:: The S.I.C.L.E. Cell ::

:: Friday, May 30, 2003 ::

Well, I suppose I can tell you all now that the letter I received the other night was one regarding the possible opportunity to adopt the baby of the differently abled Miami woman. I called and put our name in the pot as a family wanting to adopt the little one. I have been praying for the child daily and secretly imagining what life with the tot would be like if we somehow ended up with him/her. But never mind. They killed the 24-week-old baby last night. And this news came 5 seconds after an argument I had with a friend who believes that every child who dies in an abortion does so because God ordains it.

There are no words for how I feel right now.

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 1:39 PM # ::
...

"It begins to tell
round midnight
round midnight
I do pretty well
til after sundown
suppertime i'm feelin sad
but it really gets bad
round midnight..."

It's late-thirty (I don't care what the blog time says, it's half past midnight on Friday morning). The house is dark, everyone is snoozing, and I'm thinking about the book Itty-Bitty and I were reading last night. The kid is like his gramma (my gramma)- fascinated with Egypt and mummies. Well, OK... just the mummies. Anyway, we were looking at several mummies and he was having me read little blurbs about scientists who dug into crusty ol' thousand-year tummies and elucidated last meals. This one had some type of vegetable soup with barley and that one had grains and slightly burnt bread (enough to make you hungry).

So I get a call today detailing the happy, normal doctor visit of a thirty-week preggert and "then some other stuff happened" (including the very depressing news about Connor Peterson), and the house is asleep but I'm up with my head in the fridge. Just when I could eat no more I started thinking of the mummies, and I thought, were there a flash ice age, some scientist of the future would take one look at the contents of my stomach and diagnose depression:

"Close examination of the mummy's stomach reveals something of her last meal. We found butter crackers, peanut butter, brussels sprouts, dried cherries, apples and chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. Such a meal would indicate severe depression. We hypothesize that if the ice age hadn't killed her, her eclectic diet would have."

And because I've packed it in and am feeling quite saucy, I'd just like to take a moment to thumb my nose at the normal, non-defective baby-havers of the world (I resent the hell out of all of you) and just let you know that when I don't forget to eat, I eat like a frigging pig and never gain an ounce! So HAHA! On your death bed you'll be surrounded by all your umpteen children, my one living child will be too busy playing PlayStation 2 to come to my side, and I won't even have my own body fat to keep me warm. GREAT.

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 12:54 AM # ::
...

Well, I hadn't planned to, but I went to the doctor's yesterday. Odd for me, yet there you have it. They did a rapid strep test, which was positive. The throat thing comes and goes, and turns out I've had strep for months. You can see the swollen glands in my neck. "I don't even need to do a test," she said. "You have strep!" I told her to do the test anyway. "Why have you waited so long to come in?" What could I say? I told her I'm a procrastinator (which I'm absolutely not).

She left the room to get a shot of penicillin. I sat on the exam "bed" looking at the snake light with its little plastic showercap. This, I'm certain is used for getting a better view of someone's "cookie", as it's angled in the direction of the hide-away stirrups. Well, guess what. They're never hidden from me, and I burst into tears with my son there in the room. "What's wrong, Mommy?" he wanted to know. I told him I was sick and didn't feel good, and sometimes people cry when they're hurting. He understood that, and I shut up as quickly as I could. Internally, I wanted to claw a hole in the wall and escape to the outside. This trashy little "doc-in-a-box" clinic room could almost be a carbon copy of the room where they took my first child out in pieces.

They brought the shot in and said I'd have to wait 10 minutes to make sure I didn't go into anaphylactic shock. My birthdad will die if he gets penicillin, so I wondered what would happen. They shot me in the butt and left my child and I alone in the room for 10 minutes. I was disturbed that they would leave my child in there with me. What if something happened? What would that expose him to? If she had asked, I wouldn't have let her take him anyway. I just wished that someone would have stayed with us so that if anything went wrong it could be dealt with before a little one saw his mommy's eyes rolling in the back of her head while she gagged and foamed at the mouth.

But nothing happened and, having been treated, I left the clinic with my baby boy and little more than a dull ache in my back side. (I am always amazed that stupid ailments like strep throat are treated without question yet I had to claw my way to treatment I simply wasn't permitted to have when my first child's life was at stake.)

As I buckled my son into his seat, lurking there in the back of my mind was the knowledge and memory of an horrific visit to a sinister clinic that killed my child and ruined my life. All things medical now trigger disturbing symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder, particularly things like stirrups and other such gynecological accouterments.

"Why have you waited so long to come in?"

Well, what could I say?

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 11:00 AM # ::
...

Most mornings I experience nausea upon waking. This nausea is what I imagine normal morning sickness must be like. It's nausea I can eat and drink through, and it usually subsides after an hour or so. Food actually settles the stomach, and I can go on about my day. Is that what it's like for normal people who are pregnant? I can't fathom it. What must it be like to be pregnant and able to eat and drink and get out of bed? What's it like to be able to go to a store and pick out maternity clothing and wear it? Prithee! I'll never know.

Yesterday the nausea was about a 6 on the scale of 1-10. I thought I might throw up. It was a little worse than usual and as the day wore on I realized I was sick. Yesterday and today I've had a low fever of 101. My throat is swollen and red, and the tonsils look like they're wearing fluffy white bathrobes. I get this approximately once a month. Last month it lasted three weeks. I couldn't eat a lot because of the sore throat. I always resent it when I can't eat normally.

