Family & Life

Woman Decides to Keep Baby after Two Failed Abortion Attempts : 2nd Jul 07

"My baby wanted life so much, it is meant to be. To me it is already a miracle baby."

“I tried twice to abort my baby - but I'm delighted I failed”

“Paula had a dramatic change of heart about aborting her baby”

Paula Robinson has much to be thankful for. She lives in a £500,000 house, drives a Mercedes and has two beautiful children - Ryan, nine, and Tara, five. She is also glowing, for beneath her fashionable smock Paula, 40, is pregnant for the third time with a healthy new baby.But beneath this seemingly happy picture lies an unpalatable truth: shockingly, Paula has twice tried to abort this most recent pregnancy.

Indeed, having survived such an assault, even Paula now refers to her previously unwanted child as a "little miracle". But the story of how this tiny dot has fought to cling to its chance of life is only one part of this harrowing and in some ways inspiring story.

Because for Paula, a wealthy divorcee, this pregnancy has not only changed her life, it has had far-reaching consequences. For it has fundamentally challenged her own views on one of the most contentious issues of our time - that of a woman's right to abortion on demand. Paula herself tried to end her pregnancy twice in the first trimester.

She says: "I feel so guilty and ashamed that I tried to kill my own baby. But although I've been through a terrible experience it has been a totally humbling one, which I believe has made me a better person."I used to think of an unwanted pregnancy as just a bundle of cells that you could get rid of without too much hassle. Now, I feel many women, just like me, do not think deeply enough about what they are doing.

"It's only now, having gone through the process of having a termination, that I realise why you hear all the time about women who - often years later - regret terribly having an abortion."I just feel incredibly lucky that after everything I've done, my baby is still alive and I will not have to live with that regret."

Paula had booked into a private abortion clinic near her home and after a scan confirmed she was just under eight weeks pregnant, handed over the £465 payment. "I could see the baby's heartbeat on the scan," she says, "and I couldn't stop crying. Whichever way I turned I felt guilty - guilty if I had a termination, guilty if I brought a baby into the world in such circumstances, and guilty for stupidly getting pregnant in the first place.

"I had to leave the children at home with someone else, and my mother came with me for support and we both sat there sobbing together."

Doctors gave Paula the abortion pill, a powerful concoction of drugs that works by blocking essential hormones to the baby, inducing a termination, usually within hours.

"I took the first pill in the clinic," says Paula, "and was to take a second pill two days later at home. Staff explained I would probably begin to bleed within hours."

However, within two hours of taking the pill, Paula became violently ill. "I couldn't keep anything down and showed no signs of an abortion beginning," she recalls. The following day she was so ill she went back to the clinic. "The doctor explained I'd had an unusual reaction in which the body rejects the pill and because I'd vomited so much it wouldn't have been absorbed properly.

"I felt absolutely traumatised that it hadn't worked and after all that suffering and anguish I was still pregnant. I was too unwell to take another pill, but the doctor said I could have a different type of abortion done at their clinic in Manchester."

So the following week Paula went to Manchester to try once more to end her unborn child's life. "Doctors there said they could suck the foetus out, doing this termination under a general anaesthetic," she says.

"Once more I had to steel myself for this ordeal and kept telling myself that it was the right decision. I got ready for the operation, but then went for the scan that they legally must do before going ahead.

"This more advanced scan revealed my pregnancy was over the limit of 12 to 13 weeks for the procedure they'd planned. I couldn't believe it when the doctor broke the news they couldn't go through with it.

"I was sure they must have got my dates wrong but they were adamant they wouldn't perform the operation." Instead, to Paula's horror, the doctors told her she would have to travel to London for a two-stage procedure where they would induce labour and then remove the baby during an operation.

She would probably need an overnight stay. Inevitably, she was thrown into turmoil at this almost farcical situation. "By now I had seen my baby's arms and legs waving on the scan. My baby was fully formed and even I marvelled at how it had grown so quickly into this perfect little human shape. "The sonographer estimated I may be as much as 14 or 15 weeks pregnant, and it seemed perfectly healthy and looked remarkably happy considering I'd already tried twice to destroy it.

"Suddenly it felt as if I would really be killing my baby. My mother obviously felt the same way. 'You could always give it up for adoption,' she murmured. "I went out of the room. 'I'm sorry,' I said to the nurse as I walked out of the clinic. 'I just don't think I can go through with this.' It was both the hardest and easiest decision I have ever made in my life.

"Overcome with emotion, I came home and wept. I put my hands on my tummy - already I could feel the bump and was overcome with guilt at what I'd tried to do."

The next day, Paula told Ryan and Tara she was going to have a baby and found herself resolved to keep the child. Paula is now five months pregnant and after further scans and tests to check her baby's health, doctors have reassured her that baby number three is fine and unharmed by the trauma she put it through.

Although because of her age she could have further tests, such as an amniocentesis, to check for abnormalities such as Down's, she has decided not to have them. "I am so pleased I have kept this baby and I really don't want to put it through anything else," she says.

"My baby is moving and I certainly couldn't consider terminating it, whatever the circumstances. Now I feel I have had an incredibly lucky escape. "I used to think having a termination when a baby was so tiny was nothing. It seems to be so common these days and accepted among women.

"I know of friends who've gone through the same process and not given it much thought. I, too, imagined that after the abortion my life would go back to 'normal' - it would be over quickly and tidily. "But now I don't believe you can simply put to one side aborting a baby, and I think had the abortion worked, then in years to come I may well have regretted it terribly. "I would have constantly thought of what my child would have been like.

"What I saw at that private clinic also totally shocked me. I expected to see young girls on their own waiting in the abortion clinic. Instead it was like a cattle market - full of women of all ages - many with their husbands and partners encouraging them to go through with it.

"I couldn't help wondering why all of these women - many seemingly in relationships - were ending their pregnancies. "I was shocked that it seems to be just so normal to have an abortion these days, and although the staff at the clinic were lovely, no one even suggested there may be a different way forward.

"It has changed my outlook completely." "Of course, I still feel guilty that I didn't want this child - I can imagine myself forever trying to make up for it when it's born - but I truly feel fate has taken a hand. "My baby wanted life so much, it is meant to be. To me it is already a miracle baby." The Daily Mail. July 2. CLICK TO READ MORE.....

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Family & Life

Woman Decides to Keep Baby after Two Failed Abortion Attempts : 2nd Jul 07

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