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May 27, 2024 38 mins
When Emily learned she was pregnant with twins, she and her husband felt elated! Then, more unanticipated news landed...and it required a life-altering decision. 

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
>> Rebeca (00:10):
I'm Rebeca Seitz, and this is right to
life.
I don't know if this experience is unique to me,
but I never really thought that I'd
be a mom. I mean, I did the thing where

(00:31):
I named my future children when I played with my cabbage patch
kids and all, but it never felt like
something that would actually happen.
It was just a story, a dream,
something way far off in the future.
Motherhood felt like a very grown up
thing meant for older and wiser

(00:51):
women. Or at the very least, for when
I felt like an actual adult.
I was 25, not even
six months into my marriage to the love of my
life, still getting over the shock that I somehow
got to be this amazing man's wife. When the
stick turned pink, it did

(01:11):
not feel real.
After confirming at the doctor's office, I told family and
my best friend. I remember calling my
dad. He was up in Pennsylvania at the time,
visiting his parents and his baby brother John and his
family, when his cell phone
rang. He was driving his car behind his
brothers on their way to somewhere.

(01:34):
I hope I never forget the
joyous ring of his voice as he
leaned his head out the window of his car and yelled,
hey, Johnny, Becky's pregnant.
Even then, though, it did not feel
real. It felt like I'd somehow stepped
into a movie. Romantic wedding in a

(01:55):
40 zero year old church on a tropical island.
Check. Dashing, intelligent,
unbelievable husband. Check.
In laws from yet another tropical place, operating
like the Kennedys with their cocktail hours and dinner conversations
about world affairs. Check.
Job of my dreams at a major publishing house.

(02:15):
Check. Big house in a big
city. Check. And
now, baby on the way.
Check. And
then we went for the ultrasound
to learn if we were having a son or a daughter.
The tech joked with us, pointing at tiny little blobs on

(02:36):
the screen and telling us, that's an arm, that's a leg. And,
oh, looks like a boy. My husband and I
grinned, transfixed by a screen filled with foreign
imagery. Suddenly, though,
the tech lost her smile.
She pressed that wand a little harder into my belly, and
she kept it in one location. M,

(02:57):
is everything okay? I asked.
She removed the wand, wiped it off, and
said, I'll be right back. In
that moment, I fell out
of the movie, and I crashed
into life. The
dread. I remember the dread

(03:17):
so keenly
wanting to put my hand on my belly, but it was still
covered in that jelly. Resting my
fingertips on it anyway. Tapping on that goo,
we learned that I had a single artery umbilical
cord. It happens in about 1% of pregnancies.
That involve only one fetus, 5%. In

(03:39):
pregnancies that have multiples. See,
the artery is what takes deoxygenated blood and
waste away from the baby. But I
clung to the fact that the survival rate was
high at 80% to 95%.
And the one artery that I did have, well, it was bigger than
normal. My doctor assured me it may even

(03:59):
do the work of two. I was encouraged to
just take it easy during the pregnancy. No working
out, no getting out of breath. If I could avoid it, just
be easy and let the
pregnancy be the important thing.
I ended up on bed rest for my final
trimester, trying to stop the labor that kept starting and

(04:19):
stopping 40 days before his
due date. And after three days of labor that
would not end, followed by an emergency
C section. My firstborn
arrived into this world at seven pounds
5oz. Yes,
he did have a complication. His eyes
hadn't finished developing. We didn't

(04:42):
even realize it at first. He often kept one eye
closed, but he would switch which one he kept closed and which one he
kept open. So we just laughed and thought he was
winking. In truth, his eyes
were developing independently of each other, like a chameleon.
My kiddo was learning to see and process
two objects at once.

(05:03):
Otherwise, though, he was perfectly healthy.
Pregnancies are such complicated
experiences, unpredictable in
thousands of ways. We had no
history of problem pregnancies in our family that I know
of. None in my husband's, either.
We both crashed headlong into

(05:24):
parenthood that day. The tech went from
laughing to all business.
So too, did Emily.
And she would face a situation so much
harder than mine.

