The Heartbeat

In 1998, I was 21 and visited the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. There, quietly tucked within their confines is the greatest argument against abortion. In the exhibit called, “Beginning the Journey,” you can see a fetus or embryo representative of every month of pregnancy. The fetuses are not models – they are real babies who were stillborn, miscarried, or died prematurely. Years later, the exhibit still haunts me.

They say that a person has died when the signs of life are gone.

• Is (s)he breathing?
• Is the heart beating?

If yes to either of those questions, one is alive. We debate whether abortion is an ethical or moral choice even though both signs of life are there.

My sister is six years my younger and got married two and half years after me. After marriage, she was diagnosed with PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome). The diagnosis meant that conceiving would be difficult or impossible. She was terrified. The living was difficult for the worrying and questioning. Often we think living means ease, and yet life comes in pain.

Signs of life should also be:

• Is it painful? Does it break your heart?
• Does it give you joy?

She called me up one day – “I bought a pregnancy test.” Turns out she was pregnant. We rejoiced because for something we didn’t know if it could happen, it had. A few days later, she bled, and we cried. Baby was gone. It was no longer breathing, heart not beating, and in no pain.

My sister’s heart ached. Because of her PCOS, she never knew if she was or wasn’t pregnant. Now the fear had changed from “Can I?” to “Will I?” “Will I sustain life?”

A second pregnancy turned into another miscarriage. One, two, and then three.

In January, she called and said she was pregnant a fourth time. Grief turned to joy as months passed, and she birthed life. In all that time, I already had three.

Two years and one month later, she says, “I’m pregnant again!” and again, instead of joy we felt fear. Month after month we waited until it was time for the ultrasound. The technician said, “The baby has a strong heartbeat,” and we heard stifled tears of joy. There were signs that baby was alive, and we breathed, as though we’d never gasped for air from all the fear.

Later when I drove home, I couldn’t help but think of the new mom coming into the clinic with fear in her eyes.

The fear is strangling her and she doesn’t know if she can breathe, so she thinks about aborting the baby inside. She doesn’t want to kill – she just doesn’t want to live shackled, alone, and ashamed. She fears birthing a child to hopelessness – a life equivalent to death. Could she, would she sustain life?

Would she choose life – not just baby’s but her own? Then again, would anyone give her the choice? Did she know that sin births death, and Jesus births life? That with Jesus, dying is gain? Did she know that she was fully loved and fully known?

She sees baby’s heartbeat, and the counselor tells her these things. She decides to birth beauty from ashes, knowing it’ll break her heart, but in the breaking, her heart beats strong.

Shared with Jennifer Dukes Lee for #TellHisStory.