Re: [Leica] Dumb camera thieves (long but hoping Allan will end his comments)

[Allan Wafkowski <allanwafkowski@mac.com>]

I disagree with your choice, but I do understand the difficult decision 
you made and would have never used your decision to buttress an argument 
against you.

Allan


On Thursday, August 8, 2002, at 07:54 PM, Simon Lamb wrote:
> Let me enlighten you as to why I said what I said, just so you are left 
> in
> no doubt, and why an abortion is sometimes the right choice to make.
>
> Four years ago, and after having had two girls, my wife was pregnant 
> with
> our third child.  We were very much hoping for a boy as it would have
> completed our lovely family.  When she went for the second ultrasound 
> scan
> the hospital detected an abnormality in the baby's heart, which was 
> later
> diagnosed as hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS).  This meant that 
> the
> left side of the baby's heart had not formed so there was only one side
> functioning.  To compound this, it was discovered after further scans 
> that
> the right side had a leak in the valve between the upper and lower 
> chambers,
> and so that side was not properly functioning.
>
> We were told by three consultants that the baby would die within 
> minutes of
> being born and that, although there is a possibility of correcting 
> HLHS, it
> would not be possible in our case.  The corrective treatment involves 
> three
> open heart operations, the first of which is carried out 24 hours after 
> the
> birth.  The success rate is very, very small.  The other complicating 
> factor
> was that the baby could die whilst in the womb, which would then have
> endangered my wife.
>
> By now my wife was distraught, as was I, and we had to decide what to 
> do.
> Should she go the full term, knowing the risk to her if the baby died 
> in the
> womb and that if she went the full term she could hold our newborn baby 
> for
> a few minutes before hearing it's last breath, or should she be induced 
> in
> order to have the baby prematurely, in which case it would die before 
> coming
> into the world.  We had two weeks to decide and they were the worst two
> weeks of our lives.
>
> We decided to have the bay prematurely, or as you would say Allan, we
> aborted the pregnancy.
>
> We spent three days in the hospital waiting for the inducing to work,
> wishing deep down that it wouldn't because we knew we would see our dead
> baby at the end of it all.  Eventually the baby was born.  The nurse 
> picked
> the baby up and told us it was a boy.  I still have dreams in which I 
> can
> hear my wife screaming 'No', a long lingering scream because she so 
> wanted
> to give me a son, and I would have loved to have had one too.  The 
> nurse let
> us hold our son and we both wept and told him we were sorry.
>
> That was four years ago.  Every single week since then, I have heard my 
> wife
> crying.  Sometime I hear her in bed sobbing herself to sleep, and there 
> is
> nothing I can do to comfort her.  Some times I cry too.  I am now.
>
> Don’t lecture me or anyone on this list or any other list about the 
> rights
> and wrongs of abortion.  Sometimes there are reasons why abortion is the
> option that must be taken, for the sake of all the souls concerned.
>
> We made our choice and we have to live with it, and the pain that will 
> never
> go away.  But it was the right choice.
>
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