Nine years ago today, I kissed Death. Death let me go.
Ectopic Pregnancy Loss and Musings on Mythology
John and I were expecting our second child to be born on September 11, 2002. Since my first pregnancy had been normal, I was not scheduled to go to my first appointment until I was more than 8 weeks along. The Sunday before the appointment, something went very wrong.
On February 3rd, 2002, I lost the baby, and nearly lost my life. I started to feel lightheaded and crampy in the late morning. I took a bath, and fainted when I tried to get out of the bathtub. My husband found me doing a wet and naked army crawl toward the bedroom. After I had vomited and lost consciousness twice, my husband spoke to a triage nurse at my ob-gyn practice. Unfortunately, she did not recognize the classic symptoms or timing of an ectopic pregnancy. She thought at first that it was morning sickness, then that I was having a normal miscarriage. The ectopic pregnancy was in my right fallopian tube, which ruptured. I suffered massive internal bleeding, not unlike a burst appendix.
The pain was incredible. I could not lift my head or move from one position without losing consciousness. I thought that perhaps I had cracked all my ribs when I lost consciousness. I stayed home several hours too long, but finally we called for an ambulance.
It was extremely difficult to move me into the ambulance, and they spent almost 45 minutes sitting in the driveway for no apparent reason. However, once we got to the hospital, I got a quick ultrasound and was in the operating room within minutes. As I started to go under, I heard a bit of Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” in my mind.
I am told by my surgeon (A. Lovelady!!) that I got to the hospital just in the nick of time. After emergency surgery and a massive blood transfusion, my life was saved. If I had still been a Jehovah’s Witness, I would have refused the transfusion and would have died.
I don’t know whether the baby would have been a boy or a girl. Any of you who believe that this tiny fetus might have a continued existence on another plane somewhere, please continue to wing your good thoughts toward my lost one. My feelings about the matter are conflicted. I would like to believe in the images represented by many of the pregnancy loss sites – of a heaven where my baby is an angel welcomed and cherished by Jesus and God. But I don’t really believe this very comforting image. On one side, the expectation of the outcome of pregnancy is a living child – and I feel the loss of that child that will never be. On the other side, we don’t mourn the loss of the unfertilized egg every month, and I do not believe an 8-week-old fetus is yet a person. I am pro-choice, but if I had to decide whether or not to abort, I would deeply prefer not to do it. I simply don’t believe that it is a decision that should be regulated by healthcare systems or the government.
It turns out that despite all the rhetoric of the pro-life movement and all the references to God, there is no official spiritual status for an unborn. There is no ritual, no ceremony, not even a prayer. I called on other resources, and my friend Pat bent the rules a little to comfort me. Thanks, Pat, for the recommendation, respectfully borrowed from the traditional Nez Perce.
Snowbird Guardian Totem
A very tiny little snowbird represents our baby’s guardian spirit. Birds represent the spirit in several world mythologies (including Christianity). Snowbird is a common name for two species of birds, the junco (here the dark-eyed Oregon junco) and the plectrophenax. Snowbirds are strong enough to survive terrible winters. They are plentiful in number and in kind, bringing cheer to the most severe landscape.
This image comforts me, in the sense of Joseph Campbell’s’ definition of myth – a set of images and narratives that help us to feel a sense of meaning and place. We have no functional mythologies for the loss of a pregnancy.
“Myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestations.” ~ Joseph Campbell
I do know that there was no way to save this pregnancy. Whether God was involved or not, this baby was simply not destined to become a living child. There is nothing anyone could have done to allow the baby to continue to grow and thrive. We are mourning the loss of the child who would-have-been, but are also grateful that our living child (born in 2000) still has a mother. I have never completely worked through the grief of losing this child-to-be. I am deeply touched by the love and care of friends and family, and I am deeply grateful for my own life. There have been moments of deep sadness. A month after the surgery, when I went for a post-op appointment, I had to fill in a form. When I wrote “2 pregnancies, 1 child” on the form, I felt the first real deep pangs of pain.
