Changing Perspectives: Personal Situations Influence Perspectives

Different situations can be interpreted by different people in many ways. Things like religion, cultural, and personal beliefs can influence a person's perspective on what they are seeing. A person's background, mood, and personality all figure into their perspective as well. In this article I will discuss a situation in which another person and I were a part of and the different perspectives that we had on the situation. I will also discuss the different reasons for those perspectives. A person's viewpoint can be traced to their backgrounds and feelings on different matters.

It all started with a positive pregnancy test. I was elated! I was expecting my second child with my fiancé, E.G. E.G. and I already had a precious little girl who was about to turn one. I was a little nervous about having two small children so close in age, but still very excited. E.G. admitted that he was more excited about this baby than he was when I was expecting our daughter, Karlee. We discussed it and decided that we were going to tell our family and friends about the new pregnancy right away. We were too excited to hold the good news to ourselves. We had to wait until the pregnancy was at ten weeks to see the baby on an ultrasound. Until then, we busied ourselves talking about different names and even bought the baby a little unisex onesie. We were very happy about our new baby, to say the very least.

The next step was to get our ultrasound. The day finally came. We even took Karlee with us. I couldn't wait to see the baby we were so excited about. We finally were taken back to the ultrasound room, and the technician readied us to see the new baby. E.G. and I looked expectedly at the screen, knowing what to expect from seeing Karlee in the ultrasound not too long before. We didn't see what we had expected to see. We saw what looked like an empty bubble. I knew something was wrong, especially when the technician said, "It doesn't look like you are where you should be in the pregnancy. Let me take these to the doctor, and you can have a seat in the waiting room." I could barely hold back my tears. I knew that something was wrong, and here I had to sit in the waiting room, knowing full well that something was wrong with my baby, while other very pregnant women paraded about the waiting room. To me, it was torturous. To make it worse, the doctor was on an emergency c-section call and I would have to come back in a few hours to speak to him.

Later, I went back to the doctor's office alone. I did not want E.G. to have to entertain Karlee while we received what I knew was going to be bad news. The doctor informed me that the baby had died and shrank, which was why I could not see the baby on the ultrasound screen. He said that my body didn't recognize that the baby had died and was still "acting" pregnant. It was called a "missed miscarriage". He went over every possible situation with me to see if the pregnancy was just behind, but none of those situations turned out to be plausible. He said that eventually my body would recognize that the baby was dead and would then try to expel it, but that could be very dangerous and even life-threatening. The doctor told me that it was ultimately up to me, but he suggested a procedure called a D&E, short for dilation and evacuation. He then called it an "abortion" but assured me that it was just a medical term.

At that point, I had a lot to think about. I do not believe that abortion is the right thing to do. Of course, my beliefs had been based on a live pregnancy being terminated. The doctor saw my hesitation. He assured me that he was a practicing Catholic and that my baby was no longer alive. He even said, "If you were my daughter, I would encourage you to have this procedure. There isn't as much risk involved than if you were to have a miscarriage naturally." I took a deep breath. I felt very alone. I felt pressed to give him an answer. He said, "If you want to have another ultrasound in a few weeks to see where we're at, you can do that. I guarantee you this is no longer a viable pregnancy. Plus, Thanksgiving is in a few days, and I'm sure you don't want to have to go through a miscarriage then." He seemed in a hurry for an answer. So I made the decision to have the procedure done. I didn't want to face another week or two with morning sickness, feeling like I was pregnant, and with my dead baby inside of me. So the doctor made an appointment for me to have surgery the next morning.

Consequently, I had the surgery the next day. I felt very sad. All of the nurses around me were very sympathetic. When I woke up from the surgery, I was crying. I'm sure a part of that was from the anesthesia and another part of it was grief. The doctor came to me while I was still in the recovery room and said, "The procedure went well. I'll be seeing you in two weeks for a checkup." Then he was gone. I was quickly taken to another room where E.G. was waiting for me. It all seemed like a bad dream. However, I had my daughter to take care of at home and Thanksgiving to prepare for, so I did the best I could and tried to get over my feelings as quickly as possible.

Soon, a week passed and I began to bleed heavily. I saw my doctor earlier than the expected appointment and he assured me that everything was fine. He said, "We got the results back from the tissue sample that we took. You should be able to have more children. It's just one of those things. But the abortion went fine. You're good to go." "Abortion"? "Good to go"? I felt horrid. I felt like I had done something wrong. This was my child, reduced to "tissue". I walked out of the doctor's office, past the pregnant women, utterly depressed.

Later on, I still had bleeding troubles. Then on Christmas Eve I began to hemorrhage. E.G. took me to the emergency room where we were told that our doctor "did not get everything out." I was given medicine to push the remaining tissues out. This did not work. I returned to my regular doctor and he gave me the same medicine and put me on others. I then had to go through another ultrasound to be sure that the medicine was working. It was early February before my body returned to normal. The whole time, I resented the doctor for calling my heartbreak an abortion and reducing my baby to a "product of conception".

Meanwhile, I had been seeing a therapist for bouts of depression. Thankfully, she was able to show me my doctor in a different light than I had been seeing him. My doctor had been his practice for 30 years. During that time, he had seen many miscarriages and failed pregnancies. To him, this was just another one of those instances. He had called the procedure an "abortion" because this was technically what it was. He is a very busy man. While he surely has compassion for his patients, he cannot spend the time consoling them for their losses. In reality, no amount of consoling can ease the pain of losing a baby. Miscarriages are more common than many people realize. He probably meant for us to be happy when announcing that we could try for another baby and that we were "good to go". Also, it is hard for a male to understand the intimate connection a women has for her baby before it is even born. He simply cannot experience it.

In conclusion, my personal experience had many depths of perspective. It was hard for me to look outside of my pain to see what my doctor saw during a mostly routine situation for him. While his bedside manner could have used a few improvements, anything remotely insensitive seemed a major insensitivity to me at the time. The word "abortion" is clinically correct to him, and horribly personal to me. All in all, with time I was able to understand our differences and overcome them. Everyone is different in how they view different situations, and emotions and beliefs can definitely influence those perspectives.