A Case from the Dominican Republic

It was our third day of clinic in the Dominican Republic, and I was with Dr. Naomi Hill and Alex, a first year student.  The day started out pretty typically, with a healthy mix of parasites and "gripe" (a group of flu-like symptoms common in the DR, really more like seasonal allergies).  We shared the Lord with a few patients, and one later accepted Christ at the evangelism station.  But it was later apparent that the Lord had something special planned for us today.  After lunch, while we were interviewing another patient, one of the triage team members came by our provider station to ask who was doing the gynecological exams for the day.  Naturally, Naomi volunteered, then offered the exam to me.  I was a bit apprehensive and anxious to give Alex a good experience, so we started preparing.  In taking a quick history with the girl and her mother, we found out she had just turned 16 and had been having vaginal discharge for the last several months.  She had been sexually active with her boyfriend, but only a few times, and it was about 3 months ago.  Then we learned she hadn't menstruated in 3 months, but she said there was no way she could be pregnant.  Just to be safe, we got a pregnancy test before performing her exam.  The exam was abnormal, and painful for her, and she was very scared, but she trusted me and looked to me for comfort.  We ended it promptly with a fairly certain diagnosis of Pelvic Inflammatory Disease.  While she got dressed, Naomi told me that the pregnancy test had come back positive, meaning she was likely at least 12 weeks pregnant.  We figured she must have had some idea, not having a period and all, so we decided to tell her and her mother together.  We told them about the infection, and that we could treat it today.  Then we told her she was pregnant.  Her face fell, and her mother's emotions were mixed and unreadable.  Stern at best, mingled with shock, anger, guilt, and a host of other thoughts raced through her head.  Naomi had to run off, leaving me alone with the girl, Rose, and her mother.  Feeling awkward and dealing with my own emotion, I was at a loss for words.  "Como se siente?" I asked (how are you feeling?) "Mal," she said (bad).  I put my hand on her shoulder.  She teared up.  Then her mother tore into her--something about running off to live with her boyfriend and whose fault this was and how her previous round of antibiotics may have hurt the baby--and my heart broke for the girl.  Holding back my own tears, I led them both back to my station to sit down.  The girl wants an abortion.  Abortions at any gestational age are illegal in the Dominican Republic, and she already had a serious infection, so an unsterile surgery of the area without follow-up care would almost certainly kill her.  Her mother knew this and begged her to keep the baby, even through her own disappointment.  Our translator Estenia asked us what was formed in the baby by this stage, 13 weeks and 2 days.  "Everything," we said.  Its heart beats.  It's kidneys work. Its eyes are formed. Its brain is there.  Then the thought-- we could find the baby's heartbeat with a Doppler.  We asked her if she'd like to hear her baby's heart.  She paused. The corners of her mouth turned up slowly, shyly, cautiously.  "Pray," Naomi said to Alex and me.  I don't know if we will be able to find them, but we need this.  She needs some connection to this life inside of her.  We take her back to the private room, get the Doppler ultrasound machine, and start searching.  Nothing.  The thought crosses our mind--it could be ectopic, meaning she was at huge risk and both lives could be lost soon.  Cheri, the nurse, leaves the room to ask people in the main clinic area to pray for heart sounds.  Almost instantly, we find it.  156 beats per minute--a healthy baby.  A sigh of relief and a glimmer of hope comes to all in the room.  Quarrels cease, and the Lord is present there.  We hold the speaker up to Rose's ear, and her eyes gaze up at me in wonder.  "Oh my God," she says.  "It's alive.  It's inside me!"  Yes, Rose.  If you have an abortion, you will kill your baby.  "It is a miracle that, despite the severity of your infection, your baby is alive and healthy.  This baby has a purpose," I said to her.  Alex pointed out that the women in the room--Estenia, Naomi, Cheri, and me--are wise.  We have seen more of life, and we know the value of a life, he said, more than she did at her age.  We urged her to consider adoption or allowing her family to care for the baby if she did not feel prepared to be a new mother.  Feeling our work was done, we prayed for her.  Lord, show Rose that you love her.  Show her that she is beautiful, and that you have a purpose for her and for her baby.  Give her wisdom in making this important decision.  Show her that you are with her and she is not alone.  Show her that you will not love her or her baby any less for what she decides, but help her to see life in this baby.  At this point, I'm most certainly crying.  I give her a hug, get her cell phone number, and tell her that God loves her.  That I love her.  She holds tight, and our hands linger outstretched toward one another.  Then she turns and follows her mother out of the church, maybe out of my life forever.  I'm not sure what will happen when she gets home-- she is so young, and I don't even know the emancipation laws here, whether she has a choice, or what her mom actually wants for her.  I don't even know what I would do in her situation, and I don't know if she has Jesus in her life.  I do not recall a case in my own life where I have been so sure of God's handiwork, and yet still had to place the situation in God's hands, knowing I'll likely never know whether that baby takes its first breath.  It's hard.  It requires faith that demands total surrender.  It demands my life being exposed before me and before the Lord.  It calls me to realize that I am not my own, that my relationships are not my own, and that my emotions are not even my own, but that they belong to God and to His Kingdom. I stand in awe of His grace and providence tonight like I never have before.  And it is terrifyingly beautiful.