A year later, I lost another pregnancy – perhaps because my husband and I are Rh-incompatible. It’s possible that the loss of this baby prevented us from ever bringing another to term. There was so much blood – the shot of Rhogam might not have worked.
There is one saving feature of this whole experience in that by putting our story up on my site, I might have helped to save other lives. I received several emails from women who got to the hospital in time, thanks to a search that found my site before there were many other resources on this topic.
What is an Ectopic Pregnancy?
An ectopic (lit. “out of placeâ€) pregnancy occurs when the embryo never makes it to the uterus and starts to develop in the fallopian tube. Sometimes the embryo can even develop on the ovary or in the abdomen; in this case, it’s known as an abdominal pregnancy.
If an ectopic pregnancy goes undetected, it strains the tube, which isn’t designed to expand. Then, 6-8 weeks after conception, the embryo will cause severe abdominal pain. Common symptoms of ectopic pregnancy are sharp abdominal cramps or pains on one side. Neck pains and shoulder pains are also common.
Ectopic pregnancies are very dangerous. If the tube ruptures (which mine did), there could be severe internal bleeding, which is a critical life-threatening situation. (For those of you with a medical background, I could barely breathe by the time I got to the hospital, and they irrigated me for 25 minutes once they had me open.)
Once the ectopic pregnancy is confirmed, emergency surgery and a skilled surgeon is required. This is delicate surgery. If the fallopian tube cannot be saved, it will be removed.
Some people consider those who have had to have surgery in this situation to have “decided to have an abortion†and feel free to judge them. I can only hope that this view is based more in ignorance than in disregard for a woman’s life.
Ectopic pregnancy is the leading cause of pregnancy-related death.
Ten years later, in court, I would hold one of the sticks she routinely used to thrust down our throats and show the world the two inches of dried blood still staining the end. It was shortly after this appalling incident that something inside me finally snapped. I was 11 by now and had been enduring Eunice’s terrible physical and psychological cruelty for nearly five years.
… But this time I’d had enough. I don’t know whether it was my outrage at all the previous punishments, or just growing older and more defiant, but I utterly refused to admit to something I hadn’t done. “It wasn’t me,” I said. Eunice stared hard at me and came and bent over me. “Answering back, are we?” she said. “Well, you can starve.”
This was the first moment I had ever really stood up to her and although it was only a small thing, and I knew I was going to be hungry afterwards, I felt a tiny edge of triumph. And so I starved. For a week she gave me nothing – not a single scrap to eat. It was a real battle of wills, and I became so weak and sick that I was hallucinating. In my desperation, I resorted to the pig bin and feasted greedily on mouldy boiled potatoes, vegetable peelings and pig nuts. It was revolting, but I just hoped it would give me the energy to survive.
I’m glad to see that Alloma reclaimed her name. To Eunice, who made her answer to the name “Harriet,” it was a magic “demonized” name.
JW’s “Not Exactly Interfaith,” Child Abuse, Sexual Assault, Medical Alarmists
Because they have gone out of their way to be rude about them. They have their own, rather eccentric, translation of the Bible and rubbish everyone else’s beliefs as “mere human speculations or religious creeds”. They have routinely described the Roman Catholic Church as a “semiclad harlot reeling drunkenly into fire and brimstone”. Then there are “the so-called Protestants” and the “Yiddish” clergy “like foolish simpletons” participating in “the world empire of false religion”. I could go on. They do. They are not exactly big on inter-faith.
What’s the situation with child abuse?
Not good. They take Deuteronomy 19:15 literally, which demands two witnesses to a crime (not easy in cases of abuse). And they cite 1 Corinthians 6:1-11 – “Does anyone of you that has a case against the other dare to go to court before unrighteous men, and not before the holy ones?” – to justify trying to deal with criminals with courts of elders rather than courts of law. A Panorama investigation reported they have an internal list of 23,720 reported abusers which they keep private. Studies in the US suggest they have proportionally four times more sexual assaults on children than the Catholic Church.
