Hitting Rock-Bottom

By Christine
For 35 years, I was absolutely unable to go back to our beginnings. I just couldn’t! I had blocked all memories because something terrible had happened that I simply didn’t want to remember.
Christian was distressed about this because we just couldn’t talk about the past. Our past.
Yes, there was a very painful event, but not all memories were bad! It took Christ’s grace all these years to heal me, little by little, and for the past 3 years, I have reconnected with our history, with our beginnings, with how we were then, and I have learned to love our story!

The pain is still there, but it’s a healed pain. I can face it, and even embrace it!

Here is what happened.

La Grande Motte

I had just turned 19 in April 1975. In June of that year, I took a job in a restaurant at La Grande Motte, a touristy place on the beach. The restaurant’s name was La Cambuse. I was housed there with another girl, la Grande Motte being too far from Montpellier (about 18 miles).

My period was late. I had seen a doctor the previous month and he had given me the pill to start taking on my next period. But this next period just wasn’t coming! I bought a pregnancy test… And it turned positive!

My first reaction was excitement! I impatiently served dinner at the restaurant and as soon as it was over, despite the late hour, I took my moppet to go back to Montpellier to share my big news with the man I loved (hey we didn’t have cell phones then!) This was extremely imprudent on my part because the road was not the most frequented one, especially at night.

Christian didn’t get as excited as I was. The look on his face wasn’t the happy one I had expected. This is where my memory starts to blur.

He made it clear that he didn’t want this baby. I was devastated. I talked to his brother’s girlfriend, Dominique, who broke the news to me that Christian had had an abortion before. Still, I didn't realize at all Christian's suffering, I was too centered on myself. I talked to more friends, especially a sweet couple who already had a baby. They talked me into keeping the baby and I loved the idea, it was all I wanted. At the same time, I couldn’t picture myself without Christian, announcing the news to my Dad. I was afraid of him, afraid of his reaction. I went to see a doctor who also encouraged me to keep the baby. I wanted it so badly! But I wasn’t brave enough. I wasn’t strong enough. Abortion had just become legal in France on January 17th, 1975 (Loi Veil). 

Simone Veil, responsible for the legalization of abortion in France

Christian and I went together to a Family Planning center where they explained about the abortion. They told us that it was nothing, just some cells as tiny as a pinhead would be removed. We were completely misinformed, misled, and unprepared to face this evil. We believed them.
Then the decision was made and Christian took me to this strange place. I remember there were girls with babies there. A nun received us, yes a nun, but from what I remember she was a Protestant nun. She took our money. It was decided I wouldn’t have any anesthesia. It was more expensive. Then Christian left and I stayed for the night. The abortion would be done the next morning.

I was in a room with several other girls in my “condition.” One of them was having her 4^th abortion! During the night, I remember having a terrible panic attack! It's impossible to describe the feeling of absolute terror that overwhelmed me. I screamed, woke everybody up, the doctor came to calm me. I remember he was communist. He again told me that it was nothing, just a bunch of teeny tiny cells, not a baby. My memory blacks out here again. I know they had to put me to sleep, and then all I remember is waking up sobbing and bawling, a nurse trying to quiet and console me.

Christian came back to pick me up. I don’t remember much, except that he told me we would have other children. I know I tried to forget, to live as if it hadn’t happened.

“There is no question in my mind that we are 'disturbing a life process.' The trauma may sink into the unconscious and never surface in the woman’s lifetime...
But a psychological price is paid. Something happens on the deeper levels of a woman’s consciousness when she destroys a pregnancy.” Dr. Julius Fogel, abortionist

A wall started to build up around my heart, a wall that grew with the years, strangely even more after the birth of our first daughter. This wall kept my pain buried, kept me "safe" from it.  (to be continued)