The Other Side Of The Abortion Experience

A reader writes:

One of your readers wrote:

"I got pregnant when I was 22 by my then-fiance (now husband).  I was, at that time, not ready to be a parent.  I certainly could have done it, but I wasn't personally ready. And to me, if I'm not ready to have a child, I should not have one.  Children are a big responsibility - not one that one should assume just because they got unlucky one night."

My wife and I went to a fertility specialist three years ago in hopes of having a child.  Instead of a baby, he found a small, early-stage tumor in her uterus. A couple weeks and an abrupt hysterectomy later, her cancer was 100% surgically excised -- and our childbearing dreams were crushed.

Children are a big responsibility; I can't fault anyone for the difficult decisions they've had to make. But there's a hidden corner of my heart where I sit and secretly rage at anyone who actually has the choice ... and chooses to discard it.  Goddammit, if you're not ready to raise that child, please, please, please -- we are.

We've been on an adoption waiting list with a local agency for over two years now.  We don't care about race or background, and we're fine with an open adoption. Our only wish is that our first child be an infant.  (We're open to adopting older children later, after we have at least some experience as parents).  As our friends seem to crank out kid after kid after kid, we wait.  And we wait.  While I continue to be staunchly pro-choice, it's not easy -- I would give everything for a life that we could hold and know and love and raise as ours.