(05:47):
Emily, welcome to the right to Life podcast. Thank you for
being here today.

>> Emily (05:51):
Thank you so much for having me today.

>> Rebeca (05:53):
Rebeca it is a very awkward
question to ask women of. Could you please let me record
one of the most difficult times of your life? And I so
appreciate when you're able
to, like, when you're healthy, mentally healthy, and have gone through it and are,
able to say yes and do say yes.
So I don't gloss over that. Thank you very
much for being willing to come on here and talk about your story.

>> Emily (06:16):
Absolutely. And, I actually just really appreciate the
opportunity to share my story because I hope,
I think that it helps get into the complexity of the
issues, and I want to share that with people
so more people understand, what some of
us have to go through.

>> Rebeca (06:32):
So you are a mom, right?

>> Emily (06:34):
Yes.

>> Rebeca (06:35):
And so talk to me about your first pregnancy, though.
Was it easy? Was it hard? Tell me about that.

>> Emily (06:41):
So I have a 16 year old girl, and she's my
oldest, and she's amazing.
and my first pregnancy was a, ah, breeze.
I was so happy to. I got pregnant really
quick, you know, again, I was so
fortunate. Got pregnant very quickly,
after I wanted to, you know, after we started trying, my
husband and I started trying. And,

(07:05):
the pregnancy felt,
great. I mean, I was exhausted. Felt like I
was hit right in that middle
section like everyone. And, you know, I was
constantly bumping into things because I didn't know
that my own dimension, size of your body.

>> Rebeca (07:22):
Same, same.

>> Emily (07:23):
I loved being pregnant. And,
I was so happy. I was transfixed
by just seeing and understanding
the changes in my body and the development of my
baby. and it was
awesome. I had such a
wonderful first pregnancy. I was lucky to be very

(07:43):
healthy. I was in good physical shape. So
it just, it was very
smooth.

>> Rebeca (07:50):
And the birth.

>> Emily (07:52):
And the birth. I gave birth with midwives
and the birth was m very smooth.
I did a, pretty extensive,
prenatal birthing,
classes called, the
Bradley method. and it's a method where you're
really focusing on, relaxing your body,
through the birth. and so I did that. And it

(08:14):
worked for me. And, it was just an
extraordinary, extraordinary experience.
my baby was. She was big. She was fairly big.
Eight pounds, 6oz. Incredibly
healthy. I was healthy. My midwives were
yelling at me to stop, taking walks with her
in the. Immediately after I
gave birth because I felt that good. So, you know,

(08:37):
I had this one view of pregnancy. And again,
I, speak understanding how fortunate
I was with that first pregnancy and,
to have such an, easy, happy
pregnancy.

>> Rebeca (08:50):
Mm And then how long after your
first pregnancy did you have your second
pregnancy?

>> Emily (08:57):
So, about three years later,
maybe about two and a half years later, we, started
to try to have a second, and it took a lot
longer, you know, again, you know, only
your own experience. So when you're
not getting pregnant right here, you know, when I wanted to be pregnant
again and it wasn't happening right away, and I can't

(09:19):
remember precisely the time it might have been that we even
tried for more like, you know, nine months or
so. but. And again, I realize that's
a short time for some people who are trying and trying and trying,
but it feels forever, right?

>> Rebeca (09:32):
Like when you're every month and you're like, no, not
again.

>> Emily (09:36):
Hoping, hoping, hoping, hoping. You know, for me, I was
thinking about the time between my
kids. I wasn't ready for a
long time to have another baby, even though I knew I
wanted to have another one because I work full time
and I just felt like I had to make that
complete connection with my,

(09:57):
with my first baby, my older daughter,
before I was ready to then be able to turn some
of my attention away from her, which I had
to have another. And
it took me, my own journey was. It took, you
know, it took me longer. And then I was really cognizant of
the time, you know, the time growing between their
ages. and so, yeah, I was pretty

(10:20):
anxious to, get pregnant that second
time.

>> Rebeca (10:23):
So how did you find out you were pregnant the second time?

