Re: [Leica] Dumb camera thieves (long but hoping Allan will end his comments)

[Simon Lamb <simon@sclamb.com>]

Let me enlighten you as to why I said what I said, just so you are left in
no doubt, and why an abortion is sometimes the right choice to make.

Four years ago, and after having had two girls, my wife was pregnant with
our third child.  We were very much hoping for a boy as it would have
completed our lovely family.  When she went for the second ultrasound scan
the hospital detected an abnormality in the baby's heart, which was later
diagnosed as hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS).  This meant that the
left side of the baby's heart had not formed so there was only one side
functioning.  To compound this, it was discovered after further scans that
the right side had a leak in the valve between the upper and lower chambers,
and so that side was not properly functioning.

We were told by three consultants that the baby would die within minutes of
being born and that, although there is a possibility of correcting HLHS, it
would not be possible in our case.  The corrective treatment involves three
open heart operations, the first of which is carried out 24 hours after the
birth.  The success rate is very, very small.  The other complicating factor
was that the baby could die whilst in the womb, which would then have
endangered my wife.

By now my wife was distraught, as was I, and we had to decide what to do.
Should she go the full term, knowing the risk to her if the baby died in the
womb and that if she went the full term she could hold our newborn baby for
a few minutes before hearing it's last breath, or should she be induced in
order to have the baby prematurely, in which case it would die before coming
into the world.  We had two weeks to decide and they were the worst two
weeks of our lives.

We decided to have the bay prematurely, or as you would say Allan, we
aborted the pregnancy.

We spent three days in the hospital waiting for the inducing to work,
wishing deep down that it wouldn't because we knew we would see our dead
baby at the end of it all.  Eventually the baby was born.  The nurse picked
the baby up and told us it was a boy.  I still have dreams in which I can
hear my wife screaming 'No', a long lingering scream because she so wanted
to give me a son, and I would have loved to have had one too.  The nurse let
us hold our son and we both wept and told him we were sorry.

That was four years ago.  Every single week since then, I have heard my wife
crying.  Sometime I hear her in bed sobbing herself to sleep, and there is
nothing I can do to comfort her.  Some times I cry too.  I am now.

Donšt lecture me or anyone on this list or any other list about the rights
and wrongs of abortion.  Sometimes there are reasons why abortion is the
option that must be taken, for the sake of all the souls concerned.

We made our choice and we have to live with it, and the pain that will never
go away.  But it was the right choice.

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