But didn’t they change their policy a few years back?
No. In 2000 the church council announced that it would no longer expel members who had willingly had a blood transfusion. But only because by doing so they had excommunicated themselves. Many JWs still carry a signed and witnessed advance directive card absolutely refusing blood in the event of an accident. And the church’s website still carries alarmist material about the dangers of transfusions in transmitting Aids, Lyme Disease and other conditions. It also exaggerates the effectiveness of alternative non-blood medical therapies.
To verdener / Worlds Apart
In Denmark, a trailer is available for To verdener / Worlds Apart, an upcoming movie based on the life of a young Jehovah’s Witness woman. The situation of a Jehovah’s Witness that falls in love with a non-JW is a very, very common one. Even with the language barrier, you can see the makings of tragedy unfold. My stomach roiled as I watched it.
Divorce, Blood Transfusions, and other Legal Issues Affecting Children of Jehovah’s Witnesses – The purpose of this website is to bring together in one website summaries of as many custody and other miscellaneous legal disputes involving children of Jehovah’s Witnesses as can be located in published news reports and court decisions. Currently, there are approximately 485 case summaries posted. Approximately 365 summaries are posted in the blood transfusions section; approximately 100 more lengthy summaries are posted in the divorces section; and approximately 20 other summaries are posted in other sections. An additional 50 historical case summaries are linked from the JW History page.
Employment Issues Unique to Jehovah’s Witnesses – A collection of lawsuits in which Jehovah’s Witness employees have sued their employer, as well as related employer issues. The website summarizes, discusses, or identifies approximately 380 Jehovah’s Witnesses cases and incidents, including civil court cases, criminal court cases, threatened lawsuits, complaints filed with various government agencies, media reports, other miscellaneous information about employment-related controversies.
It’s been a while since I posted on Jehovah’s Witnesses in the news. Here’s a roundup. Refusals of blood transfusions, resulting in death. Sexual predators and child molestation. Mental instability. Violence. Even a possible kidnapping. The usual.
I am sure that I’ve missed several additional items, but I’ve become too sad to do more than this today.
Jehovah’s Witnesses, you call yourselves “sheep.” If you must have a shepherd, why not seek a more loving one than the harsh caricature constructed by the publishing empire of the Watchtower Society? I grieve for you. I grieve for you.
14-year-old Dennis Lindberg Refuses Treatment for Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia and Dies
Doctors said he needed treatment that included blood transfusions; most children with this form of leukemia recover. However, Lindberg was a Jehovah’s Witness, and transfusions go against the teachings of his religion. He became a Witness while in the care of his aunt, also a follower, who became his legal guardian after his biological father was jailed for drug possession.
Parents and classmates of the boy, who had lived with his aunt for the past four years, cried in disbelief at the judge’s decision. Wherry fled the courtroom in tears.
As she suffered severe blood loss and her life ebbed away, medical staff urged her husband, Anthony, and her parents, all of whom follow the same faith, to overrule her decision and allow a transfusion which could have saved her, but they refused. She gave birth naturally and all appeared well as she cuddled her baby son and daughter, but she suddenly began to haemorrhage. Her condition was complicated by the fact she was anaemic.
The latest pronouncement on the topic from the Watchtower authorities said that anyone using blood products, even in life-saving surgery, would be “disfellowshipped†– or expelled from the Church. This usually means being shunned by friends and family. However, if “true repentance†is shown, they can be readmitted to the Church. This change was introduced to take some of the heat out of the bad publicity that followed the hundreds of deaths of Jehovah’s Witnesses around the world because of the blood ban. The authorities are reluctant to lift the ban completely — even though there are suspicions that they would like to — because they fear being sued by families who have lost loved ones to the policy which, in the end, would have turned out, after all, not to be the fixed and eternal word of God, but the demands of mere, deluded mortals.
