+
More

A Woman Wants To Tell You The 5 Most Surprising Things About Her Abortion

Set aside right or wrong just for a few moments. A woman wants to tell you her story.


I ate lunch alone at my desk before driving to the clinic for our appointment. In the two weeks since my husband and I found out at our 20-week sonogram that our fetus was abnormal, I’d barely left the house. My entire world collapsed. The baby I had loved since before he was conceived was deemed by doctors “incompatible with life.” My husband told me about a senator from Fort Worth who was filibustering HB-2, a series of restrictions on abortions in Texas that includes a ban on abortions after 20 weeks. I clicked on the live stream, afraid of what I’d see — afraid of anything that could make my reality more excruciating than it already was. Instead, I saw a "Legally Blonde"-esque powerhouse in pink sneakers and listened to her describe my exact situation. Seeing her stand there, so professional and composed as she spoke about what I was facing, was the single most consoling act I could have experienced in that moment.

The day after the abortion, I made a statement to my husband that would change my life even further: “I’m going to share our story.” Before having an abnormal fetus, I might not have understood why a woman would want or need to have an abortion after 20 weeks. It sounded lazy, careless, and selfish to me. But once I knew from traumatic personal experience that there can be loving reasons for a late-term abortion, I felt I couldn’t stay silent. I realized that if I had heard more people talking about this side of the issue before I went through it myself, I might have felt less alone — and I might have felt less humiliated to think that others might think me lazy, careless, or selfish, when the truth was that I wanted my baby more than anything. Like Senator Davis, who stood for me and all women, I decided to let people know how important it is to protect a woman’s right to choose. I started with a speech for TEDxSMU last October and then told my story for "Oral Fixation" — and I haven’t stopped.

After taking a deep breath and putting my truth out into the world, I was inundated with loving support. Friends have confided that they’ve had abortions, and now we are closer because I know something about them that hardly anyone else knows. Strangers who’ve read my story have reached out and thanked me for sharing. I’m developing friendships with a couple of women who’ve also gone through terminations due to fetal abnormalities. And then there’s the immediate reaction when I speak in public — men shaking my hand, thanking me for being brave enough to shed light on an issue they’ve struggled to understand; women hugging me, saying it’s a miracle I could talk about such pain in public when they’ve lived quietly with their own pain for years. Even the woman whose story Wendy Davis was telling when I clicked on the live stream reached out to me in solidarity. My story has brought awareness to the plight of so many who previously suffered in silence. And together we feel stronger and less isolated.

Every month, my husband and I co-produce a live storytelling series in Dallas called "Oral Fixation (An Obsession With True Life Tales)" that features regular folks reading aloud their true, personal stories on a theme. In the past, when I ran across a really tough or divisive issue, I’d detour around it, afraid to alienate my audience. But now, I am bolder. For example, our March show, “Elephant in the Room,” included the story of a man who at 14 years old narrowly avoided molestation and another of a suicide attempt due to childhood sexual abuse. I’ve worked with members of my community to share their stories of racism and dealing with disability. Perhaps because I’ve been so grateful not only for the positive response and support but also the healing I’ve experienced since sharing my story, I’m now fearless about talking about tough stuff. In fact, I've begun to understand that it is silence, far more than honesty, that we should fear. It is my greatest reward to witness the catharsis of sharing something long held inside and how it heals both the individual and the community who hears the story.

My husband and I had been married only four months when we conceived our baby, intentionally and with incredible joy. When we learned about the baby’s problems, we were on the same page instantly: We didn’t want to bring a child into this world to suffer. But we didn’t give up easily. We felt we owed it to the baby to find out as much as we could about his condition before making a decision about his life. My husband stood by my side, putting aside all professional obligations to be there at every sonogram and every test, and then he spent hours in the abortion clinic’s waiting room while I underwent three days of procedures. By the end, I felt for the first time that I trusted another human being with my life. The following months were heavy with crazy menstrual cycles, epic crying fits on the bathroom floor, and so much sadness for what could have been. It hasn’t been perfect, but over time we are learning how to be there for each other in our grief. We know now that our love can overcome any obstacle, and rather than feel like victims, we rejoice daily in our many blessings, such as the ability to try to get pregnant again. We help each other hold the belief that we did the best thing for our baby and that we will be parents someday. And every time we learn of a family or individual who has benefited from hearing our story, we feel our love for our lost soul deepen with the knowledge that he has left an incredible legacy.

Editor's Note: Like the idea of people sharing their experiences instead of getting caught up in the "wrong or right," "should or shouldn't" debate? Us too. Please consider sharing this if you think this approach is good for the world.

Sponsored

ACUVUE launches a new campaign to inspire Gen Z to put down their phones and follow their vision

What will you create on your social media break? Share it at #MyVisionMySight.

True

If you’ve always lived in a world with social media, it can be tough to truly understand how it affects your life. One of the best ways to grasp its impact is to take a break to see what life is like without being tethered to your phone and distracted by a constant stream of notifications.

Knowing when to disconnect is becoming increasingly important as younger people are becoming aware of the adverse effects screen time can have on their eyes. According to Eyesafe Nielsen, adults are now spending 13-plus hours a day on their digital devices, a 35% increase from 2019.1. Many of us now spend more time staring at screens on a given day than we do sleeping which can impact our eye health.

