I can't do it anymore. 

I just can't not say something. Not say anything. 

Take it or leave it...here it is. 

Lately we have all seen the news about New York declaring their "victory for women's' rights"... making it legal to terminate a pregnancy up until the child is actually born.

They have declared that the 40 week old "fetus" is not actually a human life. It has been declared that those babies are not a human soul, and that there is no worth in those lives although they have been moving, kicking, thinking, growing, and living. 

I tend to stay quiet when politics are concerned. I despise major conflict. Honestly, I feel It is not my place to convince or coerce someone/anyone into any type of belief regarding politics, and that is not what I am trying to do.  I have friends and people around me who are from many different backgrounds and many different paths in their lives... and I respect each of you, and I am glad that you have had a chance in your life to form an opinion. You deserve that.  I have met people from all over the world through my story with my pregnancy, birth,and burial of my precious son. If you know me at all, you know (although I may never speak of my political views) you know my feelings and beliefs about this situation.

But let me just say right now.. If I lose "friends" over my belief about this, then that's fine. If this post steps on your toes or offends you, please know that I love you anyway, no matter what you have gone through in your rough journey .. But at least you got the chance to live your life. You have the chance, the opportunity to form an opinion on this subject matter. As you should be free to do. 

This decision by the state of New York is ground breaking. It is not only a ground breaking decision, but it is an earth shattering, heart breaking, gut wrenching decision that involves sweet, precious babies as well as "adults."

This hits me in 2 completely different ways. Somehow I have been on each end of this life altering decision. 

Before I was born my birth mother was just a few days late to the office to have an abortion. She was young. She was scared. It wasn't her choice to be there. She did her best to protect me.  She hid her pregnancy and covered me up and protected me as long as she could; kept me a secret so that no one could end my life.  She chose to give me the chance at life by placing me for adoption.

I spoke with my birth mother several times about this very topic, about this very same idea, although neither of us had any clue that this would ever be an actual REAL thing people actually do, killing their babies.


I know.  I hear you. 
What? I talked to my birth mother? I know who she is? Yes, y'all. Yes.  (I can hear the questions screaming towards the  computer/phone screen now... ) And yes, we found one another, spoke with one another, wrote letters, and talked on the phone. We never met in person, but we knew the intimate details one another's lives.   We bonded over a few years, and before her young life ended, I got to hear her explain to me what she went through... Her intense, desperate hold on me as I grew inside her stomach. 

I was not planned.  I was not created in an atmosphere of love, a place from a man and a woman's desire to raise a child in this world.

When my birth mother was 15 she experienced something that I hope and wish others will never have to go through.  When I was inside her belly she saw sonograms, pictures, and videos of me. She told me about seeing me, naming me, dreaming of my future, picturing me as an adult trying to make the world a better place.  Why did she do that? Because I was a life growing inside her.  I was a human being being formed by the grace of God inside of her pregnant belly.

She imagined how beautiful my life could be if she gave me to people who were desperately trying to love and raise a child. She told me about the options she faced... Giving me  chance at life and giving me away, I literally can not imagine how incredibly strong a girl must be to literally hand her child off to strangers to let them raise it.  I probably couldn't do it.  But she was strong.  She, somehow, was selfless.  She gave me that chance.  She gave me the chance.

Fast forward to 2015 and I'm now a mother with a choice.  I'm pregnant with my first child and I am told that because he has a birth defect, I can "terminate my pregnancy " because it was detected so early. .

I had the choice right then and there, along with my phenomenal husband, to terminate a life. That was not our decision to make. There was no question that we were going to give our child a chance at life. 

As you know by now, we experienced over a year of a very high risk pregnancy, early labor, months on bed rest, multiple stays in the hospital, an early delivery, NICU, bringing our son home, then dealing with his passing, funeral, burial, and the devastatingly terrible days, months, years, to follow. 

Bear with me y'all, I'm getting to it. 

Many of y'all have not dealt with child bearing, life threatening pregnancies, NICU, abnormalities, and so on... and God bless you.  May you never have to.  

But I've been there.  My imperfect son was born months earlier than he was supposed to. We went through the weeks and months of heart break and devastation of his imperfections in NICU. We sat with him for hours each day, willing him and praying to the Lord that he would grow big and strong enough for him to not only come home, but for him, frankly,  to make it. 

