Pro-life opposing abortion. Pro-life advocating for womb hospice, pain and suffering, and ultimately death. Pro-choice opposing suffering. Pro-choice advocating that everyone deserves to live a life that provides them with the best quality of life and an opportunity to thrive at their fullest potential, with as little unnecessary suffering and pain as possible.
In January of 2023, I found out I was pregnant with my 14th baby and what would be my 13th living child. In May of 2023, during our routine ultrasound, when you are excited to see your little baby wiggling around and deciding if you want to know the gender of your baby or not, we received gut-wrenching information. We learned this baby had a potentially terminal illness known as CDH. Our midwife referred us to a group of specialists at Vanderbilt University. The same hospital we delivered our 5th baby and 1st angel baby at.
Our visit started out with not great news but hopeful news. Our baby would need immediate surgery after birth, spend months in the NICU, and have an uphill battle to fight after leaving the hospital. We would need to undergo several more tests, and I would have to be watched closely over the next few months. Despite this news, we were hopeful. Believing that this little life growing inside of me was a fighter and deserved the chance to fight and the opportunity of living. We chose pro-life.
That following month we were hit with another blow. Our baby was diagnosed with Trisomy 18, a fatal diagnosis. The doctors would not perform surgery on him after birth, and because of his CDH diagnosis, we would be lucky if he lived a few hours outside of the womb. Still hopeful and praying for a miracle, we decided to have one more test done, an MRI of the baby.
This exam only came with another blow that would have led us to pro-choice. He didn’t have a left lung. This diagnosis meant he was in hospice care in my womb and would die immediately after birth. It was a death sentence for our baby. Not being strangers to this type of diagnosis, we immediately begin to ask what our choices were. Imagine our surprise when we learned there were none. Zero. Carry this baby to full term and watch him suffer once he enters the world.
The overturn of Roe vs. Wade took away any choice we had as parents of a terminally ill baby. The overturn of Roe vs. Wade meant I would have to suffer knowing that the baby I was carrying inside me, feeling move and what felt like thrive, would die before I could ever feel or smell his baby breath. The overturn of Roe vs. Wade meant I would have to find a new way to explain my due date when people asked when our baby was due. The overturn of Roe vs. Wade meant this baby would suffocate the moment he entered the world, struggle and suffer before finally dying and returning to heaven. Me and his daddy would have to watch him endure this just moments after bringing him into this world. The overturn of Roe vs. Wade made us monsters and horrible parents because who would ever choose to watch their child struggle to breathe before dying. But we had no choice.
I had to gather myself and figure out how I would explain this to my family. Many of them weren’t aware of our pregnancy. We were eagerly and patiently waiting to find out the sex before sharing the wonderful news. Instead, we would have to figure out to share congratulations turned condolences. I would have to explain to my other children that this baby would never leave the hospital, and by the time they got to hold him and love him, his tiny soul would have already left his body. There were no words, no emotion, that could explain my feelings.
My body would do everything it should for the next four months to grow and nourish this baby, which would die the moment it left my womb. I am this baby’s life supply. Without me, this baby has no life to live. Is this what they mean by pro-life?
I will have to walk by baby sections with a baby bump knowing that I am carrying a baby that will die.
I will have to put my life on the line to give birth to this baby just for him to have no life, and the little life he will experience will be a life of suffering.
I will have to feel the baby kicks and remember, Tanyell, he isn’t going to live. Every day for 4 months. I have no choice.
Even a mom whose baby is on this side of the earth has a choice to remove life support from their dying baby who is suffering. But not me. I have to feel this baby thrive for the next four months and then watch him die the moment he enters this world. I am walking hospice care without a choice to prevent him from suffering.
When we made the choice to deliver Jb jr early, it was the hardest choice I ever had to make in life. I loved him already. I wanted him so badly. I wanted life for him. My love for him made a difficult choice, the right choice. The thought of my baby suffering and dying in my arms made me physically sick. I loved him too much to make that choice. I begged God for a miracle, but there was none. I thanked God for doctors and modern-day medicine that would make my little baby’s transition back to heaven safe, smooth, and pain-free.
I remember giving birth to him and the room being silent. A peaceful yet eery silence. Just me, my husband, and the doctor. She handed us our deceased and beautiful baby and allowed us to love on him for as long as we needed. Our family and friends made visits and held his lifeless body. We cried, mourned, we ached, we were angry, but in the midst of it all, we could tell everyone he was born peacefully. He had no pain and suffering on this side of the world. He was born an angel!
I don’t know what this little guy’s first moments of life will consist of. The choice has been taken away from me. I don’t know if there will be chaos. I don’t know if there will be suffering and pain. I don’t know if he will try to fight and breathe and fight and breathe before finally leaving this earth. I don’t know if he will open his little mouth to cry, and there will be silence and pain. I don’t know.
I do know I would never choose any of this for him. I would choose life if there was life to be had, but I would also choose peace if there was peace to be had. If I had a choice, I would choose love. I would choose what is best for my baby, whom I love more than words. But there is no choice, only life, suffering, and death.
As I carry this baby through hospice and try my best to love him through the womb and provide him with the best possible life and experience inside of my body while also caring for my own emotional, mental, and physical well-being. I cry and pray every night to God to believe in pro-life and provide us with a miracle. Give this baby life outside of the womb because prayer and hope is the only choice I am left with.
I pray to God that I am not angry and that my body, mental, emotional, and faith can handle whatever choice God chooses. Because unlike those who overturned Roe vs Wade, God is pro-choice. He chooses who lives and dies, who suffers, and who doesn’t. He has given us modern-day medicine and doctors so we, too, can choose and be pro-choice. He calls it free will.
But somewhere along the way me, and this baby lost free will. The very freedom God gave me, I no longer have.
And so the journey of hope and healing begins.
Tanyell Cole 2025 