Normally, you blink around 15 times per minute, however, focusing your eyes on computer screens or other digital displays have been shown to reduce your blink rate by up to 60%.2 Reduced blinking can destabilize your eyes’ tear film, causing dry, tired eyes and blurred vision.3

Keep ReadingShow less

Karlie Smith shows the meal she's bringing to the restaurant for her son.

A mom who admitted she packs her 2-year-old a meal when they go out to dinner has started an interesting debate on TikTok about restaurant etiquette and how it applies to young children.

The video posted by Ohio mom, Karlie Smith (unbreakablemomma on TikTok), has received nearly 600,000 views and has over 1,850 comments.

“Call me cheap, call me whatever, but if we’re going out to a restaurant, I’m packing my kid a meal," Smith, 21, said in her post. "I do this for many reasons. On Friday nights, my family and I get together, and tonight, we’re getting food out. My son is not getting food out.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Pop Culture

Man rewatches shows from his childhood and his recaps of the bonkers storylines are priceless

Rob Anderson's hilarious recaps of shows like "Mighty Ducks," "Beethoven," and "7th Heaven" might make you wonder how they got made in the first place.

@hearthrobert/TikTok

These plots makes zero sense.

While there are no doubt some timeless classics from our childhood that remain every bit as amazing as we remember, many are straight-up cringey upon a later viewing. Really, it’s to be expected as societal viewpoints change…sort of a marker of how far we’ve collectively come.

And so, what do we do with these problematic pieces of old-school pop culture? Well, we can certainly update them to better reflect a more modern attitude, but that also comes with a set of potential problems. Or we could simply never watch them again. Certainly an option given all the content out there. But then we might miss an opportunity to better understand what seemed to work for the mainstream then, and why it doesn’t work now.

And then there’s the third option—allow ourselves to be entertained by their cringiness.

That’s certainly the route taken by Rob Anderson. Over on TikTok, Anderson has taken ultra-popular movies and television shows from his childhood and given them hilarious recaps capturing how absurd some of the storylines are.
Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

18-year-old took her college savings and bought the restaurant where she was a dishwasher

Samantha Frye, the newest owner of Rosalie's restaurant, is proving there's more than one way to invest in your future.

Canva

There are many way to invest in your future

Eighteen year old Samantha Frye has traded college life for entrepreneurship, and she has no regrets.

Frye began working at Rosalie's Restaurant in Strasburg, Ohio at 16 as a dishwasher, working up the ranks as a kitchen prep, server, then line cook. All while working a second job, sometimes third job.

After graduating high school, Frye started college at Ohio State with plans of studying business or environmental engineering. But when she came back to work a shift at Rosalie’s for winter break, an opportunity arose—the owners had planned to sell the restaurant.
Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

Woman decides that she is the love of her life and marries herself at her retirement home

“I said, you know what, I’ve done everything else. Why not?”

77-year-old woman decides she's the love of her life and marries herself.

We joke about marrying ourselves or a platonic friend if some arbitrary amount of time has passed without a proposal from an imaginary suitor. And sure, some people do wind up marrying a friend in more of a business arrangement, but it's not very common that someone follows through with marrying themselves.

Dorothy "Dottie" Fideli, decided that she was going to break the mold. The 77-year-old sat down and thought about all of the things she had done in life and who was with her the entire time cheering her on. It was an easy answer: herself. She was her biggest cheerleader, the person who always showed up and the love of her life, so Fideli made the plan to marry herself.

On a beautiful May day, friends and family gathered in the O’Bannon Terrace Retirement Community, where Fideli is a resident, to witness the ceremony.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

12-year-old Texas girl saves her family from carbon monoxide poisoning

She knew something was wrong with her mom and brother, which wound up saving her whole family.

Fort Worth 12-year-old helps save family from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Carbon monoxide is called a silent killer for a reason. Many people don't realize they're experiencing carbon monoxide poisoning before it's too late. The gas is colorless and odorless and tends to have a sedating effect that causes people to sleep through the fatal poisoning. Having carbon monoxide detectors is one of the most effective ways to identify the gas before it's too late to get out of the house, but not every home has one.

A little girl in Fort Worth, Texas, experienced a terrifying encounter with the deadly gas, but her quick actions saved her entire family. Jaziyah Parker is being held up as a hero after she realized something was wrong with her family members and called for help.

The girl called 911 after she noticed her mom pass out. On the call with the dispatcher, Jaziyah says she thinks her mother has died before explaining that there was something now wrong with her baby brother, who was just 5-months-old.

Keep ReadingShow less

Drew Barrymore speaks during the FLOWER Beauty launch at Westfield Parramatta on April 13, 2019, in Sydney, Australia.

Drew Barrymore, 48, has been in the public consciousness since she starred as Gertie in 1982’s mega-blockbuster, “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” a performance that earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. So, it makes sense that many people of a certain age feel as if they’ve grown up with her.

Barrymore has consistently starred in hit films and movies that are rewatchable cable-TV staples, such as “Charlie's Angels” (2000), “Never Been Kissed” (1999), “Scream” (1996), “The Wedding Singer” (1998), “50 First Dates” (2004) and “Fever Pitch” (2005).

Now, she’s an even more significant part of people’s lives as the host of “The Drew Barrymore Show,” which runs every weekday on CBS. So far, the show has been a big success, attracting an average of 1.21 million views per show, and ranks as the #4 talk show in syndication. It was recently renewed through the 2024 season.

Keep ReadingShow less