A mum in the US has shared how she chose life after pregnancy complications led doctors to offer her an abortion.
At just 10 weeks pregnant, Taylor Plemmons was diagnosed with bleeding inside the uterus and told she could have an abortion, but instead the complications “ignited a determination” in her to fight for her daughter. Following further health issues that threatened the life of mother and baby, Margot was born early at 29 weeks.
After 82 days in hospital, Margot was able to go home, and is doing well and is full of smiles.
Impossibly small
Mum Taylor was hospitalised at 23 weeks after developing pre-eclampsia, which carried serious risks. She recalled the “surreal moment” at 29 weeks when she was “given one hour’s notice to proceed with an emergency C-section to save both of our lives”.
After the birth, Margot was sent to the neonatal intensive care unit, and Taylor was placed on a magnesium drip. It was five days later that she was able to hold Margot for the first time: “She was impossibly small, far tinier than my mind could comprehend, yet perfectly formed. Ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes.”
Taylor shared how proud she was of her baby girl, explaining: “I had been told many times that my daughter likely wouldn’t make it and that certain outcomes were expected, none of which actually happened”.
Miracle of life
The 34-year-old said: “When I became pregnant with Margot, I carried a heightened awareness of just how miraculous life truly is, how many things must go right, how many cells must divide perfectly, and how deeply a mother’s body is asked to carry and sustain a child.”
She continued: “This experience stripped away my desire to be perfectly put together or to live a curated life. It shifted my priorities entirely”.
“If my story can help someone feel less alone, then something meaningful has come from the hardest seasons of my life.”
One in three pregnancies end in abortion in England and Wales