I know it's not the end of Lent yet, so I shouldn't be on here, but sometimes I just have to write, no matter the constraints. Something happened in clinical last week that rather ties into other things that I've been going through personally, and I wanted to write about it.
I've been praying ever since I knew that primary care was the field that I wanted to go into, about what to do when I encountered a certain situation, a situation I knew sooner or later that I would encounter. The issue is abortion. I am staunchly pro-life; I believe that life begins with conception. I believe that God has knitted us together in our mothers' wombs, and He knows us even before that. As a provider, though, I knew that I would undoubtably come into contact with people, most likely many people, that do not feel how I do about it. However, it is my desire to give everyone, no matter what they believe, the best care I can possibly give them. Therefore, I faced a dilemma. I could not, in good conscience, advocate for the termination of an unwanted pregnancy. That child in the womb was just as real to me as though it were sitting outside, next to its mother. Yet, as a provider, it is my responsibility to provide the patient with the full spectrum of options available to her. This is what I knew would be facing me, but previous to last Friday, I had not met it outside of my imagination.
A young woman is in to see me, ostensibly for weight loss advice. However, as is often the case, her real reason came out for being there. She wanted to do a pregnancy test; she had had unprotected sex a few weeks previously and had missed her period. She was unmarried, very poor, and did not have higher than a 10th grade educational level. She already had two young children by two other men, and didn't want another kid. So we do the pregnancy test, wait the prescribed amount of time, and look at the results. Positive. It was then that I asked her if she had thought about what she wanted to do, and she informed me that she didn't want "it". I felt that my emotions must be all over my face; I nearly started crying. But I tried to hold it together, went and got the supervising physician, and asked him if I could watch him do a "just found out I am pregnant" appointment, since I've never seen one done before. He did, and after she had left, I asked to speak to him. And then I started tearing up. I told him about my beliefs, about my faith, and my severe inner turmoil over how best to be faithful to Jesus and love and serve my patient to the best of my ability. We talked for awhile about it; he is pro-choice but was very respectful and not at all condescending about my beliefs. He told me that it was perfectly alright to tell the patient that I have very strong beliefs in this area, and I don't feel that I would best be able to advise her, and then refer her to another practitioner.
One of our providers feels the same way I do about things, but tells her clients not to get abortions because then God will come down from heaven and strike them dead, or hate them forever. This is completely unbiblical, and that approach makes my heart hurt as much as advising an abortion does. I believe that these women, and the men they are with need compassion and support. I can't imagine what it must be like to be thirteen, a mother already, have no male support, and be pregnant again. How unbelievably scary. However, I also know that it is not the baby's fault, and he/she shouldn't have their life ended because of the circumstances. There are many arguments for both sides, that I will not go into here. Suffice it to say, it was an emotionally trying, yet very growing, experience for me. When I got home that night, I prayed and thanked God for guiding me through that. I feel that really, all I can do in these situations is to pray for wisdom and strength to do what is best for the patient while still maintaining my personal integrity, and also to pray for the patient and what is going on in his/her life. God keeps reminding me that I am here as a conduit of His; that my purpose in becoming an NP is to love and serve Him by loving and serving His people.
I read this recently in a book of devotions, and it encouraged and comforted me, both for some present personal difficulties in my life, and also that God is in control of all the events in life. I include it here in the hope that it gives encouragement to anyone else who reads it:
from Charles Spurgeon's Morning and Evening Devotions:
"God's people have their trials. It was never designed by God, when He chose His people, that they should be an untried people. They were chosen in the furnace of affliction; they were never chosen to worldly peace and earthly joy. Freedom from sickness and the pains of mortality were never promised them. So surely as the stars are fashioned by His hands, and their orbits fixed by Him, so surely are our trials allotted to us: He has ordained their season and their place, their intensity and the effect they shall have upon us. But although tribulation is thus the path of God's children, they have the comfort of knowing that their Master has traversed it before them; they have His presence and sympathy to cheer them, His grace to support them, and His example to teach them how to endure; and when they reach Heaven, it will more than make amends for the "much tribulation" through which they passed to enter it...to every matter there is a bright and a dark side. It is well for us if, while the flesh mourns over trials, our faith triumphs in divine faithfulness. The stormy sea feeds multitudes with its fishes; the wild wood blooms with beauteous flowerets; the stormy wind sweeps away the pestilence; a vein of good is to be found in every mine of evil...Out of the rough oyster-shell of difficulty she extracts the rare pearl of honor, and from the deep ocean-caves of distress she uplifts the priceless coral of experience. When her flood of prosperity ebbs, she finds treasures hid in the sands; and when her sun of delight goes down, she turns her telescope of hope to the starry promises of heaven."