I didn't go to the doctor, because I hate doctors. I figured if it was strep the only danger was becoming infertile, and I may as well be. And I figure we could catch a deadly fever in time.

As evening arrived, I went out to the garden, plucked the heads off of umpteen chamomile plants, and brewed myself a nice cup of tea. It was relaxing, yet before I went to bed I got an email that startled me.

I want to share it, but I must be prudent. Even when I'm not exactly sure of the ramifications, certain situations are delicate, and this seems to be one of them. I'm sure half of you got the same email.

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 9:33 AM # ::
...

I had a dream last night that I went into a medical facility with my son (for what I don't know). Upon leaving the building and walking to my car I noticed my son was no longer with me. I was terrified and ran back to the locked medical facility where I pounded on the windows of the building screaming while the people inside ignored me.

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 9:12 AM # ::
...

"If I peel one more orange I'm going to throw up," I said 30 minutes before Thanksgiving dinner at the house in Alabama. I stopped preparing the ambrosia, but the nausea didn't go away. It was the first glimmer of the beast (HG). "I must have a stomach virus or something," I moaned. "I'll bet you're pregnant," teased my husband's 74-year-old grandmother. I argued, "Nawww." But what uplanned joy! I WAS pregnant!

The rest is history.

I just got back from a trip to that old 'bama home. All along the way I noticed the antique stores I had once passed on that hell-ride back home 7 years ago. Four hours of horrible nausea in the car. Kids' stuff compared to what was to come. The stores passed by the window. On the other side of my son's silhouette, images of yesterday rolled by. I'm not "dying" anymore, and I ask myself how. How could I have done it?

This is the 64 dollar question, and I've asked it a million times. When I got HG again I remembered how. It's an unfathomable illness that sounds deceptively simple. As an OB once told me, "Your poor kid. I wonder what the angels said when he went to heaven. "Gee, Johnny, I'm sorry your mommy killed you, but she didn't like throwing up.'"

I spoke to the husband of a woman who DIED from HG in the 90's. It's rare, but her doctors sucked royale, and she and their son paid the price. I have to remind myself what HG is like. I've been through it three times, but when I'm not in it, it's hard to remember how excruciating and unrelenting it is. If I were 9 weeks pregnant right now, I would understand a lot more clearly how I could have done it. But I'm not currently on the stretching rack, so it's easy for me to only be aware of my love and desire for that child without the distraction of 1,512 successive hours of tremendous physical suffering.

I just got this snippet from an HG sufferer in the email today:
"You talk to people and tell them that you ate NOTHING for at least two months - (you can hear it their voice - they think you must be exaggerating... surely you got to eat something!)!"

I have to remember what I went through, I have to remember.

I realize this type of suffering is beyond the realm of usual human experience. I realize I'm not supposed to be able to understand it or integrate it into my life. I know there are women who do not lose their children but who sustain post traumatic stress disorder from having gone through HG. They also have trouble assimilating the experience. I imagine that suffering of this ilk normally comes at the end of one's life, a result of some deadly disease after which there's no life and no need to understand what you've just been through. I've met two people with Chrone's disease (can involve similar puking and inability to eat/drink) who felt we could relate. One of them died from it in the hospital and then revived. They both told me they understood how I could get to that point. I seem to need constant reassurance. But it doesn't do the trick. No matter the reason, the child met a devastating end. A child I loved was dismembered unto death. I know it, you know it, the rest is just babble.

This weekend, before we got to the grandmother's house, we pulled over to eat. I sat down and the intense feelings of grief prevented me from even picking up the menu. I felt the tears coming, and "cheerfully" excused myself from the table in order to "wash my hands". I locked myself in the stall and silently, heavily sobbed as the woman in the stall next to me berated her 3-year-old daughter for misbehaving in the restaurant. I secretly begged them to leave. They lingered as tears splashed onto rust-colored tile and one-ply toilet paper. Finally they were gone, and I had a few moments to get myself together. "I must be inconspicuous." I washed my hands, and sat for a moment to cure my pink "pig eyes". On the way back to the table I noticed every baby in the joint. Every girl, every boy - did I have a daughter or a son? I don't even know which I'm grieving, damn it!

It was late when we arrived. "Little-little" was sleeping. I tucked him under covers and thought to myself how I had no memories of my first child other than a few sonograms and a beautiful pumping heart. No memories other than that. I say I never held him/her, but I did. I held him/her deep within me, and we visited Greatgrandma's house together.

The next morning (yesterday) I awoke to sounds of a little boy laughing and singing songs with his Meemaw. I have another child to whom this love and laughter also belonged. No song for that child, no laughter, only silence and death. I took a cup of coffee off the counter where I stopped peeling oranges seven years earlier. I drank half a cup and went on about the business of the day's distractions wading through a hundred years of antiques until lunch.

The catfish was excellent and all-you-can-eat. I remind myself how thankful I am to be able to chew and swallow and have it stay down. I thank God for the ability. How lucky I am to take sustenance in, to metabolize it, and live. I drank my tea and was steeped in gratefulness for the ability to take it in and keep myself alive. It's a necessary thing, and so frightening when you are growing a new human and your body refuses to care for either of you. But how did I lay myself down on that meat table? Why couldn't I have just lived or died without forsaking myself and my child?

I was the last one up last night (this morning). I turned off all the lights and crept back to the bedroom. The moonlight poured over the mile-long lashes delicately fanned out beneath my son's sleeping eyes. I watched his chest rise and fall and went into the bathroom to cry. For a brief moment I thought, "Ohh, this can't possibly end well." Sometimes I wonder if one day I'll kill myself. Sometimes I think, "Well, how could I not?" The boy will grow up one day and move out. Will I lose my head? Will I fly away?

