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When One Is Enough
www.nytimes.com ^ | Published: July 18, 2004

Posted on 07/19/2004 10:55:19 AM PDT by InvisibleChurch

When One Is Enough By AMY RICHARDS as told to AMY BARRETT

Published: July 18, 2004

grew up in a working-class family in Pennsylvania not knowing my father. I have never missed not having him. I firmly believe that, but for much of my life I felt that what I probably would have gained was economic security and with that societal security. Growing up with a single mother, I was always buying into the myth that I was going to be seduced in the back of a pickup truck and become pregnant when I was 16. I had friends when I was in school who were helping to rear nieces and nephews, because their siblings, who were not much older, were having babies. I had friends from all over the class spectrum: I saw the nieces and nephews on the one hand and country-club memberships and station wagons on the other. I felt I was in the middle. I had this fear: What would it take for me to just slip?

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Now I'm 34. My boyfriend, Peter, and I have been together three years. I'm old enough to presume that I wasn't going to have an easy time becoming pregnant. I was tired of being on the pill, because it made me moody. Before I went off it, Peter and I talked about what would happen if I became pregnant, and we both agreed that we would have the child.

I found out I was having triplets when I went to my obstetrician. The doctor had just finished telling me I was going to have a low-risk pregnancy. She turned on the sonogram machine. There was a long pause, then she said, ''Are you sure you didn't take fertility drugs?'' I said, ''I'm positive.'' Peter and I were very shocked when she said there were three. ''You know, this changes everything,'' she said. ''You'll have to see a specialist.''

My immediate response was, I cannot have triplets. I was not married; I lived in a five-story walk-up in the East Village; I worked freelance; and I would have to go on bed rest in March. I lecture at colleges, and my biggest months are March and April. I would have to give up my main income for the rest of the year. There was a part of me that was sure I could work around that. But it was a matter of, Do I want to?

I looked at Peter and asked the doctor: ''Is it possible to get rid of one of them? Or two of them?'' The obstetrician wasn't an expert in selective reduction, but she knew that with a shot of potassium chloride you could eliminate one or more.

Having felt physically fine up to this point, I got on the subway afterward, and all of a sudden, I felt ill. I didn't want to eat anything. What I was going through seemed like a very unnatural experience. On the subway, Peter asked, ''Shouldn't we consider having triplets?'' And I had this adverse reaction: ''This is why they say it's the woman's choice, because you think I could just carry triplets. That's easy for you to say, but I'd have to give up my life.'' Not only would I have to be on bed rest at 20 weeks, I wouldn't be able to fly after 15. I was already at eight weeks. When I found out about the triplets, I felt like: It's not the back of a pickup at 16, but now I'm going to have to move to Staten Island. I'll never leave my house because I'll have to care for these children. I'll have to start shopping only at Costco and buying big jars of mayonnaise. Even in my moments of thinking about having three, I don't think that deep down I was ever considering it.

The specialist called me back at 10 p.m. I had just finished watching a Boston Pops concert at Symphony Hall. As everybody burst into applause, I watched my cellphone vibrating, grabbed it and ran into the lobby. He told me that he does a detailed sonogram before doing a selective reduction to see if one fetus appears to be struggling. The procedure involves a shot of potassium chloride to the heart of the fetus. There are a lot more complications when a woman carries multiples. And so, from the doctor's perspective, it's a matter of trying to save the woman this trauma. After I talked to the specialist, I told Peter, ''That's what I'm going to do.'' He replied, ''What we're going to do.'' He respected what I was going through, but at a certain point, he felt that this was a decision we were making. I agreed.

When we saw the specialist, we found out that I was carrying identical twins and a stand alone. My doctors thought the stand alone was three days older. There was something psychologically comforting about that, since I wanted to have just one. Before the procedure, I was focused on relaxing. But Peter was staring at the sonogram screen thinking: Oh, my gosh, there are three heartbeats. I can't believe we're about to make two disappear. The doctor came in, and then Peter was asked to leave. I said, ''Can Peter stay?'' The doctor said no. I know Peter was offended by that.

