photo credit: iowa_spirit_walker

Often our image and understanding of God is affected by own experiences. Our understanding of the meaning of the word “Father” is affected because our own father was abusive or we grew up without knowing our own fathers. As sad as it may sound there are indeed many people who can not put words “loving” and “father” in one sentence.

When we talk about his justice and forgiveness we often see him as tyrant or unmerciful CEO- not without fault of our preachers, pastors and priests. He is going to punish us real bad if we don’t say 100s of Lord’s Prayers.

Finally when we talk about relationship with him, often it is a “one way street” type of relationship. We ask favors and fail to listen to what He has to say. This type of relationship of course is doomed and will leave us disappointed, as any relationship that is not build on love.

God’s love for us was manifested in a most convincing way when his only Son died for our sins on the Cross. Our response to his great forgiveness must begin with love.

Take Peter for example. According with the Gospel of St. John (John 21:15-17), the first time Peter spoke to Jesus it was answering Jesus’ questions if Peter loved him. Was Peter’s heart and conscious burdened with the knowledge that just few days ago he made a “u-turn” away from Christ, by saying “I don not know the man” (Matthew 26:72)? Didn’t he needed to hear from Jesus that he was forgiven for betraying him? Why on earth would Jesus be asking Peter if Peter loved him?!!

Peter did not need to hear he was forgiven. He already knew that! He witnessed Jesus performing miracles and heal the sick on countless of occasions. Peter hear him say “your sins are for given” to many of the healed.

What probably Peter needed, as we do as well, is to open our spiritual eyes- something that can not be done without love. To receive and fully appreciate God’s love, we need to love Him too.

Many men and women are convinced that abortion was that “u-turn” away from God. Our journey back to him should begin with love. At the end of this journey we will discover that although we may have made a u-turn away from God, God did not leave us nor did He ever stopped loving us (John 3:16 ).

This year the conference will take place in Oak Brook, IL – the suburbs of Chicago. The conference will include the following topics:

• Fatherhood Lost: The Biology of Fatherhood and His Role in an Abortion Decision
• Men and Abortion: A Review of the Research
• Trauma and Abortion: When Men Hollow
• Fatherhood without Paternity? Implications of Reproductive Technology
• Understanding Male Spiritual Growth and the Process of Healing
• Wounded Fathers: Why Do They Come for Help
• Medicating the Pain of Lost Fatherhood: Looking For Their Pain In All The Wrong Places
• Forgiveness Therapy with Post-Abortion Men
• The Masculine Side of Healing

If you are interested in attending this conference please visit the official website of Reclaiming Fatherhood.

photo credit: jonathanrperkins

This forgiveness that you are searching for, is a complicated and some times lengthy process. During this process you will need to find forgiveness from God, forgiveness from your child and of course you will have to forgive yourself. This journey is not easy and certainly is unique for every one. While many may have walked a similar journey, no one really was “wearing your shoes”. For some pieces of the puzzle fall into places rather quickly. For others it takes long time and good amount of internal struggle.

In the upcoming weeks we will publish several articles that will delve into this process forgiveness. We don’t pretend to offer an “bulletproof” answer that would suit every single person. However we hope that our readers will help us along the way by sharing their experience and testifying that you are not alone on this path.

In our first series we will be focusing on God’s forgiveness as we will walk you through some examples from the Holy Scriptures. If you are already a regular visitor to our website, we invite you to participate in the comments- good can use you and what you have experienced to help and heal other people. If this is your first time to our website, make sure to subscribe so you will not miss our future posts.

In particular we would like to apologize to those who tried to contact Vicki Thorn through this website. While we are in regular contact, this website was unattended since last November. If you would like to reach Vicki, please call National Office of Post Abortion Healing and Reconciliation at 1-800-5WE-CARE .

Changes on Our Website

As we plan to grow the community of readers here at Healing After Abortion, we have implemented several changes to the way comments are handled, moderated and displayed. One thing you will notice right away that comments will no longer be held in moderation and will appear on our website immediately after you click “Ad Comment” button. We will however moderate the comments to prevent spam.

Again, we apologize for such a long period of silence. We hope this new phase in the life of our website will benefit many.

One step in healing after an abortion is to recognize the sex of your child and to choose a name. Women wonder how they might know this or they are surprised that they always had sense of the sex of their child.

Women would know the sex of their child because they carry cells for their children the rest of their lives. We women seem to be able to recognize the male cells from the female cells.

