Posted on 01/24/2007 9:44:32 PM PST by Mr. Silverback
When you hear the words crisis pregnancy, you probably picture an unmarried teenager, too young to deal with the trauma of sin’s unexpected consequences. But according to a study compiled by the National Institutes of Health, up to 60 percent of all pregnancies in the United States are unplanned, affecting three million women—and their families—every year. And these are not just teenagers.
Picture the mother with a still-young infant and postpartum depression; or the family with three young children and a father who has just deployed to Iraq; or the parents nearing retirement and planning for their teenagers’ college funds. For these families, the expected bundle of joy can feel more like a bundle of troubles.
That last example was the story of Leslie Leyland Fields, a then-43-year-old college professor who found out she was pregnant with her fifth child—and then two years later with her sixth. The news of her fifth and sixth pregnancies did not come easily to Fields or her husband, who thought they were done with diapers and midnight feedings. She writes honestly about her struggle to find joy in these pregnancies in a book called Surprise Child.
In addition to a busy career teaching and writing and four children nearly grown, Fields and her husband were commercial salmon fishermen. Their lives were full to the brim, and the news of first one and then two babies was overwhelming. In the midst of this personal crisis, Fields found that her church friends could not understand why she was upset, yet her work colleagues could not understand why she would choose to have two more children. Feeling alone and isolated, Fields says she knew that “God is the maker of life” and that she had “to find a way to receive with open hands these children He had made.” And she did just that, realizing in the process that her surprise children were no surprise to God and that He would supply her family with everything they needed, including the strength and joy to love two more children.
Sadly, only half of women experiencing unplanned pregnancies make the choice to welcome a surprise child. The others abort their babies.
That’s why Fields’s book is so important. Through sharing her own story of coming to terms with unexpected pregnancy, Fields gives hope to women who often feel their only choice is abortion. She shows how God can redeem even the most difficult of circumstances and give a mother love for the surprise child who seems, at first, more like a curse than a blessing.
If you or someone you know is facing the trauma of an unplanned pregnancy, I encourage you to get a copy of Fields’s book Surprise Child: Finding Hope in Unexpected Pregnancy. You can also find helpful resources by visiting our website at BreakPoint.org.
And unplanned pregnancy can seem like a crisis, but it does not have to end that way. Remember, an unplanned pregnancy may be a surprise to us, but no child is a surprise to God. And the child we think we don’t want often turns out to be the greatest blessing—as countless mothers, persuaded by protestors at abortion clinics not to abort, have frequently reported.
Remember Jesus’ words: “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes Me.”
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Ya would think a college professor knows what causes that!
my mom tells the story of a couple of middle aged friends of hers who were crying one night when they were all out on the town. They admitted they were both pregnant...accidents of course.
they both kept them...later years they were so in love with those children and were so very thankful for them because those children turned out to be a blessing to them.
everyone I know who was an "accident" turned out to be the best kids to their parents. The ones who excelled and who were there for their folks when the times got tough.
We do free ultrasounds and have been able to show the woman that they are carrying babies and many have decided to carry instead of abort. It's been very rewarding.
I was definately one of these unplanned children )bottom of a very big heap of children). Mom never let me forget it. Too bad. I think God waited to give her best last :-).
Only one of my four (the last one) has been planned. Couldn't imagine life without the other three!
anyway, despite my suspicions, I was very surprised and not a very happy camper about being pregnant...I was older...a whopping 31 but it seemed older to me....I could only imagine the worse....that this baby would have defects ,etc...I had been on some medication when "IT" happened, and I fell at least three times during that pregnancy....
no matter....that baby turned out to be a little kitten despite my reservations....she rarely cried, slept from 8pm to 8am at 5 weeks and she awoke happy....
she is 21 now....she 's been a trial since about age 12 but all in all, she has been the biggest blessing ...happy, bright, extroverted........I don't know what I would do if I didn't have her...
Not so much. Her father told her if she didn't get an abortion, he'd have her 19-year-old BF arrested AND kick her out of the house. So she had to choose between the baby, which she wanted, and her BF, whom she also wanted.
She had the abortion last week. And now her BF is avoiding her.
Irony is funny that way.
One of my best friends (surprise baby) was told by his parents that they considered aborting him. I was really surprised that they told him, but he said he was happy they did. He felt more loved because they decided to have him when they had other options.
There are things that should not be discussed between parents and children, and I would put that very high on a very short list.Too bad. I think God waited to give her best last :-).
God bless you.
Anne:
You raise one of the most important set of comparative statistics about the abortion debate that will never be published by the Guttmacher Institute. It is the "Regret Statistics":
1) What percentage of women regret their abortion? The number will be much greater than 50%.
2) For those women who seriously considered abortion, but didn't do it, what percentage regret having given birth to their child? I am certain the percentage will be almost zero.
Thinking it through, this should be obvious. It also reinforces the point that abortion is murder, regardless of how the left paints the act.
I had 3 "surprises", only actually planned one. Can't imagine what my life would be like without each and every one of them.
At 48, my husband & I would both welcome another "surprise"
that's me! i'm the youngest of 7 children... the 6th child, one of my sisters, is 9 years older than i... i have nieces and nephews my age...
my mom said she worried because she felt she was too old... on the other hand, she said she was very excited... my siblings were all very excited, too... except when one of my older sisters (17 at the time) was going to introduce her boyfriend's parents to my parents... she felt a little embarrassed... turns out that her boyfriend's mother (same age as my mom) was pregnant too--with her 6th and final child... (my sister ended up marrying her boyfriend--he's been my brother-in-law just about my entire life!)...
my dad said he worried that he wouldn't live long enough to see me grow up... He's 83 now!
my brother first became a father when he was 27... he's now 57 and has an 8-month old son!
Yep, unplanned certainly doesn't mean unloved!!!
Newsflash: millions of women conceive while using contraceptives. For birth control methods which exclusively avoid conception (i.e., not those which cause permanent sterility or early abortions), the most effective one, at 98% effectiveness, and the only one with no medical counter-indications or side effects, is Sympto-thermal Natural Family Planning (NFP) -- See chart for comparison.
Only God can sort out who has the most blood on their hands in this situation: the girl, the boyyfriend, or the girl's coercive, cold-blooded father (grandfather of murdered baby.)
This is where the pro-choicers have fallen short in their promotion of "choice." Pro-choicers have not supported women who were unhappy to find they are pregnant, but did not want to kill their unborn child.
If those pro-choicers were really feminists, they would have been actively helping women through protracted difficult times, rather than merely helping them, a short while, to climb up on the abortionists' tables.
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