Interview with a Broken Heart: One Woman's Story of Abortion Part 1

My mom had seven miscarriages before she had me and always told me I was her miracle. My sister was born a couple months after I turned three. Up until the summer of first grade my life was great.

That year, while we were vacationing in Iowa, my dad started getting severe headaches and blurred vision. We came back home to Omaha and soon discovered he had a non-cancerous brain tumor right on his brain stem. He went through an eighteen-hour surgery that was only supposed to last nine hours but even then the tumor was unable to be completely removed. He lived for nine more months with a tract in his throat and being fed through his stomach. Once I caught him trying to eat popcorn and smoke in the bathroom. I felt so bad.

On June 3, 1990 my six-year-old sister and I (8 years old) woke up to our grandma's voice. We wondered why she was there so early in the morning. Just as we started walking into the living room we heard the ambulance coming down the street. The paramedics rushed in and went into my parents' bedroom. They cut my dad's shirt off, trying to revive him but it was too late. They let my sister and me each choose a teddy bear they had with them.