>> Emily (10:29):
I knew because I was waiting, waiting, waiting. I knew
right away. I took a pregnancy test. Was
thrilled. I just moved
that summer to the state of Maine and it felt like
kind of a, I lived in DC
previously and, where I live in
Maine, it's just such a wonderful place to
raise a family. And so I was just really focused on like,

(10:51):
oh, we're in the right place now. This is
awesome, you know, bought
a new home, and so, yeah, I
found out, pretty soon after we moved to Maine,
I got pregnant and was just so thrilled.

>> Rebeca (11:05):
So you found out you were pregnant and then probably did.
As we all do, you make an appointment with your doctor to go
in and confirm.
But there was a time when you found out that there was an
anomaly happening with your pregnancy. What was that
experience like?

>> Emily (11:22):
So, at about ten weeks, I went in for an
ultrasound, and
my husband was there with me. And, the
technician, I remember, was incredibly
talkative and kind, as
she put the cold jelly on my lower
belly and got started, and then
suddenly she went silent and the energy in the room just

(11:43):
completely shifted and she,
abruptly left, muttering nervously that
she had to get the doctor and
I need to go back because I left out a really important
part of the story.

>> Rebeca (11:56):
Okay.

>> Emily (11:56):
So when she was in that really
talkative, time, she told me I was
pregnant with twins, which I did not know,
and so, you know, it was, the twins
do not run in my family. They did not run in my husband's
family. it was a complete
surprise. And, you know,
extraordinary. Like twins.

(12:19):
Wow. So, you know,
suddenly. And, I'm a pragmatic
person and maybe I shouldn't admit this, but some of the things going through
my head were like, how do I get, ah, three
car seats into my car?
And then I work full time. So trying to think about, like,
childcare, and childcare is expensive, and it

(12:40):
was already expensive with one,
and so those, like, very pragmatic. I mean, again, I
can remember those very, pragmatic thoughts going
through my head where you're just trying to adjust to,
wow, there's two babies.

>> Rebeca (12:55):
Did the. Did the ultrasound tech. Did she know that
you did not know until she said something?

>> Emily (13:00):
Yes.

>> Rebeca (13:01):
Okay, so she knew. She was giving you an announcement.

>> Emily (13:04):
She was giving us. How
fun. So it was, you know, the
shock. That's a lot to take in. And then
this shift in the energy in the room I was telling you about.
So it was just, It was. It was a
lot. the doctor pretty quickly came
in, and actually showed
my husband and I what the technician

(13:26):
had seen, and, I
could see with my own eye and without any medical
experience, what the concern was.
And with one of the babies, the neck,
was very large. and
that's really what I remember. You know, it was,
just kind of the shock of it all.

(13:49):
And then, you know, we went into,
the doctor talked with us a little bit, and we went in and talked
with a specialist, and she kind of
walked through what they were thinking and
what the risks were. And so over the next
few days, Tess confirmed that, one of my babies
had trisomy 18, which is

(14:09):
a genetic disorder that affects nearly every organ
system in the body.
yeah, half of babies, that are born
with trisomy 18 die within their first week of
life. And I learned at the
time that the median lifespan is five
to 15 days. Oh,

(14:30):
yeah. Yeah. And
all of that is so much. But then I also had
another baby that I was carrying,
and that's, how this got so
complicated, because there's a high risk of
miscarriage with, or stillbirth, actually,
with trisomy 18. and so that

(14:50):
put my other twin at risk.
I could have gone into labor very, very
early or faced
other serious complications.

>> Rebeca (15:09):
According to the Cleveland clinic,
trisomy 18 is also known as
Edwards syndrome. An ultrasound
tech is often the first to spot the signs of it,
which include very little fetal activity,
a small placenta, birth
defects, and orange, a
single artery umbilical cord.