Two days after the procedure, smells no longer set me off and I no longer wanted to eat nothing but sour-apple gum. I went on to have a pretty seamless pregnancy. But I had a recurring feeling that this was going to come back and haunt me. Was I going to have a stillbirth or miscarry late in my pregnancy?

I had a boy, and everything is fine. But thinking about becoming pregnant again is terrifying. Am I going to have quintuplets? I would do the same thing if I had triplets again, but if I had twins, I would probably have twins. Then again, I don't know.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: selectivereduction
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1 posted on 07/19/2004 10:55:22 AM PDT by InvisibleChurch
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To: InvisibleChurch

Thanks for the post. Heard it on Rush. I think I may be ill.


2 posted on 07/19/2004 10:57:49 AM PDT by Grit ('For the love of my brother, and for the love of my country.' - Pat Tillman)
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To: InvisibleChurch

People like her should just have their tubes tied; what a selfish moron.


3 posted on 07/19/2004 10:58:23 AM PDT by NRA1995
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To: InvisibleChurch
This story made my physically ill.

Previous thread but worthy of another.

When One (baby) Is Enough (ultimate in cold selfishness)

4 posted on 07/19/2004 11:01:45 AM PDT by Incorrigible (immanentizing the eschaton)
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To: InvisibleChurch

This is going out on an e-mail I'm sending right now.


5 posted on 07/19/2004 11:03:29 AM PDT by Blue Scourge (Off I go into the Wild Blue Yonder...)
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To: NRA1995

Here's a poster child for the importance of have a mother AND father. She didn't even consider what the boyfriend said, becuase she's so convinced that the woman is the only one that is "responsible" for raising a child.

You're right, though, she's extremely selfish. Only worried about how not killing her babies would affect HER life.

Did you catch how she felt a little better knowing 2 of the babies were younger? That's an admission that she knew killing them was wrong.


6 posted on 07/19/2004 11:04:54 AM PDT by ConservativeWarrior
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To: InvisibleChurch

Absolutely sickening, and the disgust is magnified by someone wanting to publish the fact they did this. What a selfish shallow stupid woman.


7 posted on 07/19/2004 11:05:47 AM PDT by Williams
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To: InvisibleChurch
I'll echo a comment made on FR when this article was posted this past weekend:

"Murderous bitch."

8 posted on 07/19/2004 11:08:37 AM PDT by Jonah Hex (Only 5 cents a troll? Must be too many of the varmints around here...)
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I don't think I've ever seen anything more disturbing on the internet. That includes the horrible video clips of the beheading of the hostage.

Where do you find doctors who would just inject poison into the hearts of a healthy set of twins?

What kind of woman would do that. In some weird way its a lot worse than just aborting one child that you are not ready for. She was willing to be pregnant, and raise a child. If she required bed rest for the health of a singleton, it sounds like she probably would have done it. There wasn't one reasonably logical reason for this termination. What did she do, eenie, meenie, miney mo....?

Yeech!

And her putzy boyfriend should have taken his son, sued for joint custody and made a home for him away from this sick b*tch!


9 posted on 07/19/2004 11:09:24 AM PDT by YankeeGirl
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To: InvisibleChurch

This selfish woman makes me sick. What is she going to tell her son when he grows up? Or, will she raise him to be just another one of those careless men who expects his date to sleep with him and then get rid of the baby, if a pregnancy should occur.

My daughter just had a miscarriage at 44 (3rd child) and she is devastated. There is every reason in the world why she might have chosen not to have that baby -- but she wanted him/her with all her heart. She and her husband are still mourning.


10 posted on 07/19/2004 11:11:53 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic (Re-elect Dubya)
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To: Williams

Count the number of (I's) in this article. What a selfish bItch.