The first one up this AM, I packed the car, eager to make the move homeward. In the still of the morning, the ancient clock ticking through shadows on the wall, I whispered down an empty hallway, "You were here."

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 8:01 PM # ::
...

I had a dream that my "consciousness" was in a van (I was there but not there). The driver of the van, a young man, was talking with a young woman. He was telling her that whatever she decided was all right with him. There was a long pause. She told him, "Well... I... I think I'd like to keep the baby then." The driver flew into a rage. "THAT'S JUST GREAT!" he screamed as he stepped on the gas and drove erratically down a neighborhood street with no outlet. He was so busy berating the girl in the rearview mirror that he didn't notice the cul de sac.

WHAM! The vehicle slammed into a huge oak tree and a piece of metal sheared off and decapitated the guy spraying the car with blood and sending his dripping head flying into the girl's lap. As she stared in horror, his eyes darted back and forth and the mouth moved open and shut without a sound until expression quickly ebbed.

Her hands were in the air, and where the head lay a large pool of crimson bled through the lap of her white cotton dress.

Suddenly I seemed to be in the vehicle. I was horrified; it was an awful scene. I jumped out of the van (also white) and ran around to her side. The door was smashed in, and I had to use adrenaline force to pry it open and slide it back enough to get her out. There she sat, mouth agape, dead head sitting in her lap like a giant, menacing spider. In one quick motion I batted it away and grabbed the girl who was in complete shock. She couldn't walk or speak or function. I carried her down the street in my arms.

I didn't have to walk far before coming to a house where a nicely dressed mother and her 3 or 4 high school aged daughters were entering a black truck to set out on the all-important shopping spree. I walked up in the driveway cradling this blood-soaked waif imploring "HELP ME!" No one answered. They kept piling into the truck pretending not to see us. After more begging and no results, I walked right up to the mother who was the last person entering the truck. I stood very close to her and just looked at her wide-eyed and unbelieving. I said, "Madame, if you are ever in a desperate situation I hope that you are not so abandoned as this poor girl." She finally deigned to behold the young girl and her face conveyed exasperated annoyance.

At last she sighed, "Oh, ALRIGHT ALREADY! Put her in the truck and I'll drive her to the hospital."

"But MOM!" the girls whined.

"Never mind, girls!" she snapped as she motioned for them to get out of the truck. The shopping trip was most decidedly cancelled.

I stretched the girl out on the floor behind the seats and backed away from the vehicle. My heavy arms ached as I watched them speed off down the road.

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 7:44 AM # ::
...

Well, the Ass. Press is at it again. In reporting on the Valdosta, Georgia case (see yesterday's entry) they say the abortionist's license has been suspended. They mention that abortion is "heavily" regulated in Georgia and say third trimester abortions are only allowed when there is a "health risk" to the mother. However, the author of this article defines "health risk" for readers in this statement:

"The 23-year-old woman was more than 30 weeks pregnant, meaning an abortion would be illegal if her life was not in danger."

BUZZZT! Wrong answer! When it comes to abortion the term "health exception" is broadly defined and virtually meaningless. While it can refer to a life-threatening illness (or or any physical illness), it can also refer to mental health such as depression that is or is not life-threatening.

Let's look at the language of Roe v. Wade. The Court defined the word "health" as meaning:

..."The medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors - physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age - relevant to the well-being of the patient. All these factors may relate to health." (Doe v. Bolton)

The "health exception" includes a pregnancy that would:

* "Force upon a woman a distressful life and future."
* Cause "psychological harm."
* "Will tax mental and physical health by child care."
* Will cause distress "associated with the unwanted child."
* Will "bring a child into a family already unable psychologically or otherwise to care for it."
* Will bring the "continuing difficulties and stigma of unwed motherhood."
(Roe v. Wade)

Yesterday's entry contains an excerpt of Georgia's law on third trimester abortion. The key sentence here is:

"No abortion is authorized or shall be performed after the second trimester unless... the abortion is necessary... to preserve the life or health of the woman."

So the author of the Ass. Press article defines "health exception" to mean "life-threatening illness" which it most certainly does not mean. However, the myriad readers who don't know what the law says on abortion will take the suggestion and run with it all the way to the voting booth. They'll read another Ass. Press article on how the compassionless right-wing conservatives are trying to outlaw Partial Birth Abortion altogether without allowing a "health exception." Readers will be horrified at Republican "heartlessness" imagining that the conservative attitude is: "Look, I'm sorry you're dying of cancer, lady, but you're not killing your baby." That's how it works. When ignorant voters aren't casting their ballot for the guy with the coolest name, they're (incorrectly) punching out chads based on what they read in the funny papers. Isn't that encouraging.


I tried to go on Ass. Press's website to dig up the name of the author of this May 20th article ("Doctor in Botched Abortion Case Has License Suspended") so we could all write her/him and school her/him on abortion laws (which s/he may already know), but alas, I couldn't find it on their online pages. However, an article on who will win the American Idol contest was in plain view. Ahhh, the Ass. Press and their priorities...

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 11:00 AM # ::
...

In Valdosta, Georgia, just a stone's throw away from me, a woman aborted her child two days before Mother's Day. She was 31-weeks pregnant when the doctor started the process and left her by herself with only fear, pain and contact information. She delivered the child alone, and he survived. After forcing their way into the abortion "clinic" police took the baby and rushed him to Shands where he is still in the critical care unit.