(15:31):
See, all humans have 46 chromosomes
that divide into 23 pairs. Those
chromosomes are what carry DNA in cells, which can
be thought of like an instruction manual for how your body forms
and functions. A fetus gets half of its
chromosomes from one parent and half from the other.
Now, so that I make sure to share this correctly with you. I'm just going

(15:51):
to read directly from the Cleveland Clinic website.
During egg and sperm formation, when chromosome
pairs are supposed to divide, there's a
chance that a chromosome pair will not divide,
as if it's too sticky to separate,
and both copies will be included in the egg
or the sperm, so that when fertilization

(16:13):
happens, those two copies join one
from the other parent. So the result is three
copies in total. Remember, there's supposed to be two.
The incorrect number of chromosomes is
unpredictable and random and isn't the result of
something the parents did before or during pregnancy.
When a third copy of a cell joins a

(16:35):
pair, a trisomy occurs.
Trisomy literally means three bodies.
If someone receives an Edwards syndrome
diagnosis, they have a third copy of
chromosome 18 in their cells.
There is no cure
for Edwards syndrome, which is

(16:55):
trisomy 18. An Edwards
syndrome diagnosis can result in a live birth,
but trisomy 18 most often causes a
miscarriage during the first three months of
pregnancy or the baby is
stillborn.

(17:18):
so did your doctor
make a recommendation for what you should do, or did they
just say, look, here's the situation you're facing. Here are your
options. Go think about it. Did you get
some guidance? How do you. I can't even. First of all, I can't
fathom being in a room finding out that I have twins,
and I would do exactly what you did. I would
immediately turn into, I don't have enough car

(17:41):
seats. There's going to be twice as many diapers, twice as much
food, immediately do that. But
then in the space of just, you
know, a few minutes to half an hour, now you're finding
out, I have this, but it's coming with this
massive complication, and then just a few days
to learn about that and realize that you do
have to make a decision about what you're going to do.

(18:04):
There's no ignoring it. Did you have some
guidance or some help or some groups or something?

>> Emily (18:11):
first I made the decision. you know, I think when
you're pregnant, time is never on your side. Right.
and so I,
First I remember being in the room
of the hospital with this, with this expert. I believe it
was like a geneticist type of person
explaining, you know, explaining what trisomy 18 was

(18:33):
and what the risks were, and,
you know, and either this woman or the doctor
walking through the options but not making a
recommendation. and the option that they put on
the table for me was having what they called
a selective reduction, essentially an abortion
of the baby with trisomy.

(18:54):
18. And so I left the
hospital. My husband and I left the hospital that day with all of
that information. And I went home
and, I. I poured over.
I have a master's in public health. I have some background
and not the medical field, but in
understanding scientific literature. And so

(19:14):
I really delved into the
research and evidence around chaisami
18. I did find that there were some support groups
online. This is now 15 years ago.
The situation might be really
different, might have evolved a lot. But I did
find some support groups of people who did
choose to, move forward with pregnancies, with

(19:36):
babies that had trastomy 18.
and I also had, a college friend, actually, my
freshman year college roommate, who was a dear friend who was an ob
gyn. And I called her, and
she really helped me, as
walk through some of the
medical details from her perspective. and,

(19:57):
you know, it was really over,
a, ah, couple of days where,
I made the decision. You know,
I think when it comes down to it,
I'd been so happy to be pregnant.
twins were totally out of
left field, but awesome.

(20:19):
But now I was really faced with the
prospect of losing both babies.
And so, you know, within a couple
of days, I made what,
became a very clear decision, but also
an anguished decision to have an abortion of the fetus
with trisomy 18. I think

(20:39):
once you start to think about, you know, this baby
growing in you, it's like, it's
powerful. You know, you want to do everything
you can to, make the
best decisions. As, you know,
as a mom, to be.

>> Rebeca (20:57):
And for myself, I can't imagine
trying to think through I have
twins and I have to. As a mom, I can't imagine trying
to think through I have twins and I have to do what's
best for both of them. And I would
assume that thought process must
include if you know, that, chancing

(21:17):
it puts the healthy fetus at risk
for the possible reward
of giving birth. I'm using reward, in air quotes,
of giving birth to two babies, one
of whom, I'm assuming that's pretty painful for
that child. If that child does make it to term
and lives for those five to 15 days,

(21:38):
if trisomy 18 has affected almost all of
their organs, that can't be a
good experience for that baby either.
I just.