Jehovah’s Witnesses defended yesterday the decision of a young mother who died after refusing a potentially life-saving blood transfusion, having just given birth to twins. To agree to a transfusion would have been a transgression comparable to adultery or sexual immorality, a spokesman from the central office of the British community of Jehovah’s Witnesses told The Times yesterday.
Really? That’s odd, because “sexual immorality” is quite common among Jehovah’s Witnesses. Acceptance of a blood transfusion, even to save a life, is taken more seriously – exponentially so. It’s considered the ultimate test of your faith.
Her right to refuse treatment was respected, enshrined in law, upheld by the establishment – but what of her children’s right to a mother’s love?
What, moreover, of the doctors’ and nurses’ right to do the utmost to save her life? What of our right to decide that any religious belief that condemns its devotees to death is dangerous, pernicious and does not deserve reverence or respect?
Most religions freely allow the breaking of their most solemn laws if human life is at stake. Muslims, if they will starve to death otherwise, may eat pork. Jews, if the situation is life and death, may break the Sabbath or eat and drink on the Day of Atonement.
Should a religion that sits by and allows a healthy young mother to refuse life-saving treatment be afforded the same deference as religions which recognise that human life is paramount?
Ex-JW Rachel Underhill Recalls her Own Brush with Death
“I went into premature labour… [and] was told I would need an emergency Caesarean but it wasn’t until very late that night that my consultant noticed I was a Jehovah’s Witness and what that meant. I’d grown up as one, so even as a child I’d known that I wasn’t allowed a blood transfusion. But never in my wildest dreams did I think that I’d ever need one,” she said.
“When I was in labour… no way was I in any physical or emotional state to say that I might have wanted a transfusion… I’d have been cast out of the religion, which at that point was the last thing I wanted. I needed the network that being a Jehovah’s Witness gave you. Plus it’s a very controlling religion, and I didn’t even think of challenging it.”
She eventually cut her ties with the church. This means she is now free to speak out on issues such as blood transfusions. “I think that in extreme cases, doctors should be able to override a Jehovah’s Witness’s wishes,” she added.
…Jehovah’s Witnesses do use many fractions and components of blood, so if it’s “sacred†to God why the hypocritical contradiction?
They also use blood collections that are donated by the Red Cross and others but don’t donate back . . . yet more hypocrisy.
The Watchtower promotes and praises bloodless elective surgeries. This is a great advancement indeed. But it’s no good to me if I am bleeding to death from a car crash and lose half my blood volume and need an emergency transfusion.
The reason that Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse blood is because of their spin on the Old Testament of the Bible from 3000 years ago.
Modern medicine will eventually make blood donations and transfusions a thing of the past. But when this technology happens it won’t vindicate the Jehovah’s Witnesses and all the deaths that have occurred so far.Their rules against blood transfusions will eventually be abolished (very gradually to reduce wrongful death lawsuit liability). Even now most of the blood components are allowed. In 20 years there will be artificial blood and the Red Cross will go on with other noble deeds.
None of these changes, however, will absolve the Watchtower leaders or vindicate their twisted doctrines. — Danny Haszard
A man who identified himself as Flores’ brother tells ABC15 their family is very upset with the 8-year-old’s family. He said it, “was her fault too… she pressured him.†… Flores lives across the street from Buckeye Elementary School.
She was “askin’ for it” – right?
67-year-old JW Elder in Quebec Convicted: 7-year Sexual Abuse
Found guilty in December 2006 of acts of sexual abuse of a minor – acts which took place between 1985 and 1992 – Marcel Simonin, 67 years old, formerly an Elder among the Jehovah’s Witnesses of Châteauguay at the time of the crimes, has been sentenced to serve 9 months in prison. He will serve the sentence in the community.
Simonin received his sentence last Wednesday at the Châteauguay Court House. At the time of the initial incidents of assault, the victim – a young girl – was only 11 years old.