Police are able to investigate this third trimester abortion because:

a) the physical evidence (the child) has not been destroyed
b) the abortion may be illegal in the state of Georgia

Georgia's law on third trimester abortions says:
"No abortion is authorized or shall be performed after the second trimester unless the physician and two consulting physicians certify that the abortion is necessary in their best clinical judgment to preserve the life or health of the woman. If the product of the abortion is capable of meaningful or sustained life, medical aid then available must be rendered."

First, it's appalling that the state of Georgia uses the term "product of abortion" to describe a fully born baby.

Second, there is some question that the woman aborted because she feared her child had Down Syndrome. Since the law cites the health of the mother, that requirement is easily met by the mother's notion that delivering a child with Down Syndrome (or making an adoption plan for him) would negatively effect her emotional health.

Third, the abortionist, who must also be a physician, can "consult" two other abortionists and obtain legal certification that the woman's emotional health is in danger. He is then free to collect his fee which this particular woman paid in cash. And as we all know, an unscrupulous person doesn't necessarily report cash and therefore doesn't necessarily pay taxes on it.

Someone once asked me what could possibly enable a person to kill unborn children all day long, because, "Surely once they've seen the bodies they can't deny what they are doing."

Bear in mind that the average cost of a 3rd trimester abortion is around $3,000. Typically, three of these can be managed per hour. If the abortionist makes roughly $1,500 of pure profit off of each abortion, then we're talking about a person who makes about $4,500 per hour.

How much do YOU make per hour? If you made around $4,500per hour and worked a 40-hour week you'd be making $180,000 per week or $720,000 per month. That's the potential for late-term abortions, but most abortionists don't deal exclusively with late term abortions, so their take home pay isn't really that high. Instead they feed and clothe their own children off of the blood of other children whose parents bring them in for early abortions, and most women do abort fairly early. The point is, abortion is a lucrative business, it is easier than you think to get around third trimester abortion "laws", and third trimester abortions are financially appealing to abortionists, because they make the abortionist the most money of all the procedures.

One last thought... abortionists who are financially well-off can afford to make sizable donations to groups that help them maintain their level of finance. If I were an abortionist, I would donate to heavy-hitting abortion groups that seemed to have the most influence on legislators, because I would not want to wake up one day and find that I lost my job with the overturning of Roe v. Wade. People who become used to high living can become pretty desperate when faced with a different, lower financial standard of living. Some people will do anything to get rich and some people will do anything to avoid not being rich.

Greed and fear motivate man to unspeakable things, and it is a distinct possibility that a few people with lots of financial power are backing clever slogans and "poignant" ads to tell an entire nation that it wants abortion. It brings to mind images of Oz where the Wicked Witch of the West sits hunched over a crystal ball full of poppies bidding the adventurers to sleep, sleep, sleeeeeeeep.

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 11:09 AM # ::
...

If there are any questions as to where AOL (America Online) stands regarding Laci and Conner's Law, just let this morning's welcome menu clear that up for you. I signed on, and the first headline that popped up was: "GOP Uses Laci to Push Bill". Under that it says "Backers of Fetal Rights Law cite Peterson Murder Case". Click on the hyperlink and it takes you to an Associated Press article written by David Crary. This article changes the subject and is seemingly devoted to abortion support as the vast majority of it presents and supports the opinions of Kate Michelman and Representative Zoe Lofgren. Crary even uses the "balanced" opinion rule to abortion's advantage.

Here's how media bias works...
The author publishes a comment by Kate Michelman who says:

''This is one of their strategies - to ascribe legal rights to the fetus separate from the woman... Their intent is to do whatever they can to contribute to the ultimate goal of overturning Roe v. Wade and taking away a woman's right to control her reproductive life.''

At the end of the article (and to be fair?) the author quotes Dr. Joe Cook (OB/GYN for Life) as saying, "We have to approach this [outlawing abortion] in a way that is doable, a step at a time." Crary also quotes Douglas Johnson, the legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee as saying, "It's important to protect unborn children from all threats."

California Representative Zoe Lofgren (D) is proposing a replacement bill for Laci and Conner's law. She wants a possible life sentence for anyone who "terminates a pregnancy" against a mother's will. She is quoted as saying, "'We can protect women from violence without opening the Pandora's box of the abortion debate." Lofgren and Crary fail to mention that California's own fetal homicide law has not "opened the Pandora's box of the abortion debate."

The next statement is great. Crary is hoist by his own petard when he slips up and says, "Lofgren expressed dismay that crime victims like the Petersons are used as 'the poster child for the right-wing agenda'." Notice the author's own words: "victims like the Petersons". There's an "s" there, buddy, and that is plural. Crary (and Lofgren) also fail to acknowledge another teeny tiny bit of information: renaming the bill was the Peterson family's idea.

Can you imagine Laci's mom asking you to memorialize and honor her daughter and grandson and then telling her no? Abortion supporters can. Or maybe they'd just suggest a Lofgrenesque alternative, but you have to wonder how the courts are going to logically embrace such a substitute.

If the possible life sentence is a penalty for revoking the choice of a woman to carry her child to term, then why attribute a life sentence to the offender? There are many offenders who revoke a woman's right to choose something, yet they are not given life sentences. What's so special about a pregnant woman? Ah, but now we're getting somewhere!

Lofgren says of the sponsors of the bill: "I can deal with people who simply disagree on abortion,'' she said. ''What bothers me are people who aren't honest about what they're doing.''

