New years bring new goals, resolutions and new opportunities for memories – some good and some not.
For instance, remembering my favorite Christmas is good, but remembering January 1973, when the US Supreme Court legalized abortions, for any reason or no reason, allowing abortions through all nine months of pregnancy is not a good memory. That amounts to 60 million bad memories in America waiting for retribution – “Vengeance is Mine. I will repay,” says the Lord.
In memory of those aborted babies, I am quoting Dr. James Dobson’s article on Dr. Frederic Loomis’ personal experience of drama in the delivery room. This incident occurred two years after he moved to California. A young woman came to his office.
“One month before her baby was due, her routine examination showed that her baby was in a breech position. Ordinarily, most babies turn head down a few months prior to birth. That means that only about one baby in 25 is born in the breech position.”
“The death rate for breech babies is comparatively high because of the difficulty in delivering a breech baby and the imperative need to do so quickly before the lack of oxygen reaches the baby’s bloodstream and inevitably then, the baby dies in a few short minutes.”
“In this case, it was a ‘complete’ breech – the baby’s legs and feet were folded under it, tailor fashion in contrast to a ‘frank’ breech in which the thighs and feet are folded up on a baby’s body like a jackknife. The baby’s little rear end would back its way into the world.”
“I had to wait an agonizing time until the natural forces of expulsion have thoroughly dilated the firm maternal structures. At last, the time had come, and I gently drew down one little foot. I grasped the other, but it would not come down beside the first one. I pulled again, gently enough but with a little force, and with light pressure on the abdomen from above by my assisting nurse, the baby’s body moved down just enough for me to see that it was a little girl. Then to my chagrin, I saw that the other foot would never be beside the first one, The entire thigh from the hip to the knee was missing, and that one foot never could reach below the opposite knee. That pitiful sight etched itself in my memory forever. And a baby girl was to suffer this defect.
“There followed the hardest struggle I have ever had with myself. I knew what a dreadful effect it would have upon the unstable nervous system of the mother. I felt sure that the excited family waiting in the corridor would almost certainly impoverish itself in taking the child to every orthopedist in the world whose achievements might offer a ray of hope.”
“Most of all, I saw this little girl sitting sadly by herself while others girls laughed and danced and ran and played, and then I suddenly realized that there was something that would save every pang but one, and that one thing was in my power.”
“If only I did not hurry! If I could slow my hand, if I could make myself delay those few short moments left. I would not be an easy delivery, anyway. No one in all this world would ever know. The mother, after the first shock of grief, would probably be glad she had lost a child so sadly handicapped. In a year or two, she would try again, and this tragic fate would never be repeated.”
“My thoughts continued to assault my mind. Don’t bring this suffering on them. Don’t let her ever take that first breath. Don’t hurry. Don’t be a fool and bring this terrible thing upon them.”
I motioned to the nurse for the warm sterile towel that is aways ready for me in a breech delivery. But this time the towel was only to conceal from the attending nurses that which my eyes alone had seen. With the touch of the pitiful little foot in my hand, a pang of sorrow for the baby’s future swept through me. I glanced at the clock. Three of the seven or eight minutes had already gone. My decision was made.
Part II of “Drama in the Delivery Room” will post next week