Sierra V. Fedorko

At 16 weeks I found myself in the ER due to bleeding. The risk was placenta previa. While I sat in the waiting room, a girl easily a decade+ younger than myself was wheeled in experiencing extreme pain after taking abortion pills.

Months later I’d wake up one morning with the beginnings of a poem to express, at least in part, the moments of that day in the ER. I didn’t go out of my way to write about this because it is never right to exploit or commodify the stories I or others experience. I’ve gone back and forth on posting this publicly, but sadly this is not an isolated experience as many girls and women alike have experienced the trauma of abortion.

So while the moments from that day demanded a voice to be heard, I knew I could only share the poem aloud if alongside the searing reality I could also communicate hope to the girl whomever she may be and to anyone else who has also experienced the trauma of abortion. Such pain and loss is glaring. Redemption and healing is possible in Christ.

Tenderly and with great care I share this poem publicly.

I was bleeding at 16 weeks,
and I wanted
my baby
safe and sound,
more than anything
else.

but your whole life was bleeding out,
maybe you were 16 years old,
or maybe barley more, wheeled in
as your baby passed
possible complications, but
ravaged nonetheless
by the thing they call a pill, a simple
whimsy, a Choice to make without
so much a consequence, or at least,
so they say.

did you get the summer they
promised you?
do you think about your baby now
and everything you lost?
did they come like wolves for your
innocence,
convince you it’d be momentary,
that you could only gain
from a Choice like this?

I hate the glossy lies they told you,
hate every angle of their coercion,
and I see the contortions of your youth
already shifting fast,
consumed by pain that will fester
deep,
long after, later.

but it doesn’t have to end
like this.
cold rooms, cold arms, harsh lights, and nurses
tending to your devastation,
they’re all so used to this.
but not your mother, not
your mother
crying helplessly
for you
at her baby’s bedside,
and your baby gone too soon.
a part of you,
gone too.

but I know where Gone ends–
into the arms of Jesus,
loved.
and this goes for both of you,
because
after the Choice
you can choose again
but this time you’ll not be lead
to a chasm of premature
death.

instead, you will land
in the arms of Jesus
and summer on earth could be bright
once more,
the contortions of your
shattered heart
breaking into Redemption song,
your bleeding world
made well…
anyway, I’ll think of you
my whole life praying
for yours.

I hope my baby is fine; I know yours is now.
I’m sad all the same.
it’s darkness between these
disinfected halls,
tombs
within these walls.
they’re ready to see me now.

-S.V.F., Disinfected Halls

Next spring I’ll plant the seeds gathered from these dead sunflower heads (pictured above). And in the summer the blooms will soar and burst and lean toward the light.

As they always do, as they always will.

Since becoming a flower gardener I have seen God’s heart for life most of all. Over and over and over He works life. And not just in small amounts. God multiplies life. One sunflower bloom, dried and brittle, will have produced seeds for many more flowers to bloom in a new season. There is death in the garden surely, but there is life most of all.

It’s almost as though whatever grave threatens to swallow us whole cannot do so and where the darkness presides completely God gently places a seed, says this is not a grave anymore for I’ve come to make a garden.

And so He does.

And there is life again.