I hear Webster is considering listing that statement as the very definition of hypocricy.

Also on today's AOL unwelcoming welcome menu, the Ass. Press reported on approximately 100 students who walked out of Senator Rick Santorum's commencement speech at their self-chosen Jesuit university. It appears they are offended by the Biblical take on homosexuality, which makes me wonder why the heck they chose to go to a Jesuit university in the first place. Of course the author (Bill Bergstrom) mentions a really intellectual quote from a bisexual walk-out while it seems he hand picked kind of a dumb quote to represent a counter demonstrating "pro-lifer". (Reminds me of the time I participated in a Life Chain. The media pulled up and after eyeballing us for a few minutes, the only person he chose to interview on camera was an aged nun in full habit.)

Santorum is the father of Gabriel Michael, a son who died after being diagnosed with a fatal valve defect that did not allow him to eliminate urine into the womb. At the time, Rick was arguing for the Partial Birth Abortion Ban in Washington and was being told over and over again by abortion supporters that men don't have any idea what it's like to be in a situation where the child they carry has a fatal defect and so none of them had the right to comment on Partial Birth Abortion. Gabriel Michael died in Rick Santorum's arms two hours after being born prematurely due to an intrauterine infection which resulted from in-womb corrective surgery.


SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 9:58 AM # ::
...

WARNING: PICTURE OF "UNBORN" VICTIM OF VIOLENCE IN TODAY'S BLOG

The Unborn Victims of Violence Act would enable families of unborn children to legally charge people who kill those children against the mother's will. "When we heard about this bill, we immediately thought of placing a request to have it named Laci and Conner's Law in their honor," the family members wrote. As you can imagine, these folks are very interested in seeing this bill pass and say that it "is very close to our hearts".

Kate Michelman, who lost a child in an abortion and now heads NARAL "Pro-Choice America" [snickering at the new name], responds with disgust charging that this is "shameless exploitation of a horrific tragedy."

Laci's mom (Conner's grandma) asked that her child and grandchild be remembered and honored by passing a law that bears their names and seeks to bring justice to anyone who would revoke a woman's right to choose to have and raise her child. Lawmakers granted the family's request. Michelman says simply, "It sickens me."

What sickens me is that this poor woman



was told by law enforcement authorities that the little guy she holds was not a person and that "Nobody died" when his life was literally beaten out of him. The kid was four days away from being born for criminy's sake! What could Michelman be thinking when she sees this picture and hears that the cops were telling the mom that "nobody died"? Does she think that it's a "victory" for women everywhere?

Lisa Smith chose to carry and raise the son she became pregnant with at 15-years-old, but at nine months pregnant an attacker (thought to have been the boyfriend) broke in and stomped on her stomach. She was rushed to the hospital where they delivered her son who died from skull fractures as a result of being beaten to death. How does a "nobody" die from skull fractures? How does a "nobody" leave behind casts of his hands and feet?



Even if they had found the attacker, local authorities would not have been able to prosecute him, because the child had not yet been born and so, in Idaho, was treated as significant as a cup of coffee that had been knocked from his mother's hands in a brawl. What Lisa holds is a memorial of her lost child. She knows her child was real, and she presents a reminder as evidence to the world. Meanwhile Rebecca Poedy, Lisa's local Planned Parenthood president, insists that while the loss of a "planned and wanted pregnancy is a tragedy... the solutions should be real and not political."

First, "pregnancy" is a quality or condition that eventually every woman loses. In most cases, this is not a tragedy, and the end of pregnancy results in a tremendous amount of joy. Losing a child however is a different story, and that's what we're talking about in Lisa's case. She doesn't hold the hands and feet of a pregnancy but of a child. (If you question the logic, try asking a pregnant friend if she knows what the sex of her "pregnancy" is and note the look you get.)

Secondly, what is political about an individual seeking justice for a murdered loved-one? "You hurt my child, and I want you to pay." It's a natural conclusion. A religious deviation might be to forgive the killer and not require "payment", but the only possible political, abortion-related deviation would be to claim that what is fact is fiction so as to protect a broad movement. Lisa didn't fight for justice on behalf of "pro-lifers" everywhere. She was singularly interested in her own child and her own situation. "Pro-lifers" simply called into light how well it illustrated what they've been saying all along: there's a baby in there. What Poedy did was what all heavy-hitting abortion supporters (and promoters) do: she took the very thing that she herself was doing (advocating a political solution) and charged the other side with the despicableness of it. Just like a good abortion player, she diverted attention away from the individual case, applied negative terms to truth and justice, and twisted logic to take the focus off of her own loathesome behavior.

In a verdict that pleased Poedy well, Lisa was not able to seek justice for her slain child because of a Roe v. Wade-related state law that determined her child was not a child at all. For all their help, the courts may as well have presented Poedy with her own set of little Noah's casts as a "trophy" for "women's rights", whatever the hell those are.

Why are all these abortion advocates so worried over Laci and Conner's law? California is so gung-ho about abortion that they legalized it three years before Roe v. Wade, yet even they have an unborn victims of violence law that protects "wanted" unborn children beginning at around 8 weeks. In other words, if you are in California and you kill a woman who is two months pregnant, you can be charged with two counts of murder. Yet California's law has not threatened the legality of abortion in that state; they support abortion as avidly as ever.

Groups like Planned Parenthood, NOW and NARAL keep yammering on about what they say women want and what they say America believes (thus NARAL's name change to "Pro-Choice America"). They don't mention that 84% of the people in a national poll favor Conner's killer being charged with Conner's murder. Die-hard abortion groups say they fight for a "woman's right to choose", but as they oppose Laci and Conner's law they make it glaringly obvious that they only fight for a "woman's right" to choose abortion.

