Our Visit to Washington D.C. (Part 1: Preparing and Jim Advocating with Senator McCaskill)

I'm going to have to write the story of what the past 2 weeks has been like over a few different blog posts. It's just been so surreal and strange and sad and wonderful at the same time. I often say that I have never changed more in my life than I have in the past few months, since we lost Grace in November, and that feels especially true in the past week to two. Considering Grace's due date is quickly approaching, and everything that has recently transpired, I expect the coming weeks to remain tumultuous, exciting, rewarding and ultimately very bittersweet.

For now, I'm just going to start to cover what my experience has been over the past few days. I'll follow up soon with how all of this has felt, and a few other updates. 

As I said in my last post, I had no idea that Senator Dianne Feinstein was going to mention my Op Ed in the Washington Post during her opening remarks of Judge Neil Gorsuch's confirmation hearing. I was already planning a trip to Washington D.C. for late the week of March 20th that included advocating at the nation's capital for the first time in my life, and Senator Feinstein's words invigorated me. I was planning to meet with some great individuals I've been connected to at the National Abortion Foundation (NAF), and then word arrived that we were being invited to Judge Gorsuch's Supreme Court confirmation hearing as a guest of Senator Feinstein's. I was utterly elated. The honor and privilege of this invitation was not lost on me. 

I also felt suddenly very unsure of myself: not of my story - I feel strongly that we made the right personal choice for our family in response to the horrific news our daughter's fatal illness, but silly things like logistics stressed me out the most. What if our flight was canceled? It was already the last one of the night. How would my husband Jim be involved, if at all, with this new agenda? I already had plans for Coffee with Claire, an awesome-sounding event Senator Claire McCaskill does where she has coffee on Thursdays mornings that she is in D.C. with Missouri constituents. Would I still be able to do that? Would Jim go without me if I couldn't? What would I wear? Would it require me to wear pantyhose? (The answer was firm: yes.)

More importantly, I considered what materials I should bring with me. What would be most helpful for sharing our experience, which continues to break our hearts, and to help explain why it feels so urgent to share right now? What about the other heartbreaking and inspiring families I have met through this journey and their stories? I wanted to share these stories with anyone I could to both honor their losses and the terrible decisions they had to make (which are often met with criticism and scorn because the word abortion exists within them), and spread awareness. What happened to Grace is not an isolated incident. It has happened far more than people think and it will happen again. Our laws need to acknowledge this fact and be inclusive of it. 

I ended up bringing several folders with me which contained my written testimony and related media such as the Washington Post Op Ed and the St. Louis Public Radio piece, and numerous stories and media from other loss families. I will discuss these more in the next blog post.

The schedule for the day was set with me heading to Judge Gorsuch's Senate confirmation hearing early, and thus having to miss Senator McCaskill's coffee meeting. My husband, Jim, graciously offered to go and share our story instead since I could not attend. He reported that he met some amazing people, including Representative Bruce Franks Jr., and that he was able to share our story to a room of about 75 people, including Senator McCaskill. It's not really in Jim's nature to enjoy public speaking or attention, so his willingness to go and advocate for our story made me so proud, and served as a reminder of how important Grace was and remains to him, and always will be. Her fatal illness and subsequent termination doesn't diminish her importance or impact in our eyes. 

Senator Claire McCaskill and Jim. Photo by Senator Claire McCaskill's staff.

In the next blog: My experience attending Judge Neil Gorsuch's confirmation hearing, meeting Senators Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Grassley, and sharing our story with Senator McCaskill's staff.

Read Part 2 here!

Jim and myself in the Hart Senate Office Building. Photo by Robin Utz

Senator Dianne Feinstein's Remarks, The New York Times, and What's Next

I was happily stunned this morning when Senator Dianne Feinstein referenced our Op Ed in the Washington Post during her opening remarks of Judge Neil Gorsuch's confirmation hearing. You can watch her remarks in the video below:

Senator Dianne Feinstein, Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee delivers her opening statement during the confirmation hearing of Judge Neil Gorsuch, the president's Supreme Court nominee, on March 20, 2017.

