by Tammy Stearns, MS, RDMS, RVT, RT(R), FSDMS, FAIUM, LAS

Imaging in Pregnancy Help Medical Clinics (PHMCs) places each of us on the front lines regarding abortion.  What might have started as an easy, “yes” to help a friend, inadvertently placed us within a movement that allows us the privilege to image in Holy Ground.  At the same time, God is knitting His creation in its mother’s womb, and we intimately understand the reality of life and death.  For some babies, we may be the only ones who pray for them and honor them as we scan.  Over time, this can be wearing on one’s soul.

Several years ago, we received a call from an abortion provider asking if we could scan an early OB exam.  Their sonographer was out for the day.  We had an open-door policy for them.  If they needed an ultrasound done, we would be more than happy to provide the service.  This allowed us to not only interact with their client but also be the ones to show her the baby in a calm and less clinical fashion.  The history that we were given was that she had an abortion three months ago and that she was pregnant again.  She was determined to abort again and was simply looking for verification of the pregnancy so she could schedule the procedure.  We added her on the schedule and instructed them to send her right over.

I remember before I walked into the room to do the exam, I hesitated.  I went back into the office with the pregnancy wheel to see how far along the first pregnancy would have been if she had not had the abortion.  I’m not sure why I did this, but I felt like I needed to know.  Perhaps, it would come up in conversation regarding this pregnancy, I thought.  I hesitated again, praying for her and her unborn baby.  Prayed that God would give me the words, the love, and that she would see Him through me. 

I realize now that He was preparing me for what I was about to see.

As I entered the room, the lights were already turned down.  She was accompanied by her mother and there was little dialogue between the two as I prepared to scan.  It was so very quiet.  I remember placing my transducer down and seeing instantly on the screen not an early baby but one that was easily in the second trimester.  She saw as quickly as I did, and responded, “I can’t do this.”   I began to pray as I started scanning her baby, narrating what I was seeing.  I started with the baby’s face, its hands and its feet.  We looked at the baby’s beating heart, and I began to hear sobs in the room.  See, the baby that we were scanning somehow, someway, wasn’t a new pregnancy but was the baby from the pregnancy that had been aborted.  Only God.

Only God.

Her mother asked, “How?” 

“I don’t know,” I replied, “but sometimes we are given second chances.”  As I continued to scan. 

Slowly, her mother revealed that she, herself, had an abortion at the same age as her daughter.  It was all that she knew to do.  It was the only answer she had for her daughter.  What a blessing it was to be able to share the many answers for the both of them.  Through the services at the PHMC, we were able to help the mother with post-abortion care and walk through her daughter’s pregnancy with her.  There was freedom found in that room that day.

I still reflect upon that day with wonder.  What if we would have said, “No.”?   What if the sonographer at the abortion provider would have been there that day?   So many “what-ifs” and yet, the God Who called us to image the unborn planned each and every detail ever so perfectly.  (At that time, I was the only imager confident in scanning past the first trimester.  I happened to be at the PHMC that day instead of in the mobile unit.). God’s timing was ever so perfect.

In this calling that God has placed upon our lives to image the unborn, we can easily get caught up in the details, fretting over this and that and forgetting that the God Who called us is that God Who moves mountains, even today.  With one word, He could change all of this.  One simple command.   Yet, in His sovereignty He chooses not to.  He simply asks us to be obedient and do the part that He has given us to do.  No more.  No less.  Sometimes, we get to image a client’s baby and she chooses life.  Sometimes, we get to image a client’s baby and she chooses to abort.  Our part in all of this is to image as He allows us to image.  To do our part.  Too often we try to hold onto all of the burden making it our own to carry when it was never ours to carry at all.  We become disillusioned, hurt, bitter, and jaded.

In Matthew 11:28-30 we are told,

^“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

He doesn’t ask us to carry the heavy burdens.  I know several incredible imagers that no longer will scan in PHMCs after several clients chose to abort.  Taking that burden on themselves, the burden of life and death was too heavy to bear.  Yet, when we take only what He gives us to carry and we allow Him to work through us, our part is found in our obedience, not in the outcome.  Lean into Him. Let Him work through you.  Carry your part and your part only and you will find that His yoke is easy and His burden is light