11 posted on 07/19/2004 11:12:12 AM PDT by phil1750 (Love like you've never been hurt;Dance like nobody's watching;PRAY like it's your last prayer)
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To: Jonah Hex
"I'll have to start shopping only at Costco and buying big jars of mayonnaise"

I'm pro life but not completely judgmental about things people do under extreme circumstances. BUT quotes like the one above tell me that stupid shallow people like her don't have any awareness of just how selfish and pointless they are. Most of her other quotes are offensive.

Maybe I'm wrong but I think she absolutely shocked and revolted Peter, and one of them will leave the other soon enough. If I were him, but for the pregnancy I'd be packing my bags because she published this.

12 posted on 07/19/2004 11:16:12 AM PDT by Williams
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To: phil1750

All I can say is I'm frankly in shock. That someone would do this, and then publish that they did it, is disgusting. The revulsion I feel is really nauseating. My wife is 38, and pregnant with our third child. We didn't use all the protection we should have, knowing the first two were born with her on the pill, and while we never wanted a third child, we're happy it's healthy, and will be that much more blessed in what truly matters - LOVE and FAMILY.

If this 'woman' is ALLOWED to get pregnant again, I hope the next father (because, I'm sorry, what man would want to sleep with her again after she murdered two of his children?) knows her history, and frankly, she should be barred from having any kids, and the one she does have she should lose all parental rights to, as she surely didn't look out for the best interest of him, or his two siblings.

I have to go for a walk now. I feel, well, sick.


13 posted on 07/19/2004 11:17:07 AM PDT by Ro_Thunder (Sarcasm? That's humor lost on anyone but yourself.)
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To: InvisibleChurch
Well, if she really believes that "she had the right to choose" then she won't be shy at all about explaining this to her son.

Her: Well, dear, I just had a lot of commitments and you know how I hate Costco and Staten Island so I killed your siblings.

Him: Thanks Mom.
14 posted on 07/19/2004 11:20:58 AM PDT by Gingersnap
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To: InvisibleChurch

I wonder what her little boy will think when he's bigger and finds out about this? Someone is sure to show him the column his mother wrote for The New York Times. Maybe his proud mother will show it to him herself.

I hope she was well paid for it.


15 posted on 07/19/2004 11:26:44 AM PDT by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: InvisibleChurch
Crunchy or smooth?
16 posted on 07/19/2004 11:27:01 AM PDT by Old Professer (Interests in common are commonly abused.)
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To: Ro_Thunder
I'm sorry to post such a cynical comment, and it's a quote from a friend who is very negative. But he likes to say that one of the biggest frauds of the left is the notion that all women are virtuous. I guess that is implicit in the idea that women are so uniquely suited to make this decision on abortion that it can't be questioned.

I worked with a fellow whose wife was a similar piece of work. She got pregnant and was spending all her time lying around the apartment doing nothing, with dishes piling up in the sink, etc. He finally told her that if she was ill she needed to ask the doctor about it, but otherwise she had to do some things at home even though she was pregnant. When he got home from work that same evening she told him she got an abortion because of what he said.

I'm not sure there's a moral, just images of immorality.

17 posted on 07/19/2004 11:29:32 AM PDT by Williams
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To: Grit

There is only one way this woman will ever understand what she has done, and that is when she stands before God and trys to explain this reprehensiable act. It makes the taking of an inocent life so real and to us that know what a sin it is, it just absolutely makes prayer and our relationship with Jesus Christ all more important. There is no way that Peter will ever really forgive her, and I do feel so sorry for the boy that survived. We will all have to keep him in our prayers. outinthe boonies


18 posted on 07/19/2004 11:32:49 AM PDT by outintheboonies
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To: outintheboonies

Grit- I would also add that there will be two children standing by God.


19 posted on 07/19/2004 11:41:08 AM PDT by KeyWest
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To: InvisibleChurch

Believe it or not Ms. Richards is the advice columnist for Feminists.com. I am shocked! If you have any advice for her, don't forget to e-mail her at askamy@feminist.com


20 posted on 07/19/2004 11:51:15 AM PDT by ThreeYearLurker
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