My son grew in my stomach for almost 9 months. I gave birth to him. I held him. I saw every part of him.  That precious baby was grown in my stomach by not my strength, but His. He had 10 fingers, 10 toes, a nose just like his momma's, and hair just like his daddy's. He had dirty diapers, he needed baths.  He longed to hear mommy and daddy's voices, and cuddled close to both of us. He developed that desire and need for closeness long before he came into this word, and it grew deeper each day.  He knew both of our voices clearly when we were around.  He literally clung to our clothes as we held him. He held on to us with a fierce passion. 

Even being born way before he was "full term," baby Ben was a human.  He was functioning.  He was intellectual, he was present, he was responsive. He was a functioning human. 

He. Was. A. Human.

Knowing what we knew about his imperfections, there was no shadow of a doubt that we would give him a chance at life.  We gave him everything we could, and I'd do it all over again.

To those of you who decide that life is not important...

If you think you are in the position to negate that young life.. I dare you to live a day in the life of my husband and myself.  I dare you to go through watching your child, with your surgeon and special care team doctors declare TOD (time of death), although I performed  CPR and did every life saving move I possibly could on my frail son,  (**I have never uttered those letters because they make me physically sick ..)  I dare you to hold that baby in your arms as they convince you to put a heat pack around your child so you don't feel the chill of death.. and then say that child was not a human... I dare you to challenge me on that.  Because I have freaking experienced it. I know what it feels like. And it is awful. 

Ladies, girls, who are not ready to parent, but find themselves in the predicament of choosing to give life or end it, I know that you have come up with so many reasons to end it and walk away.  You were raped, you don't have enough money to raise a child, you accidentally got knocked up, you weren't planning for it. There are so many reasons you can come up with to kill your child inside your body.  Yes, I know there are over 400 thousand children in America waiting to be adopted.. But there are twice that many adults who are desperate to adopt or foster those babies. Give those children a freaking chance.

There are those of us who want those children, those babies, and are willing to do whatever it takes to give them a chance at life. I just can't understand how women march and "fight" for rights as women, yet take the right of life away from future women. You are literally a walking contradiction. So many women are crying every day, every night, because they are unable to bring a beautiful soul into the world. Spending thousands of dollars each year to just attempt to bring a gorgeous soul into this world.  Yet some of you are tossing that away.  If you met some of us, heard our stories, listened to women and men who have tried for years and years to  bring a child into this world... there is just no legitimate reason that you'd readily choose to kill your child.

Add 1 more kid to those 400 thousand children in America needing to be adopted.  Add 1 more beautiful soul, because frankly, it is ridiculous that you have the opportunity to decide whether you choose life or you choose death for an innocent child.  They deserve to be heard.  They deserve a voice.  

Thousands, millions, tons, of people go through their life every day desperately desiring to bring life into this world.  There are many reasons some can't do just that.  Yet we are ready and willing to take your child into our homes and love them with the love of the Lord.  We crave that opportunity.  Why throw that away?

I'm sure giving your child up for adoption, giving it away to strangers is hard.  But I'm telling you it has to be easier than experiencing their death.  I can't imagine how difficult it would be for me to hand my child that grew inside me for so many months to some strangers... but I guarantee you it is easier than putting that precious body in the ground.  It is easier than living with that pain every single day.

As New York lights up their sky scrapers in pink for a celebration of "women's rights," I pray that your soul would light up with love and you would choose to give that little life a chance to speak for its own. Those children, those humans can't speak for themselves, so let me be their voice.  They want, need, and desire to not only live their lives, but to be able to have  chance to speak for themselves.

Someone else's life should not be your decision to end.  Let them grow up to speak up.  That voice that people are using to speak, yell their beliefs on this very subject matter.. Let those little ones grow up to use their own.  But until then, I, along with many other women and men, will be their voice. 

Life is precious, beautiful, hard, and fragile.  Appreciate those days you are blessed with.  We all deserve the chance to live. 



Thanks for bearing with me through this post, it has been 2 years since I have written and it has been hard.  I pray that somehow these discombobulated stinging of words helps at least 1 person. 


choose joy,
allison