“When I looked into my newborn child’s face, all I could think about was the child that I cannot hold this side of heaven,” the woman wrote. “I feel like that child is haunting my heart. Is that normal?”
Abortion is an obvious death experience. After abortion, most women must work to believe the myth offered by abortion clinics that there is no regret after this choice. Yet there is often a deep emptiness afterwards as the soul of the aborted child is missed from the mother at a biological level.
When the aborted child’s placenta detaches from his mother’s womb, the mother often feels this separation deep within her soul. This “emptiness” often feels haunting as an abortion experience is difficult to ignore or forget.
The likely reason for this empty feeling is a result of the hormone, Oxytocin, streaming through a mother’s body during pregnancy. It is designed to create a bond between the mother and child. Oxytocin also makes memories vivid and long-lasting. Since Oxytocin levels remain strong for several weeks after an abortion, abortion memories can be quite vivid.
In addition to the hormonal impact, the biological impact of microchimerism also adds to the “haunting” impact in the woman’s heart. During pregnancy, the mother and child exchange small quantities of cells. The ongoing cellular presence of this child in the mother’s body is called microchimerism.
This scientific concept of microchimerism explained why my mother’s heart could not forget my aborted child. We maintained a biological connection at a cellular level. It also verified why I always felt so close to my own mother and three sons.
Microchimerism also explains the way women often feel “haunted” by their aborted child. This biological connection to every child–whether living or dead–remains in the mother’s body for the rest of her life.
When I became a mother seven years after my abortion, the sound of a baby crying woke me from my sleep. My newborn son was sleeping soundly in his bassinet next to me. Confused, I got up and followed the sound. In those moments, I felt that my aborted child was haunting me.
Guilt and anxiety filled my heart as I searched for the source of the sound. As the sound grew louder, I discovered my son’s baby monitor had simply picked up another child’s monitor. I then overheard this child’s mother coming in and quietly calming the infant.
That haunting moment reminded me of Isaiah 49:15 NIV describes, Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!
My heart was once again overwhelmed with shame, guilt, and grief. Coming back into my bedroom, my tiny son was stirring for his nighttime feeding. As I put him to my breast, I quietly wept for my lost child. My abortion grief had finally broken through the surface of my soul.
In considering my lost child in those moments, one of my biggest fears concerned my arrival in heaven. Would my baby—whom I had named Jesse—hate me? I wondered if I would even recognize my child. For a time I became worried about his welfare in heaven—who was caring for him?
During my abortion recovery class, my mother sent me an encouraging note. Before I was born, two of my sisters had died in infancy. In her letter, my mother acknowledged that she loved her grandchild in heaven as she loved her daughters.
I realized that my Jesse had family with him! His two aunts were with him in heaven along with all his family’s ancestors on both maternal and paternal sides that believed in Jesus! There was a whole assembly of family members there to greet him. God then confirmed to me that Jesus is the greatest parent a child could ever have!
Worried that Jesse would reject me, I asked for God’s help again and opened my Bible to find answers. I discovered that God is the only Judge in heaven. He is the One who will dispel mercy or judgment depending on whether or not we were repentant on earth and believed in his Son. Not once in Scripture does it say that humans were going to judge other humans in heaven!
In Luke 16:19-31 Jesus spoke about this truth. A rich man and a beggar both died. The beggar went to heaven but the wealthy man went to hell. The rich man saw the beggar from Hades and asked Father Abraham to have mercy and to send the beggar to give him water to cool his tongue.
In verse 25-26 it relays his response, But Abraham said, “Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented. And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.”
God had already placed the rich man in Hades, and there was nothing to be done. But there is still plenty of time for post-abortive individuals to find God’s comfort and peace to ensure that they will meet their children in heaven when they die.
If you are post-abortive and feeling haunted, realize your lost child has always been a real person to God because he created him/her. While we may have rejected our unborn children as a gift from God, He has always cared for these children! There is no sadness in heaven, only peace.
Should you or someone you know be struggling with a past abortion, our Her Choice to Heal healing site can help you begin to understand abortion’s impact at a deeper level and begin God’s healing process. There is no sin that God cannot forgive – even abortion.
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