They are transcribed here:

Two weeks ago, the Washington Post ran an Op-ed written by a woman who desperately wanted to have a baby. She described how she and her husband went to great lengths for four years trying to get pregnant and were thrilled when they finally succeeded. Tragically, after her 21-week check-up, they discovered her daughter had multi-cystic dysplastic kidney disease. They were told by three separate doctors that her condition was 100% fatal. And that the risk to the mother was seven-fold if she carried her pregnancy to term. The mother described their excruciating decision and the unforgiving process the couple endured to get the medical care they needed. The debate over Roe v. Wade and the right to privacy, ladies and gentlemen, is not theoretical. In 1973, the court recognized a woman's fundamental and constitutional right to privacy. That right guarantees her access to reproductive health care. In fact, the Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld Roe's core finding, making it settled law for the last 44 years. I ask unanimous consent, Mr. Chairman, to enter into the record the 14 key cases where the Supreme Court upheld Roe’s core holding and the total 39 decisions where it has been reaffirmed by the Court. If these judgements when combined do not constitute super precedent, I don’t know what does…Roe ensured that women and their doctors will decide what is best for their care not politicians.

I hope I can fully articulate my gratitude to Senator Feinstein for sharing our story during such a critical time. Not only does it expose more people to stories like Grace's, but it also reminds the world that we have to be very careful to create, craft, and enforce laws around women's reproductive rights very carefully to truly bring all of the necessary components into account.

I was likewise very glad to see Judge Gorsuch literally take note of our experience. I hope so much that this indicates he is curious about our story and circumstances, and that he is open-minded about preserving women's reproductive rights and privacy, and supporting laws and legal decisions that acknowledge and include the gray areas around abortion. Historically, his recorded statements towards women's reproductive rights don't indicate that he feels this way, and there are very valid concerns around how he will approach reproductive rights and upholding Roe v. Wade if he is confirmed, especially since Donald Trump said he would nominate a justice that would overturn Roe v. Wade. 

Senator Feinstein's remarks resulted in this article from the New York Times, which provides an excellent summary of Senator Feinstein's remarks as well as our Op Ed. 

This all feels like so much happening, in the best way possible, as I prepare to head to Washington D.C. to advocate for the first time in my life. I'm not going to lie; I'm a little nervous. This is so new for me, and it requires more courage than I'm used to having to supply.

But today's events have made me feel all the more proud, and bolstered me to go to Capitol Hill and tell our story. I have never felt prouder of the difference that Grace is hopefully making. I so desperately want the utterly heartbreaking choice we made for her, out of pure love, to stay legal, and have great hope it will become something people treat with more compassion.  

Why Not Palliative Care for Grace Instead?

To discuss this topic, I'm going to bring up a story.

I was notified of an update on my Facebook page from Judie Brown, who wrote this note. Judie includes:

"Utz complains that, because of a Missouri state law, her insurance did not cover the cost of aborting her daughter. She writes that getting the abortion can be costly since Planned Parenthood does not offer abortion when the health of the baby is the reason for the abortion. In addition, she complains that, had she waited two days longer for her abortion, she would have had to go out of state for it.

In other words, Utz is using the very sad abortion-death of her daughter to sound the alarm and warn readers that the act of abortion must be protected by law. Sadly, she does not recognize that her preborn daughter was worth every ounce of suffering she and her husband might experience simply because they loved her unconditionally and looked forward to seeing her, if only briefly."

First, Judie, thank you for taking the time to write your note. You noted that you feel so strongly about it it's hard for you to not come off as harsh or cruel, and I thank you for your effort – you are obviously coming from a place of strong moral objection to abortion (I assume for any reason) and I respect your position, and know you're far from alone in it.

Before I share my perspective, I do want to clarify two things –

• You misunderstood the Planned Parenthood coverage. I did not complain that Planned Parenthood doesn't offer abortion when the health of the baby is reason for the abortion. They indeed do. 
• You cite a page that says babies feel pain at 22 weeks (20 plus the two weeks before fertilization), which Grace wasn't yet. There is a lot of research that supports that fetuses don't feel pain until the third trimester (28 weeks). This is the information every single one of our medical professionals independently gave us; it is not an isolated number.  However, even if she'd been later when we discovered this, we'd still have wanted to explore the option because the pain would have been less than she'd have felt at full term, and she wouldn't have just undergone the trauma of delivery.

Now for my perspective: 

Judie, you say "Sadly, she does not recognize that her preborn daughter was worth every ounce of suffering she and her husband might experience simply because they loved her unconditionally and looked forward to seeing her, if only briefly." While I respect that you feel this way, your feelings don't make them fact.