Still, it seems they abandon all women to abuse and child loss and not just those who choose abortion, so at least they suck consistently. You gotta give 'em that.

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 9:01 PM # ::
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I read After Abortion's blurb on the Jade Chimera , and I was inspired to introduce myself in the sidebar.

The internet is like human gestation: sometimes it's easy to forget we're dealing with real people.

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 8:59 AM # ::
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This morning my son said he wanted to have brothers and sisters like some friends of his. I told him that if he had a brother or sister he would have to share toys and Mommy and Daddy's love. "Don't you want to be an only child?" I asked. "Noooooo!" he cried. "I'm lonely!"

I don't discuss this type of thing with my son. He came up with the lonely concept entirely on his own. It just confirms my fear and pain. Everyone is having babies around us. He sees it, I see it, we all see it. Even someone's cat just had a litter of kittens. They've been talking about it for the last two weeks, and I find myself jealous of the confounded cat for being able to have babies so easily. I'm jealous of a CAT, I tell you.

I never would have lost a child in an abortion if I hadn't been tortured by HG. If my body were normal and I had babies like 97% of the pregnant population, this house would be full of children, abortion would be the last thing on my mind and my son would not be lonely.

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 10:40 AM # ::
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I was sitting in church on Mother's day when the preacher up and says:

"You can tell the real measure of a mother by what comes out of her womb."

I thought about what has come out of my womb and wonder what that makes me.

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 10:36 AM # ::
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Known abortion tally
(number of people stolen from my son's life)*:

siblings - 1
aunts/uncles - 2
cousins - 3
friends - 5 (We have play dates with families who we later found out had lost children in abortions.)

*Numbers may change as new information is revealed.

So often I've heard people say abortion is not their issue. They have no idea how many people are missing from their lives. One woman who thinks it's not her issue has, unbeknownst to her, lost two grandchildren (both daughters aborted one child). And during the last presidential election a preacher told me the economy was what was important to him and that abortion was not his issue. Meanwhile, back at the bell jar, he's got three dead grandchildren he doesn't know about (one daughter aborted one, the other daughter aborted two).

How many people are missing from your life?

WAKE UP WORLD! Abortion is everyone's issue.

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 11:30 AM # ::
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Last week I was cleaning my uncle's house and reflecting on life. The house itself throws myriad little sparks on the fire of thought. I vacuum, I dust, I find myself consumed. This was the house that Kennedy built. People laughed and loved and lived and died here.

In 1992 I sped out of the driveway late for psychology class. My grandpa (to whom I refer as my dad) was a dying psychologist, and I wanted to comfort him by making good grades. Education was important to him. I didn't want my grades to slip and him to blame himself. And I wanted him to leave this earth without having to worry about my future. I took the important psychology test and told the instructor that I had to leave. He advised against it. I told him, "Look, my dad has cancer and I think he just died." I got home, my gramma (see: Mom) met me on the front porch with pink eyes and hugs and said, "It's over."

Four years later I angered people with a three-day death prediction when they swore Gramma had much longer. I saw her, I knew her; she was slipping. I kissed her sweaty, freezing brow, told her I loved her, went home as my fiance grumpily suggested, and received a call an hour later. It woke me up and plummeted me into darkness. I rushed to her side, cleaned her dead, snotty nose, held her empty hand, and refused to let them take her for 4 hours. It was January.

My first child died in a second trimester abortion the following year, in January. I miscarried my second child at Christmas the following year and wouldn't let them take the baby until January. Visiting thoughts brush their feet on the welcome mat of the mind while doing laundry. Shake, shake, brush, fold.

Much to think about in a hollow house whose golden, wood floor shines rich with memory. I can't help myself; it reflects a nearly tangible timeline of my little life. Scrubbing the tub reveals flash images of youth... bath time "tea parties" with my gramma kneeling beside the turquoise tub pretending to drink Earl Grey from the fine bone china of a Dow Scrubbing Bubbles cap... memories of standing on the "potty" and getting my "T-hiney" powdered with a puff full of Emarude... the sights, sounds, smells of that house; it's all there.

We moved away for Granddad's job in Tennessee but came back at his retirement. In college all I wanted was to be out on my own, to build a life for myself... to have children and "tea parties" of my own. Virtually, the day I moved out they diagnosed my Gramma with aggressive terminal cancer. She said she would miss me and told me she was glad to have lived long enough to see that I would be OK. I'm glad she didn't live long enough to see how OK I am not. Sweep, sweep, sweep.

In the hall I noticed spots on the ceiling around the attic door. I remember Gramma finding Great Gramma's quilt up there and crying literal tears of joy after thinking, for over a decade, that it had been lost in the move. I remember her instinct to call cousin Doris. Joy turned to grief when she remembered that her "sister" had died a year earlier. It was the same feeling I had when I picked up the phone to dial her number and tell her about my first little baby who was "on the way". Spray, wipe, wipe.

Each of my birthparents had custody of me for a few years here and there, but I have no contact with them now. My grandparents were the only ones who ever really cared about raising and loving me. They put my needs ahead of their own; no one else ever did. However, it's not as sad as it sounds. Some people never have parents who care about them. I did; I had my Gramma and Grampa. I have been loved.

