"Momma, Please, Please, don't tell Daddy?"

Mother of Means Helps Daughter Kill Baby

Three months ago, a "Mother-of-Means well-known in High-Society Circles" - discovered her teen-aged daughter was pregnant. Daughter begged her mother to help her and made her promise not to tell her father, a public official who shall remain nameless. Mother agreed and arranged an abortion.

Now daughter is struggling greatly with her conscience at having "murdered-her-own-baby" as well as deceiving her "Fine-Father".

Mother is struggling equally at her foolishness in turning her daughter loose to date at such a young age (casting her to the wolves!) at killing her first grandchild, and st betraying her husband's trust - still unable to tell her ever-more-insistent husband what's wrong with his ever-more-depressed daughter and ever-more-distressed wife.

Here the foolish 'Pop-Culture' mother - tells her disturbing story...

The "blue and white box" from the pregnancy test gave my daughter away. I saw it lying on the floor under her bed when I went in to tidy her bedroom Saturday morning in early January '08. I'm mildly asthmatic and felt my chest go tight with shock, fighting for breath and dizziness as I bent down to pick it up.

I knew what it was at once. Ironically, it was exactly the same kind of test I'd used myself when I found out I was pregnant with my pregnant daughter's younger sister who's 12.

The box was empty. My heart thudded with anxiety. I knew the test had to belong to my eldest daughter, just turned 15. Was my daughter pregnant? I had to find out as soon as possible.

I could hear her talking on her mobile downstairs, arranging to meet her friend for lunch at the local shopping center. I called her to come upstairs immediately, starting to feel angry now as well as worried. I kept thinking: 'How could she do this to me?'

As she walked into the room and saw the box in my hand, her face changed. Realizing I'd discovered her secret, she broke down, wailing 'Oh, Mother!' as she fell into my arms, sobbing like a five-year-old.

I had my answer. My beautiful, clever 15-year-old daughter, whose private school teachers were already predicting a very bright future for her, was pregnant. I didn't have to tell her what a disaster this was.

Seeing her distress, however, my anger drained away immediately.

Holding my daughter tightly in my arms, I promised her: 'It will be all right, darling. We'll make it all right.'

I felt fiercely protective, cursing myself for not policing her more strictly when she went out with her 18-year-old boyfriend, Jack, who goes to a local boys' public school nearby. They'd met at a disco two months earlier, and I recalled daughter joking that it was like Romeo meeting Juliet.

Now, I wondered how I could have been so naive as to trust them together alone when they had stayed in at his house or ours sometimes when we were out. She told me that she had lost her virginity to him, and used a condom which had split.

I dreaded the thought of telling publicly-elected office holding husband - who would be aghast at the public reaction (remember Sarah Palin's daughter getting pregnant during the last Presidential campaign!)that his 15-year-old-daughter was pregnant by a guy she just met!

Although he adores his daughters, like a lot of old-fashioned men, he finds it difficult to communicate with them at the best of times. I knew his first impulse would be to go straight over to see Jack's parents, blame them for their older son taking advantage of his young and innocent daughter - then stuff Jack in a garbage can - head first!

As a mother, I felt my first consideration had to be to my daughter in distress.

The important thing now was to support her through this crisis. Whatever she wanted, I would help her to do - even though my heart sank at the prospect - if it was to have her child and bring it up myself while she went to university.

It was then that vulnerable daughter, looking up at me with a pale, tear-stained face, suddenly pleaded:

'Momma, please, please, don't tell Daddy?'

I didn't know what to do. I knew I should tell her straight away that I had to tell her father, that there was no way I could keep her pregnancy secret from my own husband.

But then I looked back at her, and seeing how upset she was, I just told her: 'Sssh - don't talk about that now. How many weeks pregnant are you? Have you thought about what you want to do?'

Without a moment's hesitation she answered: 'Yes, Momma. I've already talked to one of those teenage pregnancy helplines. I think I'm about eight weeks. The woman said it was very simple if you did it this early. I've told Jack, too, but he hasn't told his parents.'

'I want to have an abortion as soon as I can, so I don't have time to think about there being a baby inside me.'

I feel so guilty now, two months later, for not paying more attention to my daughter's words. I should have realized that allowing her to block off her feelings about her pregnancy was not a healthy way to deal with such a traumatic experience.

But at the time, I admit to feeling relieved that she didn't want to keep her baby.

Knowing so much about the physical, emotional and financial cost of raising a child, I feared that my daughter might ruin her life if she made the wrong decision.

What I didn't realize was how terrible she was going to feel after her child had been taken from her.

I had never had an abortion and I didn't feel strongly for or against them - but then I'd never had someone so close to me in that position.

After sitting and talking with her for what seemed like hours, I agreed to make an appointment for her to see a doctor at a private clinic in the city next week. Fortunately, neither my husband, who had gone into the office to catch up on some work, or youngest daughter, who was having a sleepover at a friend's house, were at home that day.

