Belabored Chapter 33: Emma and Tom

“It seems to me clear as daylight that abortion would be a crime.” – Mahatma Gandhi

              I call Lacey, the counselor at an online group I found that supports parents who’ve gotten bad news about their pregnancies. At least this time I get through the conversation without blubbering like a fool.

              “Hello, Emma, it’s nice to hear from you!” she chirps when I identify myself. I think I can hear her beaming on the other end of the phone. “What can I help you with?”

              “Uh, well, I guess I should just get right to the point.  My baby’s been diagnosed with spina bifida, I think I told you that last time –”

              “Yes, I remember,” she responds sympathetically. “I’m so sorry. Can the doctors do anything to improve your baby’s health before he or she is born?”

              “He. I mean, it’s a boy. His name is Matthew.”

              “Matthew. I love that name. I have a son named Matthew also. Did you choose that name because it means ‘gift of God?’”

              Startled, I reply, “No. No, we didn’t. In fact, I didn’t even realize that’s what it meant till just now when you said it. My son started calling him that out of the blue one day, and it just stuck. How ’bout that?”

              More beaming on the other end of the line as she repeats her question.

               “Emma, can the doctors do anything to help Matthew while he’s in the womb?”

              “No. No, they can’t. That’s why I’m calling, actually. This woman I work with, when she heard about my situation, she whipped out her phone and started looking up the diagnosis. She’s one of those annoying people who can’t mind her own business, and when she found out all the problems he’ll have, she started talking about ‘saying goodbye early.’ Can you imagine? I’m sitting at my desk trying to get work done when she just invites herself into my life. I was, like, ‘What are you talking about, Ruth?’ and she kept yammering on about wouldn’t it be kinder to the rest of the family and even the baby himself if we all just ‘said goodbye early’ instead of letting him be born with all those problems.

              “I finally said, ‘Ruth, what are you talking about, saying goodbye early? I haven’t even said hello to my baby yet and you’re telling me to say goodbye. What gives?’ Then she said something about couldn’t they ‘interrupt the pregnancy’ and wouldn’t that make things easier for all of us. I said, ‘Ruth, I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about. Can you please speak English!’

              “That’s when she looked down at my stomach with sort of a scowl and all of a sudden it dawned on me. I said, ‘Ruth, are you suggesting I abort my child?’ She said, ‘Oh, Emma, of course not! It’s not an abortion. I know someone who had it done. It’s actually called a medical termination because the fetus will have such poor quality of life and won’t be able to contribute much to society. It’s really in the best interest of everyone.’”

              “Oh, Emma, I’m so sorry that happened to you!” Lacey exclaims. “What did you say to her?”

              “Well, after I talked myself out of stabbing her with a letter opener, I calmly said, ‘Ruth, it’s a little late in the pregnancy to be considering an abortion, because that is what you’re talking about, even if I believed in them, which I don’t. In fact, my husband and I are going to a prayer vigil outside of an abortion clinic this weekend with our two older sons. Maybe you know the place. It’s called Convenient Conception. Would you care to join us?’”

              Lacey returns to beaming. I can feel the rays emanating through the phone line.

              “Oh, Emma, that’s priceless! People can be so insensitive, can’t they? What did she say then?”  

              “Oh, she started going on about how Convenient Conception does a lot of good for women and family planning – you know the arguments. As if they don’t perform – what is it? – something like 350,000 abortions every year with taxpayer money.

              “Anyway, I decided not to stand there and argue with her. I simply said, ‘Ruth, I have a great deal of work to do, so please excuse me.’ And she stomped off.”

              “You, Emma, are a force to be reckoned with!” Lacey hoots with perhaps more merriment than the situation warrants.

              I should be proud because this woman is saying all the right things, but instead I feel horrible. Reliving the conversation with Ruth underscores a lot of the “suggestions” my rapidly growing team of specialists keep urging. Maybe that’s why I blurt out, “Well, if I’m so right, how come this feels so awful? I mean, maybe they’re all right and Tom and I are wrong. Maybe this is a horrible mistake and we should just do the compassionate thing, like the doctors keep saying, and –”

              “Emma, you and Tom are doing the compassionate thing,” Lacey says emphatically. “You’re doing the right thing. Anyone who tells you it’s compassionate to end the life of your child is dead wrong. Parents don’t get to choose the health of their children any more than they get to choose their hair color or foot size. Those things are determined by God, and only He gets to decide when it’s time to say goodbye.”