When I ask women if they know the sex of their child, they reply one of three ways.

• Of course, I have always known it was a boy.

• How could I know that, but if she had been born she would be 18 now.

• I have no idea!

I find with the last response that if I tell the woman about the cells that they carry, they often admit that they do have a sense of the sex of that child. They just didn’t know how they would know that.

If the woman still doesn’t know, I recommend that if she is a praying woman, she ask God. God has spoken to His people in dreams throughout the ages. There are many stories of dreams in the Bible. If Joseph hadn’t been paying attention to his dreams, salvation history might not have gone well. All of his instructions about taking Mary as his wife and fleeing into Egypt came in a dream.

Women will often have dreams of the child or in some cases children. Sometimes she had more than one abortion that she had not recalled or she also had miscarriages. In the dream, it is all apparent to her.

This article is an intellectual property of Vicki Thorn. Republishing of this article is not permitted without her expressed premission.

By Vicki Thorn

The lie that has been perpetrated in our society from the legalization of abortion on is that abortion is a woman’s issue. It is her choice. It is between her and her doctor. Men have been cut out of the decision process or told they have to be compliant.

If there are over 43 million abortions in this country since abortion was legalized, there are 43 million men who are impacted by an abortion loss. These men usually suffer in silence or sometimes act out in rage, in what may become a murder/suicide.

Why would a pregnancy make a difference to a man? Because the man is tied to his partner by means of certain scent hormones called pheremones. These are scent molecules of affiliation. They are not the same as the scent of food or perfume. They are perceived by different cells in the nose and the brain, but this information that they transmit impacts our lives in many ways. They are why women who spend much time together cycle together. Mothers know the smell of their baby right after birth and fathers know it within a few days. It is why we automatically smell the top of the head of a newborn baby we are holding.

It seems that men recognize by scent when women are fertile and when they are pregnant. Some men report knowing that their partner was pregnant before she did. I know in our family, my nephew knew my niece was pregnant before she did.

In other cultures it is recognized that 60 to 90% of men will have some symptoms of pregnancy with their wife. I learned about this in an anthropology course at the University of Minnesota many years ago. No one in our culture seems to have heard of this, If the poor man is one of the 20% who are really sick and he goes to the doctor, no doctor ever asks if his partner is pregnant. He just assumes he has a virus and that it will go away. It does, right before birth.

But there is even more to the story. In the 6 weeks before birth, the man undergoes hormonal changes. His testosterone drops, making him less aggressive and sexually interested. His naturally occurring estrogen climbs, making him more gentle. His stress hormone, cortisol, rises and he is in an alert stage, needing to protect mother and child. He gets more of the hormone vasopressin, which is a bonding hormone, effectively Mother Nature’s way of saying “sit, stay!” And about the time the baby arrives he gets prolactin, which is the nursing hormone in women. Why would he get that? Well, prolactin makes us nice. We smile more and we are very helpful. Isn’t that just what a new mother with a newborn needs? “Of course, I’ll go get diapers, even if it is midnight!”

It doesn’t even end there. Research on certain monkeys who are good parents finds that the male brain changes. He gets more brain cell growth in the front of his brain, the rational, logical thinking part. Researchers say the cells last until the offspring becomes independent, but don’t define at what age independence happens: 2, 12, 22 or 35. At that time, the cells begin to die off.

And, when the hormones return to normal, the testosterone never returns to the pre-fatherhood level or the bachelor level. The man is forever changed by the pregnancy.

When men grieve following an abortion, they articulate grieving for lost fatherhood. He was denied the opportunity to complete the biological changes that were begun with the pregnancy.

A good book for a man dealing with an abortion loss is “Men and Abortion: A Path to Healing” by C. T. Coyle. This is for any man, regardless of how he was involved in the abortion. It uses a forgiveness model of healing. It can be purchased from LifeCycleBooks

_________________________________

This article is an intellectual property of Vicki Thorn. Republishing of this article is not permitted without her expressed premission.

Picture by Wazari

When I first began doing post-abortion healing ministry some 22 years ago, I often got challenged as to why a mother would need to grieve an abortion. Wasn’t it true that the abortion erased the pregnancy? This business that she would remember and grieve was dismissed.

Over time more facts and understanding about the nature of pregnancy have surfaced and perhaps now we can understand why a mother never forgets.

In the year 2000 there were a series of conferences in Rome to celebrate the New Millennia. Several had to do with science and biology. I received an email from one of the congresses that stopped me cold.

