When Jim and I were dating, we often talked on the phone into the night about everything; sharing personal stories, learning all about each other as sweethearts do at the beginning of a relationship. He described the emotional devastation he had gone through in prison, and I started opening up about my past.

He never pushed me to reveal anything I didn’t want to, never even asked me that many questions. It was months later, for example, before Jim ever knew my ex-husband’s first name. What Jim really wanted to get was a glimpse of my heart—to know the real me—and what a priceless gift that was.

One of the things I began to talk about was the crushing loss of my dream of motherhood. “Ever since I can remember,” I told Jim, “All I wanted to be was a mommy. In my childhood photographs, I’m always carrying a baby doll—sometimes one under each arm.”

“I can picture that,” Jim said. “I’ve seen you with kids. You’re so nurturing.”

“I know that nurturing was born into me. It was a gift of God, a gift meant to be used for my children.”

“You never had any children after your abortions?”

“No, I couldn’t.”

I acknowledged that my abortions had eventually robbed me of the opportunity to ever bear children, and I told Jim the story of my hysterectomy at the age of twenty-two…

I stared at the new-patient history form I was filling out in the surgeon’s office. “Number of pregnancies,” it said. I couldn’t bring myself to fill in that blank.

Jesse was sitting next to me, thumbing through a magazine. I looked over at him. “It asks how many times I’ve been pregnant,” I said.

“So, what’s the problem?”

“I’m embarrassed to say I’ve had five abortions.”

“Why?”

You really don’t get it, do you? I thought. “Never mind,” I told him.

“It’s not that big a deal, Lori. Just answer the questions so the doctor can find out what’s wrong with you.”

I finished filling out the form, and Jesse took the clipboard back to the receptionist. Just getting up and down from a chair hurt. I’d been in pain for almost a year—ever since my last abortion actually, although I had not made a connection between that event and my pain.

My right side hurt all the time and it kept getting worse. I have a high tolerance for pain, so I put off going to the doctor for a long time. When I finally couldn’t stand it anymore, I sought help.

The doctor had sent me for an ultrasound—the technology was still fairly new in 1980—and then for a surgical consultation.

“From the ultrasound, it looks like you have a grapefruit-sized cyst on your right ovary,” the surgeon said when I was finally ushered back to his office. “That’s not uncommon. I’ll go in and remove the cyst, and hopefully that’s all we’ll have to do.”

“You mean you might have to do more surgery?”

“Possibly. But the most I’ll have to do is take the one ovary. That way you’ll still be able to have children—if you want to.”

“Yes, I do. Very much.”

“I see you’ve had several abortions.” He was looking at the medical history I’d filled out, and I blushed as I confirmed it for him.

“But, I would like to have children someday,” I said.

“You’re young and otherwise healthy. Even with one ovary you should be able to get pregnant, and we’ll try to save both ovaries if we can.”

I was so relieved by his answer. And so ready for an end to the pain.

A few days later, after surgery, I woke up briefly in the recovery room, and a nurse gave me a shot for the pain. When I awoke again, I was in my hospital room. Jesse was standing on one side of the bed and my mom on the other. Dad was pacing around the room.

The pain was excruciating, and no one had to tell me what had happened. I just knew. I felt empty.

I looked at Jesse and asked, “They took everything didn’t they?” My voice was groggy from the medication.

“Don’t worry about anything right now, baby. Just get some rest,” he said.

I didn’t trust Jesse to tell me the truth, but I knew my mother wouldn’t lie to me, so I asked her the same question. “They took everything, didn’t they, Mom?”

“They had to, Lori.” She looked as if she’d been crying. “They had to save your life.”

“God, no . . .” I was still too sedated to even cry.

“You’re going to be okay, honey. Just go to sleep and get some rest.” Mom squeezed my hand as I gave up the struggle to stay awake.

“Empty and Angry”

After my hysterectomy, the anger and resentment I had stuffed down inside of me because of the abortions began to erupt, and I knew then my marriage would never survive my hatred for Jesse.

“It’s me or the baby,” he’d said every time I’d gotten pregnant. Then he would lead me on. “Someday we’ll have kids. There’s plenty of time for that.” He’d never meant it, and I finally realized that. And there hadn’t been plenty of time. Now I was twenty-two years old and going through surgically induced menopause.

I was sick beyond sick, and I didn’t think I would ever get over it. I couldn’t watch a diaper commercial on TV without falling apart. More than anything in the world I had wanted to be a mother. Even as a little girl I would stuff a pillow under my baby-doll pajamas and walk around pretending I was pregnant.

God must have intended me to be a mother of many; I was a Fertile Myrtle, and I got pregnant every year from the ages of seventeen to twenty-one. Except for the first pregnancy, I was using birth control. But because of my drug use, I would forget and miss taking a pill here and there. I invariably got pregnant. Then I had an IUD for a while, but I took it out because it was painful… So I went back on the pill . . . and still managed to get pregnant.

But not anymore. The chance for that was gone forever. And as I began to realize that, I was incredibly angry with Jesse for taking away my dream. I was angry with myself too, because abortion was ultimately my choice.