              She lets her words sink in.

              “I wanna believe that,” I choke, “I really do. I wanna believe that woman the spina bifida organization put me in touch with, the one who says her life’s worth living even though it’s not what her parents expected. But she’s got so much help and her family’s so supportive and they built this accessible wing on their house just for her and –”

            I must sound desperate because Lacey breaks in.

            “Emma, I’m sorry, could I interrupt just for a minute?”

             I take a breath.

             “Sure.”

             “Sorry. Thanks, Emma. I just want to tell you a little story, if I may. I know what you’re going through. I brought a child into the world who only lived for a few years. She had a chromosome abnormality that kept her from walking and talking, but it didn’t keep her from loving and being loved. In fact, we called her the ‘teacher of our souls’ because we grew so much just from being around her and caring for her.

             “Like you, I had older children, and I wondered how caring for Kelly would impact our family. But guess what I found out? Our family grew stronger and closer because of Kelly! My older kids helped out when they weren’t in school, and the little ones treated her like she was their own personal doll. They called her Jelly Belly Kelly ’cause she had this round little tummy like Winnie the Pooh! I know it was because my husband and I set the example of loving Kelly, not because of what she could do, but in spite of what she couldn’t do.”

             “Wow. I mean, that’s really great, but see, I don’t think I have the strength you and your husband seem to have. My husband, Tom, he’s a tower of strength, but I feel so beside myself. I mean, sometimes I feel on top of it, like ‘Bring it on! I can do this.’ But the rest of the time – most of the time, if I’m gonna be honest – I feel completely out of control, like there’s a train heading straight for me and I’ve gotta dodge it quick or it’s gonna crush me. Y’know?”

             “Yes, Emma, I do know. I questioned myself, too. Can I tell you what helped?”

             “Please do!”

             “Do you know who Corrie ten Boom was?”

             “Corrie ten Boom? The name’s familiar, but you’d better refresh my memory.”

             “Sure. She grew up in Holland before World War Two. She was a deep thinking little girl, raised in a very religious family. At a young age, she was beginning to grasp the concept of death. The thought of losing her parents frightened her little heart. Her wise father gave her a wonderful way to look at it.

             “Corrie used to go with him on business trips into Amsterdam. They would take the train to get there. So, to comfort his little girl, Corrie’s father said, ‘Corrie, when do I give you your ticket for the train into Amsterdam?’ That was easy. Corrie replied, ‘Just before I get on the train.’ Her daddy replied, ‘And that’s when God gives us the strength we need, Corrie. Just when we need it.’

             “Guess what, Emma? Corrie’s faith was tested when she grew up, and she laid her life on the line to protect Jewish people who were being hunted by the Nazis during World War Two. She found she had the strength just when she needed it – not a minute before. She went on to survive a concentration camp and become a world famous author and speaker.

             “See what I’m saying, Emma? Does the story make sense to you?”

             I can’t answer because of the tears filling my eyes.

                                                                  ***

 “Mommy, can I hold the sign today?” Kyle asks, wide-eyed and earnest.

 Emma and I teach our kids they have an important role to play in the prayer vigil. We bring both kids most of the time to this weekly gathering outside a branch office of Convenient Conception, the nation’s largest abortion provider.

When Em was expecting Kevin, she and our older guy would hold the sign together, with little Kyle as often as not perched right on top of her baby bump. Sometimes passers-by make negative comments to the pro-lifers; interestingly, though, no one seemed to want to take on a woman with one baby in arms and another on the way. Em seemed proud in those early days to be such a visible symbol of the value of life. Lately, though, I think her growing belly brings her only grief and powerlessness.

The only reason we’re here today is because Kyle’s been asking why we haven’t been going to the “prayer fingie.” That’s Kyle-ese for “prayer thingie,” which is his name for the vigil.

When our son asks for the sign, Emma absent-mindedly hands it to him. It’s a nondescript white placard on which she and the kids stenciled red, glittery lettering that says simply, “Life Matters.” It’s about as big as Kyle and pretty much blocks him from view.

Little Kevin sleeps next to us in his stroller.

            “Mommy, where’s the music lady?” Kyle wonders aloud.