Women carry cells from every child they ever conceive, it stated. That seemed like science fiction to me so I began to contact the researchers involved and to read the research documents. Suddenly I understood why women who have abortions and who miscarry never forget the lost children.

The phenomena is called “human microchimerism”. Early in the pregnancy an exchange of cells begins between mother and child. We are not positive what the means of cellular exchange is, but we know it happens. At the time that the child leaves the mother’s body, whether as the result of an abortion, a miscarriage, a cesearean section or a vaginal delivery, even more cells are sent to the mother. It also seems that if the pregnancy ends early, an even greater number is transferred.

These cells seem to be some type of stem cell and are stored in the medulla of the mother’s brain: where instinct lies, but also throughout her body. They have been found even 37 years later so they appear to be replacing themselves. The current research on the cells is focusing on the fact that in many cases they seem to be reparative cells of some kind. In an early case, a woman with thyroid disease had her thyroid removed. The doctors discovered that the thyroid seemed to be repairing itself and they found that the repaired part were cells of her son.

Recently I gave a presentation in Pittsburgh where a physician during the question and answer period spoke about research he has been involved in for cancer treatment where they are using the cells of their sons to attack the cancer cells.

Might these cells be the missing link in mother’s intuition? If we carry cells the rest of our lives, we are truly linked to our children in a biological way! Mothers have told about knowing a child is in trouble or ill. When my third child was born, I knew there was something wrong with her. It turned out that she had been born with a congenital kidney malformation that required surgery. I’m a believer in mother’s intuition.

———————

This article is an intellectual property of Vicki Thorn. Republishing of this article is not permitted without her expressed premission.

Picture by surfkid74

Again we welcome Vicki and look forward to read her articles and posts. She also is a moderator of one of the forums “Ask Vicki Thorn”, where you can ask her question or maybe even share your own experience.

Over the time of almost 30 years of working and helping people to deal with post abortion trauma, Vicki believes that abortion affects not only women who have abortions, but also their families and even friends.

Please stay tuned to read her articles on our website. Feel free to recommend our website to your friends, we have limited resources in order to market our website as many other Internet “giants” do and mostly rely on “spreading” the word about our site.

In the 1973 the United States Supreme Court struck down every federal, state, and local law regulating or restricting the practice of abortion. This action was based on the premise that the state’s no longer had any need to regulate abortion because the advances of modern medicine had now made abortion “relatively safe.” Therefore, the Justices concluded, it is unconstitutional to prevent physicians from providing abortions as a “health” service to women.³⁴

National abortion policy is built upon this judicial “fact” that abortion is a “safe” procedure. If this “fact” is found to be false, then national policy toward abortion must be re-evaluated. Indeed, if it is found that abortion may actually be dangerous to health of women, there is just cause for governments to regulate or prohibit abortion in order to protect their citizens. This is especially true since over 1.5 million women undergo abortions each year.

Since the Court’s ruling in 1973, there have been many studies into the aftereffects of abortion. Their combined results paint a haunting picture of physical and psychological damage among millions of women who have undergone abortions.

Read the rest of the article at Elliot Institute.

Simple reflection on man’s and woman’s fertility, can show quiet a different picture. In fact, the contraception from that point of view may begin to look as an incredible “burden”.

So what are the basics of male and female fertility? On man’s part it is very simple. Men generally reach their biological sexual maturity in their teens and if they remain healthy their fertility can last way in to their old age. But not only that, once man is biologically matured, he is fertile all the time. He can father a child at any time.

Woman’s fertility is much more complex. After they biologically mature, generally during early teen ages, their fertility slows down and cease when they go through menopause. Also unlike men, woman has only few days during her menstrual cycle when she can become pregnant. Unlike man, woman’s contribution to procreation lats beyond sexual act itself.

Now lets look at the contraception from the prospective of our fertility. Man’s contribution to procreation, being not as complex may give him and easy way out of the responsibility when contraception is involved. Failed contraception does not affect him at physically, he does not become pregnant. Failed contraception also may force considering abortion, never the less advocates of contraception continue to argue that use of contraception will decrease the rate of abortion. Unfortunately, many of the contraceptions used to day are “abortificient”, they do the job after conception has already taken place. Use of contraceptives did not decreased the rate of abortion, in fact opposite can be argued.

