I Was *Almost* Aborted
The title says it all really. I would’ve been aborted but someone decided he didn’t want me back upstairs yet. And my mum might’ve had a little something to do with the final decision too…
The year is 1997 (it had to be because I was born in 1998) and we’re in Newham General Hospital at my one of my mums pre-natal appointments. I can’t pretend to know all the details because every time I hear this story I once again become frozen in shock at the horrific thought that someone would actually suggest to abort a wonderful, and potentially disabled, specimen like myself! But, alas, the nurse and doctor did.
“I wouldn’t have lived longer than an hour if I would have even survived long enough to have been born”
“Potentially disabled?” you say, “But, Mary, that doesn't make sense! How could that be possible?”. The simple answer is that it isn’t — you either have a disability or you do not. To the nurses and doctors of the Newham General Hospital however the answer isn't quite so simple, and that grey area is cause of concern enough that the somehow simpler answer was to then abort the pregnancy — I know.
Before I d̶i̶g̶r̶e̶s̶s begin I must disclaim 4 things:
- I am pro-choice — if you aren't and you don’t have a hoo-ha … :/
- I like Newham General Hospital and (some of) its nurses and doctors — I did still end up being safely born there
- I am not an expert on disabilities — I’m not disabled but I do have thoughts and opinions (none of which are ableist)
- I am not religious — not explaining this one.
I say ‘potentially’ disabled because the nurses and doctors honestly weren't sure. Thinking about it, I can’t be too hard on them. The sonograph image (don’t you love that good ol’ 90s picture quality) was so poor you couldn’t tell my foot from my head, let alone my correctly formed brain from my very normal spinal cord. Then again their confusion would have only cost me my life… Yet dear Julie* (my mum) recalls that one nurse was adamant I wouldn’t have lived longer than an hour if I would have even survived long enough to have been born, going so far as to begin explaining how the abortion procedure follows.
There is then a gap in this story between leaving that appointment and arriving at St Paul’s (not the fancy one, just a normal church in East London) early on a random Sunday morning. It was then that God intervened by way of a priest named Jeremy Allcock. My mum told Jeremy what was going on with her ‘potentially’ disabled baby and Jeremy advised all that needed to be done was pray.
Growing up my mum had talked about being a “praying woman” and I always pretended to know what this meant. A woman who is godly and loves to pray to him. A quick Google search shows that isn’t actually a ‘thing’, but if my mum is anything it is steadfastly religious so naturally praying is her thing. So despite the advice of the doctors, the back and forth with my dad, and the nagging voice in her head from her own medical background; Julie, a “praying woman”, did. She prayed and prayed and prayed that her child would come out as He intended. And God answered: on the 10th of February 1998 Mary-Elisabeth was born as God intended — perfectly fine.
Does this mean the doctors and nurses were wrong? Did I have a disability while in the womb which somehow removed itself during birth? Was it just a bit of amniotic fluid distorting the ultrasound? Does this mean my mums prayers were answered? Did God change his mind on sending me home early?
I don’t know.
I really don't know. I wasn't really there. It was everything to do with me but also nothing at all because in that summer of 1997 it only really affected my mum. Sure it’s my life, my future and my body — but it changed my mums life, my mums future and her body. Abortion is personal and that should have been something only my mum decided. Not the doctors, not the nurses, definitely not God and not even my dad.
So I wasn’t really almost aborted in the overly dramatic sense that I had made out initially — sorry. But in the version of the world where it’s true that a disabled child is less of a person, I was. And if we continue to hold belief’s like that in our society other children will be too.
*real names omitted because I value my privacy, you know?