“I don’t know, Honey,” she answers from wherever she’s zoned out to. He’s referring to Sarah, the pro-choice woman who invariably shows up to protest the protesters. She carries a sign that reads, “Keep your rosaries off my ovaries” on one side, and “My body, my choice” on the other. She’s gone from dancing to tunes only she could hear through ear buds to regularly blasting loud music of a pretty rebellious nature, while we pray-ers clasp our prayer beads. More than a few pro-lifers have taken exception to her music and her presence, even calling the cops when the volume threatens to drown out our appeals to the Almighty. Still, she shows up religiously, and holds her own in any debate that comes her way.

“Oh, here she comes!” Kyle remarks with what sounds like relief. I guess for kids, routine is all that matters. He has no clue she’s on the opposing team, and he’s sure not ready for us to apprise him of that fact.

Before long, one of the regulars is doing verbal battle with Sarah. The argument today centers on why Scott Peterson was found guilty of murdering both his wife, Laci, and unborn child in 2002. Since partial birth abortion (birthing second and third trimester babies feet first, then piercing the skull and sucking its brains out with a catheter so the head deflates like a balloon and slides easily through the birth canal) was legal when the crime took place, little Conner Peterson could’ve been legally aborted any time prior to delivery. How, then, could the father be held liable for killing that which had no legal right to live until it exited its mother’s womb?

Sarah responds that the baby had technically been “delivered” when its body was found along with Laci’s, thereby affording it the rights of a person.

See what I mean when I say she can handle herself?

“But doesn’t partial birth legislation let Scott Peterson off the hook?” the pro-lifer retorts. “If the mother had the right to abort right up until the point of delivery at the time of this case, why shouldn’t the father have that same right? I mean, if it isn’t a baby until it’s out of the womb, how can we send this guy to jail for destroying a ‘blob of tissue?’

“When he killed the mother, the baby hadn’t been delivered. Therefore, he should’ve had the same right to kill it as its mother had. And how could he murder something that wasn’t alive to begin with? If we’re gonna say it’s a human being in the womb, then fine, the mother dies and with her, the baby, and he’s responsible for both. But how can we say he killed a non-living clump of cells, if that’s what we’re calling it?”

 I understand where the pro-lifer’s going. He’s trying to get Sarah to admit that, on some level, reasonable minds realize it’s ridiculous to label the “clump of cells” living or non-living based solely on whether or not it’s exited the birth canal. A beating heart is a beating heart, regardless of whether it’s inside or outside a uterus. To my mind, partial birth abortion – any form of abortion, really – turns what should be the safest, most comforting place in the world into a torture chamber. Once you accept the whole brutal process as murder, you find that sadistic Peterson guilty regardless of what the law said at the time.

I’m tempted to jump into the debate, but I don’t want my preschoolers to hear their daddy discussing such brutal facts of life so early. Little Kyle’s so tightly clutching the sign he and Emma made. For now, it’s enough that he knows life matters. He doesn’t need to know how cheaply it’s defined in some circles.

The next round is about blood types.

“How could a mother and unborn child possess two different blood types unless they were two separate, viable entities?” the pro-lifer contends. Sarah retorts that blood types are no different than hair or eye color, for example. Since fetuses inherit characteristics from both parents’ genetic codes, of course the fetal blood type may vary from its mother’s.

Around and around they go.

Without warning, Kevin jolts awake in his stroller and begins to wail. Emma reaches for the baby, while I swoop down and gather up Kyle and the sign he so proudly brandishes.

“Seems like somebody’s hungry,” Em says, fishing around in her baby bag for a sippy cup and the snacks she brought.

“Me, too!” yells Kyle. Em’s hand emerges with a goldfish-shaped tub of something or other. She starts doling out goodies into their chubby hands. Both kids fall silent.

My problem-solving skills have been working overtime for the last month. I know Em wasn’t thrilled to learn we were having a third kid in the first place, let alone another boy. The news of Matt’s condition along with everything else really blew her away. God knows how long it’s gonna take her to adjust to this new normal.

That’s really the point, though, in my mind: God does know. I don’t consider myself as much of a holy roller as the crowd around me, but I do believe in the inherent value of life. I have a gut-level faith in God, and the minimal religious instruction I got growing up all comes down to one thing: God makes life and only He can take it away.

So I’ve been thinking. Before becoming a teacher, I ran a construction business. All my experience on job sites with mess-ups and unforeseen complications that were sure to cost frugally minded homeowners more money taught me to look for workarounds. There’s more than one way to skin a cat, and I can usually find most of them. When I worked in the business world, if I hadn’t been able to stretch a buck till the first president screamed for mercy, I’d have had to shut my doors at the first sign of trouble.