The mother of the young victim met the individual – who at that time was an Elder, that is to say that he was a speaker during congregation meetings – at the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Châteauguay. He taught the precepts of their way of life and spiritually supported members of the congregation.
After gaining the confidence of this woman and of her daughter, he proceeded to engage in multiple incidents of intimate contact with the adolescent. The incidents included simple touching and full sexual intercourse.
During those 8 years, the assaults took place in several locations; notably, in the defendant’s home, in his car, at the home of the young girl and in the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Châteauguay.
Following receipt of that letter, Simonin telephoned his victim to apologize for the events, after having admitted the truth of the accusations. The complainant, allegedly, then forgave him.
After his wife went to bed, Willick gave the girl a beer. He then kissed, fondled, undressed her and had intercourse with her, Bains said. The victim, now 25, recalled during the preliminary hearing that she was wearing Mickey Mouse underpants at the time. She said the advance began without warning and she did not know what was going on, Bains said.
Wendell Willick, 47, was counselling the girl at the behest of her parents – who were friends of Willick through their church – during the period of the abuse, which began in 1996, when the girl was 14. The court heard during a sentencing hearing that Willick first had sexual intercourse with the girl when she was visiting his home on a weekend pass from a hospital psychiatric ward. The victim, whose name is protected by a publication ban, was in the midst of a troubled adolescence. She had once run away from home and had repeatedly cut herself. … The girl’s trust and spiritual beliefs were shattered, she said in a victim impact statement that was read during the sentencing hearing. “It made me feel like a person of no value with no voice. . . . Parts of myself are missing,” she wrote.
The Crown Prosecution Service is to review the sentence of Michael Porter, the elder in the Jehovah’s Witnesses who was sentenced to a mere three years’ community rehabilitation after admitting abusing little boys (one a baby of 18 months) over 14 years. The leniency of this sentence caused outrage at the time . It also focused attention- as in some other churches’ cases in the past – on the dangers religions run when encouraging undue reverence for senior figures. … I can find no comment on the Watchtower website about the Porter case, or policy on this subject, but a page of warnings against internet chatroom predators.
Judge Tom Crowther opted not to jail the self-confessed paedophile after hearing he had undergone therapy. Dan Norris, Labour MP for Wansdyke, Somerset, and a former child protection officer, welcomed the Attorney General’s decision. “A relieved public will greatly welcome this common sense decision to review this wicked abuser’s sentence,” he said.
When someone commits the sin of literalism, they grip the letter of the law so tightly that they squeeze out the intent with which it was written. …
Anyway, since the child molesters and child-rapists generally don’t attack their victims in front of two witnesses, all the Elders do is ask the perpetrator if he did it. If he says no, then they close the case. So, the pervert goes on preaching door-to-door, telling people how to be righteous, and when he gets another chance, he molests another kid. Then he molests another. Then he molests another. The Elders know. When the kids turn 13 and begin to act out sexually, as traumatized children will, then the Elders punish the kids for being “rebellious.†By punish, I mean cut them off from all friends and family. …
So, you may ask why I wrote this. Haven’t I gotten over it now that I have my own thing? Well, a lot of us have trouble moving on, what with bipolar manic-depression, insomnia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, mommy-issues, daddy-issues, and dysfunctional romantic relationships. These betrayals strike at the throat of our lives, because we’ve been taught that all the other churches follow Satan, and this is the Church of Love. Every other word is Love. But if the word love means anything, it means compassion and mercy for women and children, victims and helpless.
