Hurting due to an abortion?

[Heavens Flowers]

Please post links and unjudgmental comments of support to help those dealing with the loss, suffered due to abortion. We are here to help listen and pray for those affected not judge or condemn. Please post here things you believe can help people affected by abortion.

[4elise]

Originally Posted by Heavens Flowers

Please post links and unjudgmental comments of support to help those dealing with the loss, suffered due to abortion. We are here to help listen and pray for those affected not judge or condemn. Please post here things you believe can help people affected by abortion.

Do you know if there is a national organization such as The Rachel Ministry, or a St. Anne's Guild which are local - or would is it just a woman can contact her own parish Priest, or the Archdiocese for these resources?

[Heavens Flowers]

Here are some National websites to help the healing after abortion. I hope this helps
http://www.noparh.org.

www.hopeafterabortion.com/rachel/ -

I'm not sure where local is exactly for you, but if you contact the people in these links they could direct you to a local organization to help you.

[4elise]

Originally Posted by Heavens Flowers

Here are some National websites to help the healing after abortion. I hope this helps
http://www.noparh.org.

www.hopeafterabortion.com/rachel/ -

I'm not sure where local is exactly for you, but if you contact the people in these links they could direct you to a local organization to help you.

Thank you - it is good to have these resources handy so we can offer help and love to women who are dealing with this and offer God's love!

[beafedor]

Here is a link to the Silent No More Awareness Campaign. http://www.silentnomoreawareness.org/
I encourage those hurting to read our testimonies, register and contact their regional coordinator. We are mothers, fathers, grand parents, siblings, aunts... of an aborted baby and we share our regret, suffering and healing in Christ.
Speaking out is for many an additional step in the healing process.There is also a great list of books/DVDs/abortion recovery groups. Prayers and Blessings, Beafedor (regional coordinator in Greenville, SC)

[lumenorientale]

I suppose this is a good place to "spill my guts." I posted on the group messages that I was an atheist before I became Catholic, but I was also a pro life atheist before I became Catholic. It would be even more descriptive to say, I was a post-abortive pro life atheist. As a result of premature sexual activity (and by premature, I mean pre-marital), I became pregnant. The only option that made any sense at the time was abortion. I had all the excuses. I was 19, I was in college, I was not ready to be a parent, nor was my boyfriend, our families would never support us. I felt so alone, and what made me feel more so was the statement that my boyfriend at the time made "I will support whatever choice you make." So, it was on me, then? It was totally my responsibility? If that is the case, I thought, then I am certainly not up to it. In a word, I was terrified. And this is why women have abortions--because of fear, and no other reason.
I won't go through the details of the "procedure," as they called it, but it was a few months later when I was studying my biology textbook, and it hit me. There it was in black and white that what I had done was murder. And not only that, but the murder of my own child. The tough part was how to forgive myself. And I wouldn't, until I was well within the bosom of the Church, where there would be people to teach me how.
I've told others how I was in my mother's room once, while still an atheist, and I found her antique rosary and bible, which she never used as a non-practicing Catholic. For some reason, and I don't fully understand to this day why I did this, I took the Bible, the Rosary, and began to pray the Rosary according the directions I found in a leaflet within the Bible. I found myself doing it everyday, and then I found myself, a year and a half later, receiving Confirmation and Communion.
Ironically, outside of the community of the people of God, I found only condemnation for what I had done. Even those who preach the virtues of abortion cast their stones at me for my regrets. In the Church, there were people who loved me, who forgave me, who treated me with compassion, and who taught me how to forgive myself. It still hurts. I will have a lifetime of "what-ifs" ahead of me. I miss my child. I robbed the world of someone, I've robbed my son of a big brother or sister for him to look up to. I know that if he had had an older sibling for a role model, he may not have the struggles he has now. I know that I will always regret what I did, whereas I would never have regretted having my baby. It is what it is. I accept this pain and emptiness, because they are all I have left of him, and because I believe it is the Lord's will that I suffer some for what I have done. It is my cross.
Thank you, Heaven's Flowers, for giving me this forum to speak. I give anyone here permission to post a link to this, print it out, hand it to people who are contemplating abortion. Do what God tells you to do with this. I want other women to know what really happens. I've told others about it. Get the word out that during an abortion, a baby dies, but something in the mother and father dies as well.

[Heavens Flowers]

Thank you so much for sharing your story, and I will pray for you and your baby, God bless you!!!

[Grandma GiGi]

In answer to question re any national groups for post abortion healing.Rachael's Vineyard Healing Ministries provides a post abortion retreat for both women,men and any family member who has been affected by abortion. This is a weekend retreat,led by compassionalt facilatators and a priest. I would highly recommend this retreat to anyone who wants to experience God's unfailing love,mercy and forgiveness~~Jeanne