God has given women the ability to nurture a baby inside our bodies till the time they can survive on their own. But yet, the evil one persuades many of us to believe it is a curse rather than a blessing. OB-GYNs also realize that abortions are the opposite of everything they do for women and their babies. Doctors should be healers and not killers.
This story of a woman who decided to stop her abortion midway and choose adoption will persuade you to always choose life rather than death.
Devastated by losing a child
Susan Scotton shares her part of the story where she and her husband could get pregnant easily but were left devastated when their first child was born with a disability and then lived for only 12 days. Again they tried for another baby and then lost their son at two and a half on December 22, 1986, only three days before Christmas.
During this trying time, Susan was finding it hard to lean on her faith and was angry. While 800 miles away, another 18-year-old unmarried woman far away was pregnant with a healthy child and wasn’t happy; she was scared out of her mind and decided she couldn’t keep the baby and wanted an easy way for everyone.
The abortion
So Melissa lay down on the bed, ready for her abortion, when the doctor came in and put on his gloves and didn’t speak to her. She says, “He didn’t tell me what he was gonna do. He didn’t ask me how I was. He didn’t explain to me anything about the procedure. I think every negative emotion that-that someone could feel.”
At the same time, Susan was hoping to adopt a healthy child. “I just prayed for a healthy child. Uh, for the right thing to-to work out.” Susan was devastated after her second son’s death and then her husband left her and she swore she would never get pregnant again. She later remarried and now her husband, Jimmy and she tried for years to adopt.
Jimmy said, “There were so many letdowns, and the process was difficult. But I kept saying, ‘We can do this. God’s helping us. And we just need to stick with it.’” Meanwhile in Indiana, the doctor was about to abort Melissa’s baby when she said, “Right as his hands went in to touch me, his glove hit my left leg. I heard this voice say, ‘It’s not too late, get up.’ I know it’s the Lord, 100%. And I just said, ‘I can’t do this.’ The doctor gets up, rolls his eyes, rips his gloves off, and leaves the room, and left me.”
Melissa saved her baby from abortion but now what would she do with it. A social worker gave her the option of adoption and right away she knew it was going to be good for her unborn son. Melissa shares, “I wanted him…and I think if he was with someone that was more like me, then he would have been raised more like how I would have raised him.”
She found an agency and got a ton of letters from potential parents, but the one that she got from Susan and Jimmy was so special. She said, “And then I just fell in love with Susan. She starts, you know, telling me her story. And she’d been through a lot of pain herself.” Later a phone conversation sealed the deal when Melissa got the perfect answer to her question.
She asked Susan, “How do you bait your hook down there?” To which Susan replied, “‘When we go fishing, we use the cocahoe minnow, and you have to put the hook through the eye of the minnow.’ I said, ‘And I always bait my hook.’” Melissa said, “And I just said, ‘Congratulations, you’re a mom.’ Because I knew – I just, I knew at that point she was gonna be the-the mom that was gonna take him fishing. And-and teaches him the kind of things I would teach him.”
Melissa gave birth to her son in December 1993 and was given the choice to hold her son once before giving him up. She knew it would be harder for her to let him go after holding him, but she says he didn’t cry but was peaceful. Jimmy got the call in Louisiana and was so excited that he forgot to tell Susan that the baby was born.
It was no coincidence that the baby was born on December 22, 1993, exactly 7 years ago when Susan lost her second son. She said, “I get to the phone, and he’s like, ‘It’s a boy!’ And I’m like, ‘Okay, is it real? Is it – it’s really real?’” He was named David James, after Susan’s dad, who had died 9 months earlier. Now they were holding him for the first time on Christmas eve.
Susan shares, “I am crying happy tears. They’re just flowing, flowing. It is – he’s beautiful. He’s just perfect. It’s so joyful! And we walk out of the hospital, Jimmy and I together, and it starts to snow! Now, from Louisiana, that just is just like tears from heaven, just joy, just the ultimate, ultimate joy! It was ‘Wow!’”
Melissa also got married later and started her own family, but she could not forget about the son she gave up for adoption. “Deep down I knew I did the right thing. I knew he was safe, and I knew that they were giving him everything I couldn’t.” Meanwhile, David grew up in a loving Christian home, and spent loads of time fishing with his Mom and Dad. He knew from the start he was adopted and in high school he joined a pro-life group.
The reunion
At 18 he met Melissa and a documentary team picked up their story and filmed the reunion. Melissa remembers, “My heart was racing so fast. Man, I couldn’t get out the door fast enough. I wanted to get there and hug him no matter what. I just wanted to feel that hug and feel that connection. And-and it was a beautiful moment.”
David wanted Melissa to know something, he said, “She made a brave decision and a courageous decision that wasn’t easy. That was the whole reason that we were coming there was to thank her and reaffirm her that her decision was the right decision.” Melissa says, “I felt a lot more freed in my spirit hearing that.”
Now David has finished law school, and he and Melissa have joined in a common goal through speaking engagements and documentary to further the cause of adoption. “I Lived on Parker Avenue,” they work to inform women about adoption and encourage them to choose life. He explains, “Knowing that for every 100 abortions there’s only two adoptions facilitated in this country, we really had a unique opportunity to share the adoption option. And I think that was God’s calling for us. God played a role in all of this. The chain of events is just too-too amazing for me not to think that.”
Melissa adds, “God has had His hand in this from the get-go. And He carried me through. He molded everything.” What a beautiful ending to this story of tears, heartbreak and joy. May God guide us as He guided Melissa in her struggle to choose the right option always.
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