>> Emily (21:50):
I'm so sorry. I also had to think about it through the
perspective of my older daughter. You know, what would it.
I mean, I think there would be real trauma
to bring, you know, to,
And it was an unlikely scenario that I could
get to the point of having. Delivering two
tweets. Right. It was an unlikely scenario, but even if I

(22:11):
were able to, You know, then you think of the trauma
of bringing a baby, a sibling, into the
world that, you know, that's alive just for a few
days,
it was, There's. There's lots. So many
different. So many different angles that you had, you know,
that I had to consider. But that's why I think it became so
clear. You know, I had the potential to have,

(22:33):
You know, I had a tragic pregnancy, but I had the potential
to have a healthy baby in the
end. And that's what I did. You know,
my daughter Harper is now 13,
and she's incredible.
She is just such an awesome kid.
And, I look at her sometimes and realize, like,

(22:53):
wow, I, you know, I'm,
so fortunate to have been able to bring her
into the world. And, Yeah, so
I think of, you know, I think it was,
It was. It was a hard decision while I was making
it. And then it became so clear to me.
It was the only option for me.

>> Rebeca (23:14):
Was that you said that you had moved to Maine.
I don't know much about Maine, but I don't think there are many
metropolitan areas there. Were you able
to get this taken care of where you had moved?

>> Emily (23:26):
No. I live in Portland, which is the biggest
city in Maine, but they didn't have the,
medical expertise here, so I actually had to
go down to Boston,
which is about 2 hours away. my husband and I
drove. but even that was, you
know, there was a lot of

(23:46):
complexity. We both had to take time off of work and find
childcare, because, you know, we were,
We were. We were. We were, you know, went down
and back in the day over one day, but we
were gone for a good portion of the day, so we had to, you
know, find extra childcare for our older
daughter.

>> Rebeca (24:04):
So you drove 2 hours away, had the
procedure. I assume there was a little bit of recovery time. And then you drove
back home that night.

>> Emily (24:11):
Yes.

>> Rebeca (24:13):
And did your other daughter.
So she's only three, I guess, at this point. Does she know what's
going on at this point?

>> Emily (24:20):
No, not at that point. You know, we've been very open
with as a family, but not, you know, she was too
little at that moment to understand.

>> Rebeca (24:28):
They're 13 and 16 now, right?

>> Emily (24:31):
Yes.

>> Rebeca (24:31):
I m hope you have lots of caffeine with two teenagers.
From one mom of two teens to another mom of two
teens, two teenage girls.

>> Emily (24:41):
Last weekend, we had both the prom and
a 13 year old birthday party on the same night. I'm
not sure.

>> Rebeca (24:47):
Oh, girl.
My sympathies. My deepest
sympathies.
we had. Last year, we had 8th grade graduation and
high school graduation back to back,
and I don't think I've ever been so emotionally
wrung out in a good way in my life.
It's just like, what is happening right now.

(25:10):
but you said they do know, so, have they shared their.
I'm sure they have shared their thoughts with you about this, their
feelings about this. I'm wondering what the experience
is like here, where your children know
that you made this choice. Do
they have thoughts about that and feelings about that?

>> Emily (25:29):
I think that for my older
daughter, who's 16, I want to say pride,
because she knows what we went through
was really hard to be
able to have her sister, and she
feels like we, You
know, she's a really thoughtful
kid, so I think

(25:51):
she. I think she sees both, like,
how. Yeah. How extraordinary it is
that, we have her sister and then also,
you know, knows that that was, you know, it was a hard
experience for us and feels like, wow, my
family went through this hard thing, and maybe, you know, we're stronger for
it. I, you

(26:11):
know, I haven't cried yet today talking with you, but I typically
cry when I talk about it.

>> Rebeca (26:16):
Understandable.