The burden that comes along with contraception is generally very one sided, even if it involves contraceptive requiring mans participation such as condom. Since it is woman that will be affected the most should contraceptive fail.

What is RU 486?

RU 486 is a common name for an artificial steroid used to block progesterone, a hormone produced and needed during pregnancy. Generic name: Mifepristone. In the United States RU 486 is sold under brand names Early Option and Mifeprex. Taken alone RU 486 causes complete abortion only about 60% at the time and a second drug needs to be administer to cause uterine contractions to help expelling the embryo. This second drug is prostadlandin and is sold in the US under generic and band names Misoprostol and Cytotec respectfully.

It should be mentioned that Cytotec use for this purpose was not approved by the manufacturer itself on. The primary purpose of Cytotec is intended for treatment of patients with risks for developing ulcers from high doses of aspirin-like medications taken for conditions such as arthritis. Following statement from Cytotec manufacturer is available at FDA website.

Since the effectiveness of this drug is emphasized by the abortion providers this article will aim to provide some information about side effects and risks involving taking these drugs.

Food and Drug Administration advises that a woman should not take RU 486 if any of the following apply:

• If it has been more than 49 days since your last menstrual period begun
• If you have IUD
• Your have been told that you have a pregnancy outside the uterus (known as ectopic pregnancy). About 2% of all pregnancies are ectopic.
• If you have problems with adrenal glands (chronic adrenal failure)
• If you take blood thinning medication
• You undergoing certain steroid treatments
• You cannot return for next 2 visits (2 and 14 days)
• You cannot easily get and emergency medical help (this may include “blood transfusion, and emergency resuscitation”)
• You are allergic to such medications as mifepristone, misoprostol or medicine that contains misoprostol such as Cytotec or Arthrotec.

FDA also provides information that women were excluded for US testing of RU 486 due to the possible health risks if they were:

• under 18 years of age or
• over 35 and smoked more than 10 cigarettes a day or
• if they lived or worked more than one hour from the emergency facility that served the abortion facility conducting the trial or
• if they had any of the following conditions:
• asthma
• glaucoma
• mitral stenosis
• arterial hypotension
• sickle cell anemia
• history of severe liver, respiratory or renal disease or thromboembolism
• insulin-dependent diabetes
• cardiovascular disease, e.g. angina, valve disease, arrhythmia, cardiac failure
• hypertension
• blood pressure over 140/90mmHg
• anemia
• adnexal masses or tenderness on pelvic examination that suggested pelvic inflammatory disease16

Side Effects of use of RU 486 alone or in conjunction with Cytotec.

It would be very difficult to list all possible side effects associated with use of RU 486, therefore it will be limited to the most serious and dangerous side effects:

Pelvic infections

A California teenager, Holly Patterson died from septic shock three days after taking RU 486.

Drug trials in Canada where suspended in 2001 following the death of a woman participating in the trials. Death cause- septic shock due to bacterial infection.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) study 30% of women who had incomplete RU-486 abortions developed pelvic infections because one effect of the drugs combination is to suppress immune system. The same organization (WHO) advises for women to receive antibiotics for six weeks after RU-486 abortion.

After arrival of the RU-486, abortion providers suddenly began to refer to it as a “safest way to terminate” pregnancy. The safest as opposed to what? Maye it is their own way to admit that abortion is not a safe procedure after all.

It is so sad that California parents has suffered such a defeat in this last elections. What is most upsetting about the entire issue is that Planned Parenthood is covering up what is qualified as a statutory rape. Many of the teenage girls get pregnant by men that are 21 and older. What a sad times that we are living in.

If in the future you will have decide on whether or not to support parental notification laws following video may be of help:

This inability to hear you is not her fault and generally has to do with what is happening to her and her body on a biochemical level. Often facing an abortion, woman finds herself under much pressure and stress. This causes her adrenaline levels to rise and counteracts the effects of oxytocin a hormone that is on the rise during pregnancy and is at it’s peak during the labor and delivery. This hormone is also responsible for putting us in a “caring” state of mind, and if you want to talk “babies” to your friend or a family member, when she is in a “caring” state of mind would be the most appropriate time to do so.

In order to help her, you should be willing to do all that you possibly can to eliminate the stress and an pressures she is under. Being argumentative will only add to pressure and stress. Sometimes we may think that if we present our argument in a loving manner, she some how will be able to hear us. But the truth is that we are taking a big chance perusing this road.

