American Ex-pat. Comedy lover. Science groupie. Professional dork.
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19 Weeks
This is something I just dug out from years ago during a discussion about abortion on my old (old) blog. Ever so slightly edited.
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My sister used to work in the maternity ward of a hospital in Illinois where she assisted with births and caesarians. During her time there she saw a whole range of women giving birth, from drug addicts to Menonites to just normal everyday women like you and me. She, probably more than most, knows the wonder and joy of birth as well as the horrors.
I've held a 19-week miscarried fetus. His mother could not carry to full term and had tried 4 other times. His birth was quite peaceful. He fit in the palm of my hand. He moved his legs and opened his eyes. He was breathing for 12 minutes.
A few weeks later, my co-workers told me about the worst night of their life. A woman in labor was rushed into the delivery room ready to give birth. She had not had any prenatal care at all, so no one knew if she was full term or not. She had already started pushing on her own. The nurse could feel the head... it seemed to be quite large. They made the woman stop pushing. She was bleeding all over - tearing herself up inside. She needed an emergency C-section. The fetus was terribly deformed and the head could not possibly be delivered vaginally. The mother was now bleeding to death. The doctor was not yet in the hospital because it was the middle of the night. There was no longer enough time to get the mother into the surgical suite. The second the physician walked in the room, he performed what pro-lifers call a "partial-birth abortion." It is not pretty, but it saved that woman's life. The fetus had a very severe form of hydrocephalus and could never have survived after birth. The fetus was also 19 weeks. It is impossible to make a rule for every woman to follow no matter what the circumstances. Every mother is different. Every fetus is different. Every pregnancy is different.
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Gia Milinovich's Posterous
American Ex-pat. Comedy lover. Science groupie. Professional dork.
