The Invisible Letter on My Chest

Content Note: Pregnancy loss, medically necessary termination, grief, faith, and trauma

It’s crazy how our bodies can remember trauma days—or even weeks—before our minds catch up.

For the past several days, I haven’t felt like myself.

I’ve felt down. Exhausted. My head has hurt. My chest has hurt. Honestly, my whole body has just ached.

Yesterday, I was sitting around wondering, What is going on with me? Why do I feel like this?

And then it hit me.

October 5th.

Four years ago, on October 5th, I underwent a medically necessary termination of my pregnancy because of complications from blood clots that were wreaking havoc on my body and my heart.

Apparently, my body remembered the date before my mind allowed me to.

A Choice I Never Wanted to Make

I remember the conversations about terminating my pregnancy.

I also remember not wanting to hear them.

For myself, abortion was something I had always believed I would never choose. So I tried everything I could to continue my pregnancy safely.

I went to my appointments. I took my injections twice a day. I took my medications. I followed the recommendations. I tried to give my babies and my body every possible chance.

But eventually, my providers agreed that this pregnancy was not going to end the way I desperately wanted it to.

My body was exhausted.

I eventually ended up at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where a specialized team had experience with another medically complex case similar to mine.

During the procedure, I hemorrhaged.

Thankfully, they were able to complete the procedure and save my life.

For months, everything had felt touch and go. I had spent so much time fighting to stay pregnant that I wasn't prepared for what would happen when the physical fight was finally over.

I will always remember something my high-risk doctor, Dr. P, told me.

My body would heal before my mind did.

At the time, I don't think I fully understood what that meant.

Eventually, I did.

When Survival Doesn't Feel Like Victory

My body slowly began to recover.

My mind didn't.

That was when the shame, guilt, grief, anger, and pain really began showing themselves.

And sometimes emotional pain has a way of becoming physical pain, too.

I don't want this post to focus on the medical trauma. That is another story for another day.

I want to talk about the mental warfare that can remain long after everyone else thinks the crisis is over.

Because surviving doesn't automatically mean you feel okay about surviving.

There are times I tell myself that seeing families doesn't hurt me.

But sometimes it does.

Sometimes I see a mother holding her baby, a father loving on his child, or a family simply existing together, and there is an ache inside me that is difficult to describe.

Sometimes that pain feels crushing.

Other times, I can look at the exact same thing and genuinely smile. I can feel happiness for them. I can appreciate seeing people loving each other and creating memories with their children.

Both things can be true.

I can be happy for someone else and still grieve what I lost.

Their happiness isn't responsible for my pain.

But my pain doesn't disappear simply because I want to be happy for them, either.

The Part We Don't Talk About Enough

There is another layer to medically necessary termination that I don't think we talk about enough: fear of judgment.

What happens if people find out?

Will they look at me differently?

Will friends stop being my friends?

Will family members judge me?

Will someone reduce one of the most devastating experiences of my life to a political opinion without ever asking what actually happened?

I grew up in a family that did not believe in abortion.

Then abortion directly affected our family.

I think that happens more often than we want to admit.

It can be easy to say, I would never do that.

It can be easy to imagine exactly what you would do in someone else's situation.

But until you are sitting in that room, hearing those words from your doctors and realizing there may not be a version of the story where everyone gets to go home, you don't actually know.

In my case, I was only 13 weeks pregnant with my twins. Continuing wasn't going to give them the ending I desperately wanted, and my own life was in danger.

There was no magical third option waiting for me.

And yet, afterward, I still wondered whether everyone else would see me as a terrible person.

When Church Became Another Place of Pain

Around the time I was preparing to be admitted for my procedure, I attended a church that spent an enormous amount of time condemning women who had abortions.

I was already terrified.

Already grieving.

Already questioning myself.

And I sat there listening.

What I heard wasn't compassion.

I heard shame.

I heard guilt.

And I heard condemnation at one of the most vulnerable moments of my life.

I remember thinking about all the other sins we talk about in Christianity. Why did this one seem to deserve a special level of public humiliation? Where was the conversation about the terrified woman sitting quietly in a pew who never wanted to be in this position in the first place?

I also heard the pastor speak about his own family's experience with pregnancy complications and loss.

And I couldn't stop wondering:

What if their circumstances had been different?

What if saving the mother's life had required the decision my doctors were asking me to make?

Would they still speak about it the same way?