I must admit that when I observe my husband's family and the whole dynamic that goes on there I get lonely for my own family. If he has a birthday or a new job or something they contact him and wish him well or congratulate him and the like. If he has an opinion it becomes their opinion; there's a loyalty there, a closeness, the family of his childhood. Sometimes it's easy for me to feel that I'm on my own and that no one cares about me anymore. I try to cling to what my grandfather said on his deathbed: "I love you forever." That kind of love goes on. It's good to know.

It helps to understand that love is bigger than death. Sometimes it's so big, so pure and real that it's almost palpable. When I don't know who I am anymore and life is dulled by personal sadness, I remember my grampa's Pledge of love. It somehow polishes the veneer, and I can see myself in it. I know who I am; I am the only grandchild of James and Elise ******. Well, the only one they knew about.

Mopping the floor I found myself, not only grieving for what my son will not have, but wishing that I had someone close to me, someone that I had "growing up" experience with, someone I didn't have to explain myself and my life to (because they had been there), someone who got my jokes and understood my family culture. Mop, mop, mop. Why don't I have that? Mop, mop, mop. Why don't I have that? I busted out crying, because all at once I remembered the sibling my birth mother aborted when I was in fourth grade. I have enough to deal with, so I usually don't experience powerful sibling grief, but it really hit me unexpectedly hard, and I just started pouring like rain. And then I got so angry at my birthmother for taking my sibling away. And then I remembered who I am and what I've done. In such a situation, emotions snowball... but the regulator clicks on and the valve floats shut. "What the hell is this?!" you demand to know of yourself. "You have a day to get through here!" So you shut yourself up; you put the stopper in, and you finish the floor.

With the house completed, I gathered up my son. Thanks to the Playstation 2, he was oblivious. My long stretch on the internal roller coaster was his day of video entertainment with a bachelor's refrigerator on top (yummy delicious junk food). My child is four, and he thinks I'm normal. When will he know better?

SICLECell@yahoo.com

:: ashli 11:33 AM # ::
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After making some serious mistakes and being physically trapped by an 800 pound boulder for 5 days, Aron Ralston hacked his own arm off. I know it's significant and that I have not been in his particular situation but when I read this, I have to be honest, the first thing I said to myself was, "Big deal." A shocking response; let's examine it.

I hacked off more than my arm to escape a very bad physical situation; I aborted my child in the second trimester because I was pretty dehydrated and hadn't eaten a meal in 63 days. Oh, over the course of seven days, I might have been able to choke down 3 plain, lukewarm waffles without vomiting most of it up, and between a few quick IV's and vomit-triggering attempts at oral fluid intake I was able to survive those 63 days, but I was receiving substandard health care, and it was starting to show in my yellow skin and the freaky hallucinations I began to experience. I'm not saying I would have died like ol' Aron, but there was potential. And, like Aron, I also felt trapped, was scared I might die and was suffering (which many people prefer death to). Like Aron, I started to weigh my options, and the only thing I could come up with at the time was a grisly "amputation".

"How could he have done it?" people are asking. To me it's very simple. He wanted to go back to his old life; he wanted to eat, to drink, to live and be out of immediate danger. I know that kind of desperation. Only I'm not a "hero" like Aron, because my "appendage" was my child and not a part of my body at all. Aron gave his arm to live while I involved myself in child sacrifice. (Interestingly, Aron's amputated arm was taken to a mortuary, while the abortion clinic refused to release our child's body to our funeral home.)

Of course, I'm speaking in broad terms of physical crisis and how far people will go to escape, but yes, I know the two situations are a little different. The death threat to Aron may have been more tangible after his 5 day ordeal in the hot sun. For me, after 63 days of literal, clinical starvation and puking up blood I just couldn't take the torture anymore, and I wanted out. Hack off an arm, hack off a leg, hack off a baby? Sure thing. Whatever. "Just get me out of here." I look back and see so many things I could have done differently. I wonder if Aron will do the same. I wonder if, after the fact, he will learn of tools he didn't know about, tools that he could have had with him to dislodge his arm, some kind of hikers' lever or wedge or something? Or I wonder if he will regret not drinking his own urine to survive dehydration for a few more days in which time someone might have found him.

I'm sure Aron will regret the loss of an arm he wanted, and he may sometimes wonder what his life would be like if he still had it, but I don't think he will wonder what it would look like, sound like, smell like, be like if he had not chosen to cut off its blood supply and leave it rotting behind him. He will probably not long to hold his arm, hug it, rock it, kiss it, raise it, actively love and care for it. He will not grieve his arm as a mother grieves a lost child.

Cutting off your arm to escape from a physical crisis may not be a bad idea, because it doesn't involve the same consequences of child sacrifice, although there is a "grieving" process. Amputating a baby to escape a physical crisis may not be a good idea at all because it kills your child and thrusts you into literal mourning, grief for which there is no prosthetic, crisis for which many find no escape but the dull weathering of time. (I find it interesting that certain "pro-choice" groups deny the existence of abortion-related grief, while physical rehab groups openly acknowledge that the loss of a pinkie toe can cause one to sorrow.)

As a side note, I think physicians who view the growing child as little more than an appendix will work harder to save a woman's arm. When many positive treatment options are available, it's wrong to deny them to a woman because of expense, frustration or lack of motivation to research and work towards a better solution than abortion. Therapeutic termination saves time and frustration for physicians. If a patient chooses to continue a disease that is difficult and expensive to manage, she remains the doctor's headache (and possible liability). If she aborts, no matter what her emotional outcome, she is out of the doctor's hair. (And try taking your doctor to court when you abort for maternal health reasons; all they have to say is you didn't really want your baby and the proof is in the bell jar. Boom, case closed. I know this from experience.)

