that positive pregnancy test<\/a>, the one that changed my life, I was addicted to crystal meth.<\/p>\nAnd do you know what the people around me did? They didn\u2019t take the secular line and say, \u201cthis baby\u2019s life would be horrible. You\u2019re unfit to be a mother. Better for it to not be born at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
But neither did they take the typical pro-life line in that situation and say, \u201cyou are clearly unfit to be a mother, but all you have to do is carry the baby to term and give a stable couple a wonderful gift.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Ogre said, \u201cyou\u2019re a mother now, and I\u2019m a father, and together we\u2019ll raise our child.\u201d<\/p>\n
My parents said, \u201cmarry that man, and raise that baby. You\u2019ve made the choices, you have to live with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
My friends said, \u201cyou screwed up, big time. But we love you. We\u2019ll throw you a baby shower, buy you maternity clothes, and babysit while you finish your semester.\u201d<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t get me wrong, it wasn\u2019t easy, being a newly-pregnant drug addict. But it gave me something to live for. Someone<\/i> to live for.<\/p>\n
Many times, women who are addicted to drugs manage to clean themselves up during the pregnancy only to fall back into old habits after the baby is born. This is why conventional wisdom states that a drug addict can\u2019t raise a child, even if she manages to carry the baby safely, healthily to term.<\/p>\n
In some women, this is doubtless true. But think of the message we\u2019re sending those women.<\/p>\n
You can\u2019t do this. You are too weak to resist. You\u2019re not a mother, you\u2019re unfit to be a mother, we know you won\u2019t make sacrifices for your child. Better for the child to not live at all than to be abandoned by a drug-addled mother. After all, what kind of life will she have. The daughter of an addict.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
We in the pro-life community need to remember that we stand for life\u2026all life. Just as much as that baby needs to be born, the mother needs her child to be born. Becoming a mother is a powerful thing, and I can tell you from experience that a child can bring new-found strength to a woman in a terrible place.<\/p>\n
I vividly remember one day, three months after Sienna was born. I managed to get us both dressed and we went for a walk. I walked around our apartment complex, unconsciously making my way to a friend\u2019s apartment with drug connections. Before I had really decided to do so, I was knocking at his door. No one was there. I sat on a bench across from his apartment and waited. I waited for an hour, my\u00a0 mind racing all that time. I couldn\u2019t get over the one, obvious hurtle. If I were to use drugs again, I couldn\u2019t breastfeed the baby. But what excuse could I give for not feeding her? What excuse would I have for using formula? And what if the Ogre figured it out? What if he told my parents? Would the drugs really <\/i>enter the breastmilk? Would it affect her too much? Couldn\u2019t I just smoke a little bit, and then see if she acted funny?<\/p>\n
In the midst of this frantic train of thought, I happened to look down at my daughter. She was sleeping, her soft pink mouth open, her little hand curled up against one fat, rosy cheek.<\/p>\n
She was absolutely beautiful, and absolutely perfect. I knew the hell of drug use, and in that instant I knew that I could not do that to my daughter. I couldn\u2019t let that horror into her tiny, flawless body.<\/p>\n
She opened her eyes, yawned, and smiled at me. It was a rare thing for her to smile at me. I was an absent mother, a source of food. We had almost no relationship at all. But at that moment, for the first time, I loved her. I picked her up and held her closely, shaky and nearly weeping from the adrenaline that had been coursing through me. Just as my friend\u2019s car pulled up I held Sienna in one arm, turned the stroller around and went home.<\/p>\n
From that moment on my half-formed plans to use drugs again began to dissipate. It took years before they were gone completely, and even still, on bad days, the thought sometimes pops into my head, unbidden and quickly chased out.<\/p>\n
But my daughter saved my life. She saved me from that terrible crisis. The people around me didn\u2019t say, \u201cYou can\u2019t be a mother. You can\u2019t parent. You\u2019re addicted to crystal meth, there\u2019s no hope for you.\u201d They said, \u201cYou are a mother now. This is your child. You can, and will, raise her.\u201d And I did.\u00a0 I am.<\/p>\n
That is what women in crisis really need. They need to be told that this is what they were made for, that motherhood is in their blood, in their very being, and that they can <\/i>do it. Just as their babies deserve a chance to live, so do they deserve a chance to be a mother.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Amidst the debates swirling around about defunding Planned Parenthood, some oft-repeated catch phrases are being tossed around like word grenades. One of these are \u201cwomen in crisis.\u201d I\u2019m sick and tired of hearing about \u201cwomen in crisis\u201d and how they need access to emergency contraception and abortions. That is a huge, steaming pile of lies, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1110,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[15,26,273],"class_list":["post-268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-addiction","tag-motherhood","tag-unplanned-pregnancy"],"yoast_head":"\n
What a Woman in Crisis Really Needs<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Amidst the debates swirling around about defunding Planned Parenthood, some oft-repeated catch phrases are being tossed around like word grenades. One of\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/barefootandpregnant\/2011\/04\/what-a-woman-in-crisis-really-needs.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What a Woman in Crisis Really Needs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Amidst the debates swirling around about defunding Planned Parenthood, some oft-repeated catch phrases are being tossed around like word grenades. One of\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/barefootandpregnant\/2011\/04\/what-a-woman-in-crisis-really-needs.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Barefoot and Pregnant\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-04-09T20:33:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-07-30T22:23:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-HQxacsBkroQ\/TaEiZTuvDEI\/AAAAAAAAAfQ\/xhESgmxTW74\/s400\/vic2.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Calah Alexander\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Calah Alexander\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/barefootandpregnant\/2011\/04\/what-a-woman-in-crisis-really-needs.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/barefootandpregnant\/2011\/04\/what-a-woman-in-crisis-really-needs.html\",\"name\":\"What a Woman in Crisis Really Needs\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/barefootandpregnant\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-04-09T20:33:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-07-30T22:23:31+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/barefootandpregnant\/#\/schema\/person\/cbd5af11d9f73881b801bf2e07eb8757\"},\"description\":\"Amidst the debates swirling around about defunding Planned Parenthood, some oft-repeated catch phrases are being tossed around like word grenades. 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<\/a><\/div>\n