Planning it in detail, daughter and I agreed that I would tell her school that she had a dental appointment. I promised her I would go with her, and that for the time being at least I would not tell her father what we were doing.

Then I told her to go off and meet her friend, and try, for at least a few hours, to forget her troubles.

She did, and admitted she and Jack had sex as many times as they could that evening: why not? Too late to worry about getting pregnant now, and it couldn't make anything worse!

After she had gone out, I made a cup of coffee for myself and sat down and wept. What had my husband I been doing to let our 15-year-old daughter an go out with her boyfriend alone? I'd trusted my daughter not to 'do anything silly'. I'd believed that she understood how serious it was to risk an unwanted pregnancy.

For a moment, I considered talking to Jack myself. But then I decided that the important person here was daughter. My first priority must be to protect my daughter. I thought that if I could save her from the consequences of her mistake, everything would be as it was before.

Only now, witnessing the aftermath of what she is going through, do I see how wrong I was.

It is not possible - as my daughter and I are both discovering to our cost - to pretend that a life has never existed, even if it was for only a few weeks. But, at the time, I genuinely believed I was acting for the best.

The rest of that weekend was incredibly stressful. Daughter tried to act normal, while I continually watched her, looking out for signs such as sickness, or fatigue, that might lead the others to guess something was wrong.

On Monday, as soon as hubby had left for work and the girls had gone to school, I called a pregnancy advisory service and made an appointment for her for the following day. I kept telling myself that I would tell husband after we'd been to the clinic, when I had got more information.

That night, I hardly slept for worry, and when hubby asked me what was wrong, I told him I was just stressed about my job - as being in the public makes for continual stress.

The more concerned and kind he was, the guiltier I became. Yet still I was unable to tell him the truth - just in case he tried to intervene and make daughter even more upset than she was already.

It felt so wrong the next morning to go and see a doctor about an abortion. Usually, when daughter and I go on a day-out together, it's shopping and to eat-out we are so happy, just chatting. This day, however, we were both silent and sad.

By the time we reached the clinic, which was about an hour from our home, daughter was looking strained and frightened. After going in to see a counselor, daughter came out and told me she was more determined than ever to go ahead with the abortion.

She was then examined by a doctor who confirmed she was pregnant, possibly as much as ten weeks' - much more than she had thought - she would have to undergo a surgical abortion using the "suction-of-a-super-powerful-glorified-vacuum-cleaner" rather than injecting "saline-(salt)-Solution-until-the-baby-is-burned-to-death-in-the-brine".

"How much better" the doctor lectured, "if all young girls had "free-and-immediate-access-through-government-schools" to take an abortion pill like RU-4-86."

Having explained how the termination would be performed under general anesthetic, the doctor then told us that the operation could be done the following week if I could be available take her home afterwards.

Daughter then had to see a second doctor to sign the consent form before returning to see the counselor once more.

Then, handing over my credit card as simply as if we were a department store, I paid more than $1,400 to have a stranger kill my first grandchild!"

Although I'd promised myself I would tell my husband after we'd been to the clinic, I didn't do so. I felt I couldn't now - not after we'd arranged for the operation and the money had been paid.

In the back of my mind I suspected husband might not have wanted his first-born-daughter to go through with it. Although he's not antiabortion on religious grounds, I just knew how he'd feel about his own daughter having one.

I knew what I was doing was very wrong, and I did feel incredibly torn between betraying my husband's trust, and my promise to my daughter cover her sin.

However, knowing my husband would have been very angry that I hadn't told him when I'd first found out, and with daughter still begging me to keep her secret, it felt easier, and less of a betrayal of my daughter, to remain silent.

Seven days later I drove my daughter to a small hospital in the city, where I left her off with a bag containing a nightdress, flannel, soap and toothbrush - as simply if she were just going to stay with a friend.

Later that day, when I went back to get her, she was white and shaking. She looked at least ten years older than when she'd got up that morning.

Although I had been warned by the doctor that she might be very tearful, emotional and tired in the first few hours and days after the termination, I expected she would be relieved, calm and cheerful at the 'whole-sordid-problem' now gone forever.

She didn't cry at all.

In fact, she hardly spoke, just picking at her food and spending most of her time in her bedroom alone. I began to feel more and more worried about her. She absolutely cut-me-off and would not talk. When I asked her about anything, she'd lash out at me in anger saying: "Just leave me alone!"

She slept alot . . . and so did I. Additionally, I also out in extra time at work, staying as late as I could.

After taking her back to the clinic three weeks later for a post operative check-up, she was told she was "physically recovered."

In herself, however, she didn't seem well to me at all. Always an outgoing, talkative girl, she seemed to have turned in on herself, staring silently out of the car window on the way to school. She dropped out of school activities and refused to take phone calls from her friends.

I finally asked her what she'd told Jack, she just said: 'He didn't really want to hear about anything and said we'd have to stop seeing each other, so I just told him it all went a way, that I must have had a miscarriage or something. I thought that would be the least likely to scare him, but he said he didn't want to see me any more anyway.'