I don't mean to offend anyone here, but I often marvel at America's fascination with asinine subjects such as the California Raisins and Beanie Babies. I don't understand nick nacks or peoples' desire for more things to dust, and I suppose it's also hard for me to understand national awe and attention over a guy who hacks his arm off to escape a crisis...when every single day in our country nearly 5,000 women lay their bodies down and sacrifice much more of themselves. While I am glad that Aron is alive, and while I have great empathy for him in his situation, I don't think we should focus our curiosity entirely on how base or desperate a person can become to escape a crisis. The myriad articles on Aron should not be a study on how awesome it is to have the courage to maim ourselves for the sake of "liberation". Instead, we should carefully (non-punatively) examine the mistakes and encourage others to avoid them. This has become the framework of my grief. This is how I live with it, because nothing else makes sense to me.

If you care about someone you don't teach them to amputate in a crisis. If you care about someone, you plant the truth in their heart and soul and teach them to avoid the crisis in the first place. That's newsworthy.

SICLECel@hotmail.com

:: ashli 9:36 AM # ::
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We came upon the accident just after it happened. A man was on the horn calling for emergency assistance and another man was on the ground looking very much dead. He had been knocked out of his shoes; they looked odd sitting on the road waiting to be worn. This was on the way to my birthday cookout this past Sunday. It made me think of that time in high school.

Our substitute bus driver sped down a bumpy dirt road in much need of grading. Those of us in the back nearly hit our heads on the ceiling; it was great! We were all giggling when we saw it: the car on the side of the road. Something unusual about this one. A pair of human legs stuck out from underneath. They were naked and bloody, and the spastic bus driver let some of us off to check on the woman.

She lay still there in black rings of thirsty earth that had long since lapped up her generous offering of life. The razor blade was as obvious as the longitudinal chasms she had fashioned (in her arms AND legs) out of steel and desperation. She bled and bled and bled until all the poison of living was gone. She left the world behind and burned a young image of death in minds that weren't even prepared for the algebra we were supposed to be learning.

A week later my dog followed me to the bus stop. She was hit by a car as the bus approached. I left her squealing and writhing in a puddle of blood. Her eyes followed me all the way to the door of the bus. I ran away from the pain as fast as I could go. I left her there to choke on death alone.

Two years passed, and I was speeding down the highway late for embalming lab. Someone had dumped her on the side of the road. The woman was mottled and purple and as dead as she was naked. I kept driving. She was unobscured; I left the drama and frantic 911 calls to someone else.

I've seen so much of it; I thought I knew death.
I didn't know anything.

Life in the cell...

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 9:40 PM # ::
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Major RANT.

I am having a very difficult time with it lately.  I sent the book off to the first round of editing, and the first moment I got to myself I sat down and cried.  Somewhere in the dark last night, I woke up long enough to realize through the fog that my child had been tortured and killed (with the added perk that I was the one who did it).  This morning I woke up in a thick funk just wanting to kill myself.  I'm devastated over the tortured death of one of my kids, and YEAH, it just so happens that I don't feel real good about being the one who made it all happen. Whoever said Jesus' forgiveness is your own?  Christ is perfect, I'm not.  I deeply love, appreciate and accept His forgiveness, but I want my baby.  Now.  RIGHT NOW.  And I will never feel "ok" about taking him/her to an abortion clinic to be killed.  Not in this lifetime. I'm sure there are one or two Christians out there who feel guilty about something in spite of Christ's forgiveness.  Or are Christians immune to guilt because of Jesus?  I've got the director of a CPC (who never lost a child) telling me that I'm not a Christian if I still feel guilty, but meanwhile she feels guilty over straying from her diet and eating a rich dessert! The guy who runs the Memorial for the Unborn (in Tennessee of all places) told me that if I still agonize over killing my child then I'm making myself bigger than Christ, and how dare I? Oh, it just pisses me off.

I can't do pregnancy right, and now it seems, according to "the Christians", I can't even do abortion right (or is it Christianity that i can't do right?).  I'm supposed to squirt my kid out in pieces, cry for a few days, go through "Women in Ramah" overseen by the sham of some poorly trained cpc "counselor", and then I'm supposed to feel "forgiven and set free"!  It's a load of CRAP!!!  My husband and I expected a baby like any happy married couple eagerly expects their first child.  I was mashed within an inch of my life and felt physically forced to kill my own child.  I'm so sick of all this "post-abortion healing" crap!  This is my life now.  THIS IS ABORTION!  If it were as easy as killing your child and then being set free from it, then it wouldn't be such a big deal for women.  It would still kill the children, but we wouldn't need things like Silent No More.    Of course their prevailing message is that abortion hurts but Christ will heal you and make it all better.  Well, He doesn't.  He doesn't make me not hurt every single day.  He doesn't take away the pain of knowing how my child died.  He doesn't heal me of the grief of knowing that I was my child's tortured ruin. He hasn't healed this anymore than He healed me of my HG (which would have kept me from aborting my child in the first place!).  He may heal everything through death, and I can gratefully accept that. But no one ever said that faith in Him would heal everything or make this life easy.

I tell you, lately I've been feeling the draw away from organized religion (and the post-abortion movement) because of the organizations I've been dealing with.  It's really sad that these are the only people who care about us, because they often do a very crappy, crummy job that adds to the pain and despair.  But then again, maybe it's just me.  And I've NEVER been one to play well with others.

:: ashli 9:23 AM # ::
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