I can assure you that my husband and I loved Grace immensely. When we learned about her diagnosis and how little time we had to make a decision, we were shellshocked. We considered continuing to carry her, and also delivering her then so we could see and hold her. But we didn't pursue any of these options precisely because Grace was 100% in mind:

We were told by now five independent medical professionals that Grace would have 100% not lived, and there was a good chance she would have been stillborn. So her options for demise were:

1. Have the pressure and weight of my body slowly crush her to death, and be stillborn.
2. Put her through the trauma of delivery, to then discover with full consciousness and a fully developed nervous system, that she couldn't breathe and didn't have functioning kidneys, and be put immediately on life support or allowed to pass away. 
3. Have us terminate the pregnancy via cutting her umbilical cord at 21 weeks 5 days in the warmth and comfort of my womb, before her nervous system and consciousness had developed further. 

All of these options sounded terrible because they were. But hating the options didn't allow us to not make a choice. So we made the best choice we could with our daughter, each other and our Higher Power in mind. We believed that her passing in the warmth and love of my body was the best route forward. People debate whether having her umbilical cord cut before she passed was humane, but I feel strongly it was the MOST humane out of terrible options. You may not feel that way, and I respect that, but it doesn't make it less true from our perspective, and I hope you can consider ours.

A lot of your post is about the options for palliative care for newborns that have disease. You noted that "At Alexandra’s House, Grace and her parents might have experienced something quite different and may have felt a sense of closure and peace if Grace had died a natural death." I have not done extensive research on Alexandra's House, but I'm including a link here for people who feel the way you do. I want them to have a choice in handling this terrible situation in the way that feels best to them as much as I want for us to be able to make the choice that's best for us. 

There is one final misconception I want to clear up: my husband and I feel a sense of closure and peace – you are incorrect to assume we do not. We had terrible options presented to us about our incredibly loved baby girl. But we did our very best with the information we had and feel 100% at peace with the decision we made. Sad about Grace's fatal illness and the options present to us, and never getting to watch her grow up? Absolutely. Upset that the legal process made it unnecessarily cruel? Yes. Comforted that Grace suffered as little as possible because of the choice we made? 100%.

It may not have been the choice you'd have made, and I respect that, and want to include Alexandra's House for people like you who are faced with such terrible options and wouldn't make the choice we did. But it's incorrect and inappropriate to assign how you'd feel about it to how we feel about it and assume your opinion is fact. It simply isn't. 

Have any questions? Comments? Want to continue discussing? Please comment, and remember, only kind, respectful, comments will be welcomed. Let's be curious instead of judgmental. 

And please share! You can do so using the little Share button in the bottom right corner of this blog post.

Why Missouri's Abortion Consents and Timeline Are a Big Deal

There have been some really great comments on my Washington Post Op Ed. Even ones that I don't necessarily agree with have been very thought provoking for me. For instance, this one from Yellow Lab (who, as a side note, has an adorable picture of his/her dog in the icon):

"I'm sorry that this happened to you and your husband. I'm sure it was awful.  
 
But I guess I don't understand how waiting three days for an abortion was beyond the pale, considering that it might have taken that long to schedule it anyway. 
 
Nor do I understand how acknowledging that you have heard the heartbeat and had an ultrasound, when you had already done those things, was so traumatic. Or that being handed "a packet" of literature was so terrible. 
 
There are always some sort of protocols with any procedure. I'm unclear as to why those were so outrageous."

The comments go on to discuss how all medical procedures involve paperwork, consents, etc. including (again from Yellow Lab):

"But there's no way on earth you have any procedure in a hospital without signing some paperwork, acknowledging risks, and being inconvenienced. That's just the way it is."

Yellow Lab, if you see this, thank you for taking the time to comment on my story, and for doing so thoughtfully. I appreciate that your response wasn't a rash one, and wasn't judgmental.

There are few things to unpack here. 

• I think there has been a major misunderstanding. The paperwork that we had to fill out was not at a hospital, and it was not the typical medical consents you sign before any major medical procedure. 

The heartbeat, ultrasound and informed consent packets are 100% not official medical documentation. It is instead legal, politically-driven paperwork written by politicians, not doctors. In fact, there is blatantly misleading and inaccurate information in the Informed Consent packet.

