A woman named Ariel Levy told of the miscarriage of her 19 week pregnancy in the The New Yorker:
“I felt an unholy storm moved through my body, and after that there is a brief lapse in my recollection; either I blacked out from the pain or I have blotted out the memory. And then there was another person on the floor in front of me, moving his arms and legs, alive. I heard myself say out loud, “this can’t be good.” But it looked good. My baby was as pretty as a seashell.
19 weeks
He was translucent and pink and very, very small, but he was flawless. His lovely lips were opening and closing, opening and closing, swallowing the new world. For a length of time I cannot delineate, I sat there, awestruck, transfixed. Every finger, every toenail, the golden shadow of his eyebrows coming in, the elegance of his shoulders – all of it was miraculous, astonishing. I held him up to my face, his head and shoulders filling my hand, his legs dangling almost to my elbow. I tried to think of something maternal I could do to convey to him that I was, in fact, his mother, and that I had the situation completely under control.”
Sadly, the baby died soon after.
Arial Levy “Thanksgiving in Mongolia” The New Yorker November 18, 2013
Abortions are done at this stage in pregnancy every day in the United States and throughout the world.
