You don't know what you don't know.

     This seems like a complete no brainer comment, "you don't know what you don't know."  It is such an important and profound statement, that it should have a huge exclamation point at the end with flashing neon signs around it.  I can't emphasize enough the blindness experienced by the woman facing a crisis pregnancy.  There are so many issues standing in her way of thinking, reasoning, and planning.  There are so many variables that may or may not impact her decision making abilities:  how old is she, not just chronologically, but emotionally? does she know how to make decisions based on what she wants and needs? is she more concerned about what her co-workers, boyfriend, or parents will think of her being pregnant right now, or more concerned about what she thinks and about what is best for her unborn child? does she have the means to support herself and a child? does she have support emotionally, financially, and physically? has she been abused in her past? has abuse and rejection and devaluing behaviors of others prevented her from seeing her own worth and the worth of her child? if she sees herself as worthless, is the child's worth and value of paramount concern? is it even a factor?

     It is so common to look back a decade or two later and say, "I couldn't even see that I had options, let alone identify them and process them to come to the conclusion of what a solution would look like."  That's what I mean about not knowing what you don't know.  It takes emotional maturity and insights to make good decisions, especially big decisions like getting married and/or having a baby.  If we have not been allowed to mature developmentally appropriately, because of trauma or abuse in our lives, it hinders us from first of all knowing that what we think and feel really does matter, and secondly, what we need in terms of making decisions for ourselves, matters more than what anyone else in the world thinks, or might say about what we do.  If an unexpectedly pregnant young woman has been taught all of her life through others' actions that what she wants and needs is not important, and is taught to be invisible or only be concerned about what makes momma and daddy happy, then that young woman will do what she feels she has to in order to keep pleasing mom and dad and anyone else in her world that she does not want to disappoint, and what she thinks or wants will be in the much too distant background.  It's impossible to make a baby invisible, and if that's been your real mode of operation all your life, and if that's your main survival skill, then what would you think you would have to do when faced with a crisis pregnancy?  You would try to make your baby invisible, abortion would allow you to do that.  It would look like the only available option that you have.  If all of the cells of the flowchart came back to making mom and dad happy, and you knew that having a baby outside marriage was not going to make them happy, and without making them happy you are in the position of complete and utter rejection, and abandonment, then you would make the choice to make them happy, which would mean making the baby disappear, there's the option of abortion again.  This is the most awful, nasty, hopeless place to ever, ever, ever find yourself in, when abortion looks like a good idea, something has gone horribly wrong!  Because, I can promise you all of the denial in the world will not be able to drown out the longing you will have for your child the rest of your life.  It may seem like, "it's just a procedure, it'll be over with in a little while and I can go on with my life, and it'll just be my little secret and no one will ever have to know about it;" but all of that is a lie, as one of my former pastors used to say, "That's a lie, born in hell and raised by the devil!"  Amen!

     I wish I could be there every time a young woman finds out she's going to have a baby; and instead of it being the most wonderful news she could ever receive, it's the most horrible thing she can imagine happening to her right then at that time.  I would like to whisper in her ear that I know how she feels, and put my arms around her and tell her that no matter what that main fear is in her heart and in her mind at that moment, that I can and will help her over come it.  Whatever that obstacle is, that in her minds' eye is an impossible giant that she could not possibly beat, we will find the means to defeat it and overcome it.  I wish I could tell her that if I don't know the answer, I'll help her find out what it is, that I will not leave her side until we find the option that will keep her baby alive, because it does matter, and it is real, and she will never get over it if she takes her baby's life away.