My daughter was devastated, a quaking mass of trembling, sobbing, and tears that would not cease. My heart ached for her deeply: The pressure intensified.

Trying to give her every opportunity to talk about how she was feeling, I went in to see her each night after she went to bed. Almost always, she just turned her back to the wall, refused to even speak a word, and if I pressed, she was angry and mean.

About a month after the abortion, she received an invitation to go to a Valentine's Dance. Usually my daughter would have been so eager to go, but she refused instantly and coldly.

Her being 'asked-out' again by another guy, knowing now that my daughter's inhibitions about keeping her purity saving her virginity for marriage were gone forever, when I tentatively asked her about using contraception in any future relationships, she snapped: 'Look, Mother I don't intend to have a date with anyone, ever again - much less have sex.'

Becoming ever-more-concerned about my daughter, I telephoned the abortion clinic and spoke to a doctor, who suggested that I bring her back to talk to a counselor.

When I mentioned this to daughter she simply said "OK." Then one night, as I was leaving her room - after she had refused to speak like an hundred nights before - she called me back. Crying strongly into her pillow, she finally confessed to how she was feeling terribly guilty about "killing her baby".

She said she was so ashamed of herself for having 'sex with a guy who didn't love her, then killing her baby as a way to keep him wanting to be with her. She lost her baby and her lying boyfriend.

Listening to my daughter talking like this, her loss of innocence and the intensely adult emotions she was struggling with, made me feel terribly sad, too, realizing that most of it was MY FAULT. I hadn't taught her properly and far too young I had cast her to the wolves.

I felt powerless to help her, but promised I would take her back to see another counselor who would be professionally trained to help girls who had killed their babies.

When I came back downstairs late that night, hubby was sitting in his armchair with a thoughtful expression. 'What's wrong with number-one daughter?' he asked. 'Is it boyfriend trouble again? I've noticed she's been very low these past few weeks.'

I have never wanted to confess anything to my husband as much as I longed to tell him the truth. But I just couldn't bring myself to say it.

How could I now tell him that his 15-year-old daughter had just had just killed her baby after a rash sexual affair - and that I, her mother, had helped her to arrange it? He would be livid with anger, I wondered if he would ever forgive me for the lies, deceit and betrayal I've been responsible for.

Weeks have now passed in grim depression. It is deeper, and not better. My little girl is no longer a little girl, and has continued to struggle mightily with anxiety and depression as a result of killing her baby.

Her schoolwork is suffering badly, too. Friends are a thing of the past. She never leaves the house, she has no hopes, goals or dreams. She just mopes, weeps and sleeps.

The counselor wants her put on medication and hoping that in time, and the government counseling she is still receiving at the clinic, will help her to recover.

Hubby and second daughter are very aware there's something very wrong - but simply assume it's the 'broken heart of a little girl's "puppy-love". He speaks soothingly and pats her head condescendingly.

I feel terrible about everything: my foolish parenting - or lack thereof - helping my daughter kill her baby without even taking time to 'think-twice', and about betraying my husband.

I did it all keep from ruining my husband's public reputation, and to help my daughter keep from ruining life and future

Although I was only trying to do the best for everyone, in my hast and ignorance I have made an incredibly painful mess of everything for everyone. My heart is injured with a scar for life between my and my husband, and my daughter suffers from a wound that will never heal - unless she agrees to be 'drugged into a stupor.'

I worry it's inevitable that the truth will come out at some stage - as I remember from my Sunday School days many years ago, something about 'be sure your sins will find you out!'

I'm fearfully dreading what my husband will say about my part in all this.

I just wish I had been a wise parent, wish I had been honest with my husband from the beginning and allowed him to speak to the solution, to realize the boyfriend was set to dump our daughter immediately, that killing the baby to keep the boyfriend was such a foolish "woman-thing to do".

How I wish now that we had a beautiful, happy,baby gracing our home! How my daughter's heart would be blessed by the integrity of having "done the RIGHT thing after having done the wrong thing."

How I can easily see now, that s loving, precious baby would heal my daughter's badly wounded heart, and replace the lust for her guy-pal with the true love of her own precious baby!

But it' too late for any of that now. I've ruined my daughter's life.

O she'll be able to go on with life by and by. She'll meet another, fall in love, get married, and hopefully have children of her own - if the D & C didn't scar her physically for life making her barren - but I've ruined her faith ever in her mother as being a person of truth, trust and integrity,

I've taught my daughter

> 'to lie to cover her sins',

> 'to take the quickest short-cut',

> 'to take the easy way out',

> 'to deceive her husband',

> 'to give in to childish pleading against all adult wisdom.'

My daughter will, eventually, recover from this abortion, at least enough to function (as hundreds of millions of women have) . . .

. . . but I fear she will NEVER recover from my 'poor parenting, for being a mindless-pop-culture-mother.

So if you're mindlessly surfing the TV tonight - trying to figure out who I am - DON'T! Turn it off, get out your Bible and do something of substance with your daughters.

Learn my stupid Hollywood example: "Go thou and do oppositely!"