Is there any way she could stay home and take care of the kid? I keep asking myself. Maybe, if we got rid of cable and our landline – and only ate on weeknights. We could pull the kids out of day care, that would sure cut expenses, but who knows how many new medical bills are coming our way for Matt? Plus, her insurance is a better deal than mine. Not to mention the fact that Emma likes her job for the most part, even though she gripes there are never enough hours in the day.

What if I stayed home? I ask myself.  John Lennon did it with his kid. Why not me?

Because you don’t have John Lennon’s money to pay for whatever help this poor kid’s gonna need, that’s why, the sensible side of my brain quips. You’re only a so-so history teacher who lots of times can’t handle other people’s kids, who don’t have life-threatening health conditions, let alone two toddlers and a newborn with a hole in his back.

Whoa, there, dude, you’re jumping the gun, I remind myself. There’s no guarantee the baby’s spinal cord will be hanging out like spaghetti. There’s more than one type of spina bifida, and we could get lucky. Doesn’t seem like it from the ultrasounds, though. No way around it, Poor Matt’s gonna need serious help. And even if we could afford live-in help, we couldn’t expect an outsider to go to constant doctor appointments and fight with the school when the time comes for that. That’s a parent’s job.

There’s got to be a way! I keep coming back to that after going around in circles like this ad nauseam. It would be easier if I could talk to Emma about it, but I don’t think she’s ready to go there.

Strange, I conclude. Guys always get a bum rap for being non-communicative. Here I want to sit down and try to figure out a way to handle this, and she’s a basket case any time I even broach the subject.

Kyle’s frightened voice interrupts my silent conversation.

“Daddy, what’s happening?”

“Whaddaya mean, big guy?”

“Tom, aren’t you hearing this?” cries Emma. “We’ve got to get the kids out of here so they don’t pick up those words,” she gasps, trying frantically to tie all her loose ends together.

Turns out a couple have taken on the priest leading the pro-life camp. They’re spouting virulence, their dialogue littered with four letter words and crude suggestions of bodily contortions that would be physiologically impossible to perform. A crowd’s starting to form on the main square where the vigil is held, and bystanders are chiming in. Some agree with the epithets being hurled at the pro-lifers, and add a few of their own; several pro-lifers shoot back less graphic but equally obnoxious insults. A precious few decry the invective speech and plead for cooler heads to prevail.

I briefly consider my options. I could try to make an appeal for reason. I’m pretty good at that, can usually calm and de-escalate troubled situations in the classroom. My little guy, though, seeing the distress in his mom’s face, is now tugging on my sleeve and urging, “C’mon, Daddy. We gotta go!” Our younger guy, his hunger temporarily abated by the crackers Emma fed him, must need a diaper change. He’s throwing a fit.

I look back at my wife and read fear in her blue eyes. I suspect she’s less concerned about the language being spewed than the possibility of violence breaking out. Rage often seems to be companion to conviction.

Once, when I was on the football team in high school, a fight broke out when a jock took to towel-whipping a smaller teammate in the locker room after a practice. At the time, my impression was that it was all in good fun, but the victim didn’t take it that way. The little guy’s reflexes were fast, that’s why he had made the team, and the jock found his mouth bloodied by a quick clip to the lower jaw. One thing led to another, and punches flew. The big dude was pummeling his irate teammate, whose face was red with fury now that he no longer had the advantage of the surprise element. I saw an opening when the original assailant got caught off guard by an even bigger player, who valiantly launched himself into the middle of the heat.

Instinctively, I yelled, “Man, what’re you guys doin’! You’re supposed to be on the same team! Save it for the field! The coach is gonna bench all of you if you don’t knock this off! We can’t afford to lose any of you, or we’re gonna lose the game tomorrow night!”

Somehow the combination of being body blocked on the one hand and reasoned with on the other subdued the combatants. Their arms stopped flailing, and they grudgingly slinked away from each other.

At that moment, I realized the power of the spoken word. For sure it hadn’t hurt that the third guy had jumped into the altercation, but the fighters were still clawing at each other till I threw in my two cents.

The same instinct that drove me in that locker room 20 years ago is telling me to intervene now. My family, though, clearly needs to be removed from this tense situation.

I look at Emma and say one word: “Wait.”