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Yes, Ma’am, You are a Mother, and Yes, Sir, You are a Father
As an Abortion Recovery Facilitator, you walk through a plethora of emotions with the participants in your group. Once you think you’ve heard it all, there is something new that could always take space in your heart. This very thing happened to me after I heard one woman in a small voice ask, “But am I a Mom?” As my eyes pooled with tears, I answered, “Yes, you are a mother… you are a mother mourning the loss of your baby.”
As I sat on the other end of the phone with her, my heart ached for this precious mother who never got to meet or care for her sweet baby. A mother that felt she had no room to even think she had been a mother at all. It troubled me as it always does that abortion is such a thing in the first place. What could be “good” or “right” about “women’s reproductive healthcare” savvy that tears a baby from its mother’s womb leaving her to feel so empty that she doesn’t even recognize the truth? OR leaves the baby’s father who wants to parent totally left out of the choice?
The truth of the matter is, if you have ever carried a baby inside your womb, you are a mother and if you have helped create a baby, you are a father. No matter if your baby passes from a miscarriage, abortion, or stillborn, you have been chosen by God to be that beloved baby’s mother and father.
“Children are a heritage from the LORD, offspring, a reward from Him like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth.” (Psalm 127:3-4)
The devil cunningly uses abortion against us causing us to believe what the world says is true, that our babies are mere tissue that hold no life and no value. With conception comes life (see Human Embryology blog). No matter what stage of pregnancy you were in at the time of your abortion, you were/are a mother to your baby; the same truth applies to the baby’s father! It may be hard to wrap your heart around this. You never got the chance to set eyes on your baby after he or she was born, you never got to hold your baby in your arms or hear the feathery cry from your precious one.
It would be easy to think that because those monumental events never took place, there is no room to acknowledge parenthood. But, if you’ve never experienced such beautiful moments like tenderly kissing your baby on the soft spot on their head, or counting those teeny tiny toes, why does it hurt so badly? The pain mimics the same pain as a mother or father that was blessed because they chose life. The only difference is that they had real time milestones with their child and no matter how many minutes, hours, days, months, years they had with their son or daughter, the grief still hits hard when their sweet child passes away. I would be risky and say, that as a mother who has also lost my twin babies to abortion, it might hit a bit harder due to the longing, wishing, wanting, but never got the chance to “angst” …that we are the “responsible ones”, the reason behind the fatality of our little one(s).
As for the handful of fathers I have had the opportunity to talk with, including the father of my aborted twins, my now husband of twenty-seven years, fathers have said, the pain of losing their baby to abortion surfaced after the birth of their now baby. It is then where the dots connect as he holds his living, breathing baby realizing this baby isn’t his only baby.
A realization like this can cause great grief and discomfort. Now we have fathers questioning if they were a father to their aborted baby at all. The thoughts of what he could have done differently with now ex-girlfriend or ex-wife, because statistically speaking, seven out of sixty-six percent of women who had abortions while single, eventually, married the father. (www.lifeissues.net) Most relationships do not survive an abortion, which now leaves the grieving father to try and make sense out of his loss while being involved with his now family. “How could I have encouraged, abandoned, not understood…” My husband has asked me numerous times, had he only supported me in that moment and not tried to run away, would I have had the abortion? Deep questions cause deep rooted emotions to bubble to the surface.
But let’s talk about God’s great GRACE for a moment. In Him, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of [our] sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. (Ephesians 1:7)
God is our Safe Place to land for love, redemption, and grace! Once we turn to HIM, He will never hold our sins over our aching hearts. In fact, He no longer sees our sins, only the brokenness that He longs to touch and repair. Romans 8:31 tells us that no one can be against us, if/since God is for us. That “us” includes you. You no longer must hold yourself hostage by your sin of abortion. You have a Father who calls you His own. (Isaiah 43:1) And because the Holy Spirit dwells in us, (1 Corinthians 3:16) we too can be graceful to ourselves through forgiveness. What a beautiful gift, the gift of grace.
My prayer is that you allow yourself the time and space to do what every loving mother and father does, which is mourn the death of your baby. Take special care to sit with your Father God, Who is awaiting your attention, your questions, your wonder, your ultimate grief. Grief – a price of love – is warranted and should not be slighted in the least…grief, when felt, talked about and surrendered to God, lets you understand that you loved your baby with every being of your soul.
No one can take that love from you, Mom and Dad… No one!
Whenever you are ready to take a step towards healing, please contact us.
We are here to help. You are not alone.
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)
~Tasha Fiedler
A Center of Hope
Abortion Recovery Support
Lifeafterabortion.net
770-466-3900