>> Emily (26:17):
You know, I think her seeing, you know, seeing
that emotion and feeling and, you know,
understanding how, Yeah, how
lucky we are as a family to be able to have come out of
this really troubled pregnancy with healthy
baby, is something really, you know, it's really
special. So. Yeah.
Yeah, I think. And then my younger daughter, I think,

(26:40):
still kind of grapples with it. It's a lot to
think you had a twin
and that other didn't make it.
And, so, you know,
she's 13. She's never
experienced anything, you know, said, anything
negative about it, but it's just, I don't, you know, I think it's. It's
a lot to get your head around.

>> Rebeca (27:01):
Mm
As it would be for any sibling, to lose a
sibling at any point of life. I
mean, that is a lot to grapple with, especially
as she's 13.

>> Emily (27:12):
That's absolutely.

>> Rebeca (27:14):
I wanted to ask you. I wanted to clarify, I
think that what you said at the beginning
of our conversation resonated so strongly with
me of, as a mom, you had to sit
down with this decision. And yes, you had a husband and
yes, you had people helping you and you had doctors and a
best friend talking to you, but at the end of the day, you were a

(27:34):
mom who had two fetuses inside of
you and you had to make a decision here. And
having the power and ability to do that seems
important because I'm not sure
how for you,
anyone would really be able to
grapple with what you had to grapple with, all of those

(27:55):
details and the outcome of whatever course of
action you chose. So I'm very glad that you
had the opportunity to make
that choice for yourself.

>> Emily (28:04):
Yeah, absolutely. you know, something you just
said just resonated so much, which was, I
can remember sitting at my computer
looking at the research and really,
making the decision. I don't want to say this
in a negative way
about, my husband at all, because he was
incredibly supportive and we had a great relationship

(28:27):
and we were in it together. But it was my
decision. even my husband, I
was the one who was like, this is what we're going to do.
and here's why. And I think it means
my body, right,
it has to be. but, you know, if,
I think now that there are states where the abortion

(28:48):
I had to save the life of
my twin would be illegal, that's
my state.

>> Rebeca (28:55):
You wouldn't be able to today, you would not be able to do that
unless you could find two
doctors to say,
absolutely, it's going to cost.
I don't, actually, our law here would have to, they would have
to say, it would cost your life. I'm
not sure in the case of it's going to cost
the other, the twin's life

(29:18):
if, because this, this twin is going to
likely cause a miscarriage and that's going to not be
far enough along in the pregnancy for the other twin to survive.
And, yeah, no, there's no exception here in this state right
now for that. It would have cost both
twins.

>> Emily (29:34):
And, I was healthy
throughout. I mean, maybe I wouldn't have stayed healthy, but
that early on at 1011, I
think I had the selective reduction or the
abortion around eleven and a half weeks.
I was healthy at that point.
My health wasn't at issue. It was the health

(29:55):
of, my healthy twin.

>> Rebeca (29:58):
Mm Any children after Harper or were
you done?

>> Emily (30:05):
I was done. And in part because that
pregnancy scared, you know, scared
the heck out of me, you know, I mean, you
realize, and especially in contrast to my
first pregnancy, was just so easy. You realize, like,
you know, this is, These things aren't in your
control, right? It's not. and I was older
at the time. I was pregnant with Harper when I was

(30:27):
36. and at that point,
every medical record said I had advanced maternal
age.

>> Rebeca (30:35):
Oh, how kind.

>> Emily (30:38):
I found really interesting.
but it made me realize, even if I
had, wanted to be pregnant again, it kind of
convinced me not to. Not to try.
but that's okay. I have two beautiful
girls, girls who are the center of my life.
And, you know, and,

(30:59):
Yeah, I feel so lucky to,
be, you know, to have
ended or to have gotten out of such a
hard pregnancy with a healthy baby. You know,
I went through the rest of that pregnancy. It was a hard pregnancy.
Throughout, the doctors were worried that
the fetus that survived,

(31:20):
was too small. And, I was
constantly, doing ultrasounds weekly,
every ten days. but
I ended up, having Harper,
two weeks after my due date.

>> Rebeca (31:36):
Oh, wow.

>> Emily (31:38):
She was comfortable.