Ex-JW Barbara Anderson Still Fighting – Court Documents on National Television
According to Anderson, she has amassed nearly 5,000 pages of court documents that are presented on a digital CD titled, “Secrets of Pedophilia in an American Religion, Jehovah’s Witnesses in Crisis,” for the general public to examine. After reviewing the CD, NBC apparently became interested in her efforts to substantiate her claim that although church headquarters kept track of sexual abuse cases in a data-base, their rules hindered reporting accusations of child abuse to the authorities. As mentioned in the MSN article, Anderson contends that Witness policies “protect pedophiles rather than protect the children.”…
“The court documents on the CD are full of dialog and documentation exchanged between opposing counsels in 12 different alleged child molestation cover-up cases,” she said. “Shortly before these cases were scheduled to go to open court trial last April, where evidence would expose the responsibility of Jehovah’s Witnesses for secretly allowing molesters to hold positions of authority within the religion, the defendant, Watchtower, secretly settled out of court with 16 plaintiffs paying as much as $12,500,000 in total.”
NBC News reported that it obtained a copy of one of the settlement documents in which an alleged victim in one of the nine cases involving 16 victims received $781,250.
“By absolute insistence of the defendant Watchtower’s attorneys, all of the plaintiffs and their attorneys were required to sign a conditional ‘do not ever talk about this to anyone’ confidentiality order,” says Anderson. “Then the Watchtower organization walked away without admitting any liability,” she said.
Anderson says some of the court documents she was able to obtain “were intended by defendants to be buried for eternity.”
“If the victim couldn’t prove their accusation, they were threatened with ex-communication. That’s what kept this secret in this group for all these many, many years,†she said.
That meant losing touch with family and friends.
“I knew that children here in Tennessee were being molested. I knew of many right here in the area that I live, in Tullahoma, but nothing was being done about it,†she said.
Anderson said years of frustration caused her and her husband to leave the church. She said she hopes speaking out about the issue now will help protect other children.
“They left dangerous men in their position who could then go on and molest more. I read letters and evidence that some congregations who had as many as 30 or 40 children molested,†she said.
The Andersons said they no longer have a relationship with their son, who is an elder in the church.
They haven’t seen their 8-year-old grandson in five years.
No Lack of Watchtower Cash – 300-unit residential building, a 400-space parking garage and a new recreation building planned for Town of Shawangunk
The farm is exempt from property taxes, according to town officials. If the property was taxed, the bill would be about $2 million. … Such religious and other groups are under heightened scrutiny from town officials. A recent court ruling allows governments to reject the property tax exemptions in some cases. Assessors will be taking another look at some organizations as a result, Schoeberl said.
Already on Probation, Jehovah’s Witness Goes on Drunken Rampage with Baseball Bat
She said Roth is deeply involved in a Jehovah’s Witnesses church and “lost his standing” in the church as a result of the charges. He wasn’t allowed to participate in all church activities, although he continues 25 hours of volunteer work a week with the church, she said. …He was fined $350 for breaching a probation order not to drink. On Sept. 23, police saw him urinating in front of a restaurant on University Avenue in Waterloo.
25 hours of “volunteer work” a week? That’s about 100 hours a month, which translates to status as a top pioneer (missionary). Exactly what standing did he lose? How would you like to be talking to this guy about God at your door?
Possible JW Involvement in the Missing Maddie Case
The mystery woman knocked at the door and said she was a Jehovah’s Witness. She was accompanied by a man. Sixsmith said: “I can’t get it out of my head that it may have been Mr Murat and his girlfriend.”
Witnesses have identified Michaela Walczuch as a woman sighted with the young girl, first in Portugal two days after she disappeared and then in Morocco 41 days later.
Jean-Claude Lavoie, 26, is another victim of the Watchtower interpretation of the biblical command to abstain from blood. He died in late December after refusing a blood transfusion while being treated for an intestinal tumor.
His (former Jehovah’s Witness) brother, Jonathan Lavoie, has launched an Internet petition calling on the Canadian federal government to make it illegal for a person to refuse treatment on religious grounds.
His father stated that the death was “unfortunate, but it came to that. It’s important to respect Jean-Claude’s choice.”
If anyone has the url for Jonathan’s petition, please comment. I think that his wording is too general. It would not be a good precedent to make refusal of treatment for religious reasons illegal, but perhaps there is another way to frame it.
(March 2008) – on