Yesterday, I blogged about abortion and two bloggers who ended their pregnancies because of dire medical circumstances. A few sentences stand out in their articles:
Like me, the prospect of delivering our children was unbearable–because they would have suffered unbearable pain and agony the entirety of their short lives.
We made our decision with one day to go and left for Houston where we would end his suffering in one quick and painless moment.
What I see here is grief, loss, emotional pain and fear. I see in their words a fear of suffering, a fear of seeing their child suffer and of being helpless to ease that suffering. I see a fear of being unable to handle such deep pain and heartache. The only alternative offered to these women seems to be aborting their child or living with the dire consequences.
It’s unfortunate that a third choice, that of peri-natal hospice isn’t more readily available and offered to women in this situation.
From the Physicians for Life Site:
Hospice care serves patients of all ages. Even those yet to be born.
Last year, Mary Gravina, a social worker at the nonprofit Hospice Care Network, received a call from a pregnant mother of three in Merrick. Donna Dobkowski told the social worker that she had been informed by her doctor that the fetus growing in her womb would not survive long after birth. The child was developing without kidneys, which is fatal.
Her doctor advised that she terminate the pregnancy at 14 weeks, when the abnormality was first noticed. She had her own plan.
Dobkowski wanted to give her child life, even if that meant only a few good minutes. She continued the pregnancy, despite the concern of her doctor and other doctors she saw for confirmation of her child’s grave disease — Potter’s syndrome. During her sixth month of pregnancy, she was referred to Gravina at the care network, who helped her devise a birth plan for her child and her family. Gravina was invited into the labor and delivery suite when Jonathan Dobkowski was born in May.
After an emergency cesarean section, mother and father held their newborn son. The baby’s first cries sounded normal, and the boy looked healthy. But his lungs were not fully developed because of the missing kidneys, and he died after an hour in his mother’s arms.
But during that time, with Gravina at their side, the couple was able to name their baby, gaze into his eyes, hold him, baptize him, kiss him and introduce him to his three siblings. Gravina bought each of the children a camera to take pictures of their brother, whom they knew would soon die. The couple took imprints of his hands and feet, and brought home from the hospital the cap he wore, his hospital booties, a lock of hair. “I have no regrets,” the mother said. “Mary helped me organize everything, and I got to meet my child, my kids got to hold their brother, and we took home a lot of memories that we will always cherish.”
Had she opted to terminate the pregnancy, she would have thought that she had lost a daughter, which is what her doctor said was the gender of the unborn child. “I am thankful he was born alive,” she said. A week later, they had a full funeral and were able to mourn the loss of their child.
Also this from American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists
Comfort measures are emphasized to the family, with staff assisting in this care as needed. The infants are kept warm and cuddled and some even fed. Infants surviving for longer periods are occasionally cared for in the nursery during the postpartum period, if the parents desire. Chaplain and social services provided spiritual and emotional support during this time as needed. Care is continued into the post-partum period by those providing grief support and contact from various members of the hospice team, with the level and timing of involvement dictated by the desires of the parents.
The care of these patients has been accomplished without any notable maternal complications, and the response of parents to this philosophy of care has been overwhelmingly positive. When parents are given loving support, freedom from the fear of abandonment and careful counsel regarding clinical expectations in the setting of a lethal fetal condition, they frequently choose the option of perinatal hospice care for the management of their pregnancy. This can be safely accomplished with current methods of obstetrical care. These parents are thus allowed to fully experience the birth of their child and the bonding that occurs during the antepartum and immediate postpartum period. This bonding helps provide a firm foundation for obtaining closure with the death of their child. They may rest secure in the knowledge that they shared in their baby’s life, however brief, and treated their child with the same dignity afforded other terminally ill individuals under the best of circumstances.
This blogger also suggested prenatal hospice as an alternative.
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