Ponderings

Fifteen years ago I sat in the doctor’s office hearing the results of a blood test.

I was an otherwise euphoric pregnant woman with one toddler in tow and a congregation eager to embrace our growing family. I vividly remember the utter delight I felt when the pregnancy test turned pink, the delight of my community upon hearing the news, the ease in which I once again set aside my blue jeans and donned the flowing maternity clothes. Getting pregnant wasn’t as easy as my mother warned, but being pregnant had been a blissful enterprise. That is until Dr. Ebner shared the news of “possible abnormalities” and words like Downs syndrome and chromosome charged through the air.

Given that medical professionals were the ones to share the news, the possible responses offered were likewise medical. I was given the names and numbers for further genetic testing and an amniocentesis at the hospital an hour from our home. The answers I craved, I was assured, would be given as soon as I met with the next team of doctors.

Between my encounters with medical professionals was a period of deep soul searching. At least I expected it would be so. Although my perspectives around abortion have become more nuanced over the years, I was not morally opposed to abortion, for myself or for others. Yet the suggestion that further testing of the fetus was necessary to determine if my baby should be brought into this world was anathema. It was not a fetus that had captured my heart, it was a baby. Already the mother barracuda instinct was in full alert.

A friend had miscarried after an amniocentesis and I wasn’t willing to knowingly put my baby in harms way. My partner and I did visit with the genetic counselors but took a pass on the amniocentesis. The counselors were genuinely confused, but I don’t remember feeling a need to explain. We went home and cuddled with our toddler while we prepared the nursery for whatever child we would be lucky enough to bring home.

After the birth of a healthy baby, Dr. Ebner asked if my position on choice had changed. It was my turn to be confused. My choice to refuse the tests and thereby the option of terminating the pregnancy was an immensely personal one. Neither the medical establishment, nor the legal statutes, nor the political posturing could steal away the enormity of my choice. In fact my choice was not the one that my family expected, not the one that even I would have anticipated. All the more I was aware of the importance of choice.

My choice was certainly informed by faith, though not bludgeoned by dogma. Long before the blood test, several karma filled buses had long since obliterated my dogma. As pastor in a small town parish, I had seen plenty of scenarios where divergent choices were equally faith-filled. My only theological clarity as I made my choice was the inescapable love of God for both myself and my unborn child. Whether the child lived or died, whether my choice was to embrace the complexity within or to run the either way, still God would find us, claim us, and love us.

Admittedly the passionate rhetoric about choice and life in this election cycle is personal for me as it is for many women. I was deeply offended that Obama’s response to Rick Warren’s question about abortion (Saddleback, August 2008) was ridiculed by the pundits for its nuance. If a discussion about abortion doesn’t deserve our most careful consideration and, yes, nuance, I don’t know what would. Likewise I am offended that Palin’s choice to bear a child, a baby with Downs Syndrome, is considered to be politically significant. I applaud both Obama’s nuance and Palin’s right to choose.

As my babies headed to high school this week, I’m struck that one’s qualifications for leadership are distinct from one’s ability to procreate. Giving birth to our babies is perhaps the easy part. After their first squeal in the cold light of day, the choices we parent’s face quickly become more difficult. In the complex world of parenting, nuance is one of the few life lines we have. I’m keeping it.