happened to me. It taught me how to love in a way I hadn't ever before. Having this knowledge makes the past even harder to accept. Who would those unborn have been today? What would they have taught me? How can I be a caring person to have done this?

I can't say I can relate to your situation, so please forgive any apparent glibness, but I would gladly sign up to go through what a lot of people here have done for their children with special needs just to have the chance to have known them. It may sound easy for me to say, but be glad you didn't make my choices. If someone else reads this who did, please know that there is also a part of me that realizes I thought things would be different, and I went on the information I had, which was bad. I'm not at all judging you. You did the best you could. Despite me sounding self condemning, I'm just very regretful that I didn't make a different choice.

All this to say: I hope you find a little more validation from my story that you are on a good path, and that you are not cursed, but rather have a gift. It's a gift I chose to throw away. It sounds like it's hard to manage at times but it's very much a gift. I know that sounds dismissive and cheesy, like everything everyone would say because it sounds good and doesn't acknowledge the real sacrifices you've had to make in comparison to friends who don't understand, but I want you to know that I truly mean it, and I understand, maybe unlike others who say it, what it really means, because I look at you and want so badly what you have, if it meant having all my children alive in my life. Your child taught you how to love - deeper and more alive than anything else possibly could have. It may seem like life/God used force to shape you like this, but I'm learning that's the only way it can work sometimes. You have to get to a point where you are willing to see it differently, and God will find a way to show you that. Maybe your child's presence forced you to make a choice to break through your own ego and be willing to love them. If so, it no doubt transformed you. Learning that is the greatest lesson life can teach. You are on a good path. It won't be evident for a time, but you absolutely are. I send you my best.