>> Rebeca (31:40):
She said, I'm good. I'm all good, mom. Thanks.

>> Emily (31:44):
She was eight pounds, 9oz. So
not small.

>> Rebeca (31:48):
She was totally fine.

>> Emily (31:51):
So healthy. And, pretty quickly, we
started calling her happy Harper, because she's just, like,
an easygoing kid. And, Yeah,
it was. It was. It was a. It was a hard, hard
pregnancy. but she. You know,
she's. We've been so fortunate. She's.
She was healthy as a baby. She's been healthy throughout her life.

(32:12):
she's so strong now. She's taller than I'm tall, and she's taller than
I am at 13. And she's so strong.
I have to hand her jars to open now, and I can't.

>> Rebeca (32:20):
Me too. Oh, my gosh. That's so demoralizing.

>> Emily (32:23):
Oh.

>> Rebeca (32:24):
When you have to hand it to them, and they can do it with
ease, and you're like, okay, all right, now I'm advanced age.
I understand.

>> Emily (32:32):
I kind of love it because it's. Yeah,
she's. Yeah, she's. She's a strong
kid, and, she wears that as a
badge of honor. You know, I think when I was. When I was a tall,
young person, I would slump. And she stands proud,
so I love that.

>> Rebeca (32:48):
Again, as the mom of a six foot tall 15 year old
girl, I'm right there with you.

>> Emily (32:53):
That is awesome.

>> Rebeca (32:55):
She stands tall.
Yes, she does.
I want to. I want to thank you again so much for coming on
and telling your story. It strikes me
that, you know, you had to make this
excruciating decision. But
don't we have to do that as moms for the rest of their lives?
We're always. We're always making hard
calls, trying to make the best call we

(33:18):
possibly can for them every single day. I
think we're all doing that all the time.

>> Emily (33:23):
Absolutely. That is so true.

>> Rebeca (33:26):
Yeah. Thank you so much for coming on, Emily. I appreciate
it.

>> Emily (33:29):
Rebeca thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate
what you're doing. and I appreciate,
being able to tell my story, because I do think there's
a lot of complexity to it. And it's. You don't always
know if you don't go through experience like
mine, it's not what you typically see on
tv or what you experience yourself, necessarily.

(33:50):
And so it's so important to understand
the range of experiences that, women
have and the
critical need for abortion care.

>> Rebeca (34:13):
Emily's story reminds me of how
impossible it is to foresee all the
complications that can happen in pregnancy.
I know that my own blindsided me.
Emily's did her as well. So did
Samantha's that you heard about back in episode one.
And the three of us are not alone, as you'll

(34:34):
hear in coming episodes. There's
simply no way to create an exhaustive
list of what can go wrong. And even
further, to think through all of the people who will
be affected by however that complication is
handled. Samantha had two children
at home who needed her to survive that third
pregnancy so that she could come home to them.

(34:56):
Harper needed a mom who would protect
her from the miscarriage that one of her
babies would most likely induce before Harper
could develop enough to survive outside of Emily.
Samantha and Emily both had
access to information. They read
it, they talked with people they

(35:16):
loved, and they got guidance.
And then they decided the best course
of action for themselves and
their families.
Ten, years ago, I would not have afforded them that
opportunity because I didn't know they needed
it. I did not know that

(35:37):
abortion can be necessary,
that it can be the very thing
that saves a life.
I wasn't looking at the life of the mother, much less
any of the children or, family around her.
But like I told you in episode one with
Samantha, hearing Emily's story

(35:57):
forced me to wrestle with a
hard truth.

>> Emily (36:04):
My name is Emily, and I have a right to
life. My name is
Harper, and I have a right to
life.

>> Outro (36:22):
You've been listening to Right to Life on the
1C Story Network. If you have a story to share
or would like to learn more, please visit
righttolifestories.com
This show is brought to you by the generous support of
people who value life. To contribute,
visit righttolifestories.com
and click on the Gofundme icon or get in

(36:45):
touch.

>> Singer (36:56):
The one see story network
for the love of stories.
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