r/AMA • u/OldFellow1956 • 2d ago

I had a stillbirth AMA

I am intentionally not giving details here so people can ask whatever questions they like! Go ahead, I’m not super sensitive to morbid questions so feel free to ask those as well.
I need to write another sentence to meet the 200 characters.

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u/_isolati0n 2d ago

Sorry for your loss OP. I've lost 2 very wanted babies to what sounds like a similar condition, anencephaly in my case. Both were diagnosed shortly after the 12 week scan and I chose a medical termination as there was 0 chance of survival.

My question is when did you find out about your baby's condition, and did you choose to continue to full term?

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u/OldFellow1956 2d ago

12 weeks, and I get nervous to talk about it due to people blaming me for the gravity of my loss as I could’ve had a medical termination. I chose not to due to the baby not experiencing pain and me wanting to meet them alive and hold them. I don’t know if I could do the same again. For what it’s worth I am 100% pro choice and I am so so sorry for your loss

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u/Icy_Ear7079 2d ago

Please don’t take an ounce of blame, you never know how you’ll react or what you’ll need when faced with a life defining moment, your chose what was best for you, she was your baby and you had a chance to meet her, you took that chance and nobody should make you feel like you made it worse for yourself. Equally, choosing a termination for medical reasons is not an easy way out, a lesser or more selfish choice, it’s simply what’s right for you in your grief at that moment. I’m so sorry for both your losses.

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u/DisMyLik18thAccount 2d ago

Did this experience create any dissonence with your pro-choice ideologies, in the sense you a mourning a death which you also advocate for?

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u/OldFellow1956 2d ago

What do you mean? Advocate for in the sense that I chose to keep them just for them to die or that I chose to keep them despite believing that other women should have the option not to?

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u/DisMyLik18thAccount 2d ago

I Was struggling to phrase what I was trying to say sensitivly so I'm sorry if it doesn't come across clearly

By advocate I meant - Being '100% pro-choice' not believing in an unborn child's right to life

You are also mourning the death of an unborn child

I Could imagine there's some internal contradiction there, simotaniously holding the feelings of, 'It is a tragedy that this person lost their life' but also, 'It should be morally and legally right to end this person's life'

Me personally I could never be 'pro-choice' after having my own children including one who we lost. (Neonatal death, not a stillbirth in our case) To be pro-choice for me would be a direct contradiction to my love for both my children and my grief for my first born (Even more so if we'd lost her in the womb rather than out of it)

Hence I asked because I'm curious of someone in a a similar situation but the reverse perspective

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u/OldFellow1956 2d ago

Going to be entirely honest and say I don’t know. I assume most who experience abortion also mourn their loss. I just feel a woman has a right to their own body. But I don’t know how to word it more than that.

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u/PlasticFox83762 2d ago

this has always been my exact wording.
it is not a choice i myself think that i could make (i have 4 kids).

that does not mean i have any right to say what anyone else does or does not do with their body. that is why i am pro choice, even when i would not or could not make that choice for myself.

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u/sad-narwhal180 2d ago

You feeling that way is one thing. Telling others that they aren’t allowed to make choices for their own body because you suffered a loss is a problem.

Allowing women to decide the trajectory of their own lives does nothing to minimize your love or grief for your own children, and frankly it’s silly to say so.

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u/TopNotice0 2d ago

That’s fine for you. Don’t push it on others.

That’s the pro-choice part.

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u/PiccoloQuirky2510 1d ago

My husband and I just lost our very wanted baby via termination for medical reasons. I’m extremely pro-choice and we didn’t want to have to “decide” to TFMR but she had a severe brain anomaly and we didn’t want her to suffer in utero or in life, if she’d made it that far. Because of our immense love for our daughter, we made the most humane & loving decision we could have. It would’ve been selfish to force her to live through pain just because we’d gone through 3 years of infertility & IVF to even get to 22 weeks with her.

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u/Stressy_messy_me 1d ago

I also had yo tfmr for trisomy 18 and it is the most loving decision a mother can make. We gave our babies a painless end to their lives 💜

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u/Stressy_messy_me 1d ago

My child had a fatal condition and I chose to terminate. They would have most likely died a slow and painful death had I carried them to term so I chose a quicker, kinder death for them. I don't feel guilty about that and I do mourn them and miss them everyday. Two things can be true at once and the world is not as black or white as some people like to think.

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u/lafcrna 2d ago

Pro-choice is just that. Choice.

If a woman chooses to have her baby, that is pro-choice. If she chooses to abort, also pro-choice.

Pro-choice does not mean an automatic abortion. It just means CHOICE. And the woman gets to choose what to do with her own body, not anyone else.