No other procedure I have ever had to do involved this. I have no issues with medical consents, and signed many at the hospital where we had the termination. I have enormous issues with politically-motivated, ill-informed, legally-required consents. All families deserve to make their decisions with accurate, unbiased information about all aspects of the issue. We weren't given a packet describing the risks a mother incurs just by being pregnant, for instance (and they absolutely exist). It was all from the anti-abortion stance.

• Additionally, there are no exceptions in this process for those with a fetal anomaly. I won't get into a debate about whether anyone ever deserves this today, but we were nearly 6 months pregnant. We had worked very, very hard to be pregnant with Grace. Her fatal fetal anomaly diagnosis was utterly devastating to us. Yet there aren't exceptions in the law for people like us. To say they were tone deaf would be an understatement. They were utterly inappropriate and cruel for our situation. The law either wasn't made with all factors considered, or is even more callous than I originally thought. I'm not sure which is worse.

• Regarding the 72 hour waiting period: what if we had been told Grace had a 1% chance to make it? A 5% chance? 10%? Because of Grace's 100% fatal diagnosis, we decided immediately that termination was our only option, but others might not have made the decision the way we did, and that's totally ok too. What if it wasn't that case that her diagnosis was 100% fatal? We would have wanted to have time to consider what to do, learn about her potential quality of life,  learn about my own personal risks by continuing the pregnancy, discuss with one another as spouses and her parents, consult our higher power, and all of the other things that go into making a terribly difficult decision. All while being in utter shock and a fog of grief. That last one is hard to articulate in how powerful it is. I'd argue our quick decision is likely rare in this situation, and people deserve to have as much time as they need.

Ironically, the time limit forced us to act quickly instead of giving us all the time we might have wanted to make a decision of such gravity. Missouri limits abortion to 21 weeks, 6 days, and due to the 72 hours we terminated at 21 weeks 5 days. An anatomy scan is done between 18 and 22 weeks (Grace's was done at 20 weeks, 6 days), and insurance can be particular about how they cover anatomy scans and when. It puts families between a rock and a hard place. 

And what about people that find a health issue later in pregnancy? We were lucky we learned about Grace's early enough to terminate in the state we have always lived in, paid taxes in, etc.. Others learn about issues far later in their pregnancy and it doesn't make them any less fatal. The idea that there is a time limit on termination for medical reasons is incongruous with the actual experience and risks of pregnancy. 

Agree or disagree? Have questions? Thoughts? Comments? Please feel free to comment below or send me a message via the Contact Form!

Welcome, Washington Post and Chicago Tribune readers!

Thank you so, so much to everyone that's visiting our page.

Most are coming with messages of love and compassion and I couldn't be more grateful, humbled and appreciative.

But if you're here because you disagree, or aren't sure how you feel about our story, that's ok too. I just ask that you be curious and open minded. I may not convince you, and that's ok. I just want us to treat each other like humans and to learn from each other. We're real people. Not just words coming across your screen. Just like you're a real person too. 

On that note, this is us: 

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A little about us: Jim and I have been together for 8 years, and have been married for 6. We love riding bikes, our two spoiled cats (Elliot and Biloxi, the latter a Hurricane Katrina foster kitten that I ended up keeping and who now rules the household). We also love our friends and family, and music (Jim actually works in the music industry). In fact, we had a dance party of songs that Jim had always wanted to teach Grace about the night before her termination as a way to celebrate her far-to-brief life, and say goodbye. I'll share the playlist soon. We couldn't wait to raise our baby girl to explore music, reading and travel, and to just see how her personality revealed itself.

I'll be posting more blogs in the coming days talking about some comments I'm seeing (for example, noting that I call Grace a baby in my Op Ed, and what my stance is on that) and so on. But for now I wanted to share a little bit more about ourselves.

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Our Story in the Washington Post

Our story has been published in the Washington Post as an Opinion Piece. You can see it here.

Please share our story. 

It's okay to not know how you feel about our story, and still share it.  It's okay to say that too. It's okay to share it and not add any commentary to it. We know we'll face criticism from some for the choice we made, but it's our sincere hope that we can shed some light on the gray area situations that exist around abortion.

Men, too, please share our story. Historically, men have shared our story very little, for reasons I haven't quite figured out yet. I'll likely do a blog post about that in the future and would love kind feedback and perspectives. But the fact of the matter is Conservative men do not hesitate to speak their minds and propose and pass legal restrictions around our options without considering or including stories like ours. We need male allies to speak up with us. 

Thank you so much for your consideration of our story.