So what can you do? Some times it is not so easy to eliminate stress and pressure from a particular situation, but there are simple ways that may help you to do just that. If you can afford, take your friend on a “girls day out” to a spa saloon. Good message and pampering will help to lover the adrenaline levels and may contribute to putting your friends mind into a “caring” state. Do not force the abortion topic or a “baby talk” on her unnecessarily, if she brings up the topic do not shy from it, but also do not force her into taking about it if she is not willing.

Another step you can consider is to take her out (physically) of the stressful situation. If you can offer her a place to stay where she can find herself in a more relaxing atmosphere, this also may help.

Last but not least, ask her about her diet. When under stress, we completely abandon good diet habits and stick to a junk food. This can contribute to sudden fluctuation of sugar level in our blood, and also takes us on a ride when from be highly energized we suddenly may become tired and depressed. Consider to offer your friend a had when it comes to her diet. She may not be feeling like cooking herself and sometime even reheating an already prepared meal can seam to her like an impossible task. It would be a good idea to provide her with snacks that would be readily available and would not require much time to prepare. Things like cold cuts or already made sandwich could be the best. Make sure that she receives plenty of protein and even some fat with her food. This will help her to level the sugar level in her blood and diminish times when she feels depressed and out of energy.

During stressful times, our body increases the production of adrenaline. Our body produces adrenaline whenever we feel pain, it actually helps us to feel less pain. So can it be that the feeling of “relief” is nothing more than a feeling after riding a fast roller coaster? Indeed roller coaster it is for women who make the decision to abort. Not only they are stressed but often feel considerable amount of pain after the procedure. It would be very interesting to know what are the exact levels of adrenalin in womans body while going through an abortion and shortly after the procedure. I think we are not that much off in assuming that a women who had have abortion do go through a kind of an adrenaline rush and therefore feel this “relief”. Also this is why this feeling of so called relief does not last too long no matter how much a woman tries to hold on to it.

Guilt

While guilt is not something you should live with your entire life, it can be a beneficial force in changing our lives. In any one’s life there were moments when we felt guilty about our actions. Why do we feel guilt then? We generally fee guilty when we are tormented by a memory of certain act that did not corresponded with our moral principles or set of values, we say “I have made a mistake”. Any one can make a mistake and all of us quite often taste the consequences of our mistakes. But if we make a mistake, it does not mean that we have lost our value as human being. A mistake does not affect our dignity, with which we were endowed from conception. Normal feelings of guilt call us to correct the mistake we made, make up for it and reconcile with ourselves and others. When we do this, the feeling of guilt does not persecute us and we cab find peace again.

Shame

Unlike the feeling of guilt that emerges within us and may assume a beneficial role in our life, shame comes from outside. Feeling of shame is provoked by others and it becomes and obstacle in respecting ourselves. There are at least two major causes of shame.

• First, shame emerges when parents, teachers, siblings or friends make us understand that they can only love us if we live up to certain conditions. In this case we feel that love for us (or/and lack of such) depends on our behavior, our looks, our success. This love is conditional, love that we need to work for. So when we do not feel loved, we think that we simple did not deserve to be loved.
• Second, shame can be provoked by rude treatment of any kind: physical, emotional, sexual, and verbal. Those who treat others with rudeness make the victim believe that he or she deserves it.

No matter what it was caused by, shame can hurt us for many years and may become a “nourishment” for the opinions that we have about ourselves. Under the influence of conditional love or rude and abusive treatment, a person, consciously or not, assimilates a certain “disordered pack” of ideas about their own personality.  You may find many women say about themselves: “There is nothing good in me”, “I am stupid”, “It’s my own fault that I became pregnant”, “I need to hide this for the rest of my life”, “I am not worthy (or capable) to be a mother”, “I am not worthy to have normal relations with a man”, “I had one abortion already, why shouldn’t I have one more?”, “I need to punish myself or let other people treat me badly because I don’t deserve anything else.”

While feeling of guilt can be corrected, in some instances rather quickly, by asking forgiveness for our mistakes, feeling of shame can only be healed by love and truth and may require much longer time.

In freeing yourself from the power of shame, a woman needs to remember that who she is, is not defined by actions or opinions of other people. No matter how many mistakes she personally made, she a is a human being that deserves love and respect for her dignity. Since feeling of shame may have it’s roots in very early childhood or due to rude and abusive treatments, this woman may need strong reassurance from friends and family, that no matter how bad her mistakes were she is loved unconditionally.