Would they tell their own daughter she had to continue even if continuing meant she could die?

Would they tell people what happened—or would they quietly carry it themselves?

Eventually, I stopped attending that church.

I want to be very clear about something: I do not expect a church to abandon its beliefs or change Scripture to make me comfortable.

But I do believe there is a difference between conviction and condemnation.

And I believe the way we deliver God's Word matters.

Walking Into Church With an Invisible Letter on My Chest

About a year or so later, I went to another church with my mom and aunt.

By then, I felt like I had nowhere else to go.

I knew I needed something. I was afraid of where my mind could go if I continued trying to carry everything alone.

But walking through those church doors terrified me.

I wondered whether everyone somehow knew.

It felt like I had a giant A written across my chest.

I wondered whether people could look at me and see what I had done.

Then I kept going.

Little by little, something changed.

I started feeling peace.

And eventually, I started believing that maybe I could trust the pastor.

His name is Pastor Lenny.

One day, I finally opened up to him and told him a good portion of my story.

I remember waiting for the words that would destroy me.

I expected judgment.

I expected shame.

I expected him to confirm the fear I had been carrying—that maybe there was no way God could forgive me.

Those words never came.

Instead, he talked to me about what happens when religion becomes so focused on condemnation that mercy disappears.

He didn't make me feel dirty.

He didn't make me feel unworthy.

He didn't make me feel like God's grace belonged to everyone except me.

I don't think Pastor Lenny realizes how much that conversation changed my life.

For the first time in a long time, I felt something that resembled freedom.

I felt compassion.

I felt enough grace to look other members of the church in the face instead of wondering whether they could somehow see my past written across mine.

Eventually, I became a member.

And something else happened along the way.

Instead of wanting to hide from people, I started wanting to do more for them.

And Now He's Leaving

I've been attending this church for more than a year now. Pastor Lenny's sermons have touched something in me that I have a hard time putting into words.

They've made my heart feel lighter.

Recently, he told us he would be leaving the church for personal reasons.

My heart dropped into my stomach.

Almost immediately, those old thoughts started creeping back in.

What happens now?

Can I trust another pastor?

Will this still be a safe place for me?

Then I prayed.

And I remembered our conversation.

Pastor Lenny leaving does not erase what he taught me.

It doesn't erase the grace I experienced.

It doesn't mean God has taken His hands off this church.

And it doesn't mean God has taken His hands off me.

Will I miss him and his sermons?

Absolutely. One hundred percent.

Will trusting someone new be difficult?

Probably.

But Pastor Lenny deserves happiness, peace, and the opportunity to continue growing in his own faith and life, too.

Maybe part of what he gave me was something I was eventually supposed to learn to carry without needing him physically standing behind a pulpit every Sunday.

Maybe This Is Why I'm Writing

I'm still not completely sure what the purpose of this post is.

Maybe it's because of everything happening in our country and around the world involving religion, division, judgment, and violence.

Maybe it's because December is getting closer and I know Pastor Lenny will be leaving.

Maybe it's because October 5th came around again.

Or maybe it's simply because I miss my babies.

Maybe my body remembered before I did because grief doesn't follow calendars the way the rest of our lives do.

Four years later, I am still learning that healing isn't the same thing as forgetting.

I can believe God saved my life and still wish my babies were here.

I can be grateful to be alive and still grieve the life I thought I would have.

I can disagree with choices other people make while also knowing that I have never lived their exact circumstances.

I can have faith and still have questions.

I can love God and still have wounds caused by people speaking in His name.

And I can miss the three babies I never got to watch grow up while continuing to live the life I fought so hard to keep.

Maybe that's the point of this post.

Maybe somebody else is walking around with an invisible letter on their chest, convinced everyone can see the thing they're most ashamed of.

Maybe another mother made an impossible medical decision and still lies awake wondering whether she's allowed to grieve because other people have attached politics to her loss. Maybe someone walked away from a church because condemnation became louder than compassion.

If that's you, I hope you find someone who makes room for your whole story.

Not just the convenient parts.

Not just the parts that fit neatly into someone's beliefs.

The whole story.

Because four years later, I'm realizing something:

My body remembers.

My heart remembers.

I will always remember my babies.

But I am learning that remembering them doesn't have to mean punishing myself forever.

I survived.

I am still grieving.

I am still healing.

I am still learning.

And I am still here.

For my precious angels—always loved, always remembered, and forever a part of me.