As a practice nurse, 37-year-old Kylie Gunn knew that her doctor’s assessment of her unborn son, Travis, was absolutely correct – even if it killed her to admit it.
Gunn was late to complete the anatomy scan of her pregnancy. While most mothers-to-be have it done during their 18th week of pregnancy, Gunn had delayed it until the 21st week.
She, her husband, and her doctors only realized that Travis had a deletion of the 22nd chromosome, significant heart defects, and 99% of dying from infection.
Even if Travis survived all the heart surgeries and other medical procedures that would hope to bolster his health, he wouldn’t live beyond two or three years of age. He was already suffering from too many heart problems, would never learn to walk, and would develop many other complications from the brain damage he already suffered.
Gunn had already felt Travis kick inside her – but she still decided to terminate her pregnancy.
“Rather than bring him to term and allow invasive procedures to take over his short lifespan - a life that would have limited contact with me and those who loved him, and a life incapable of ever knowing that love, I chose to abort his life,” Gunn explained in an open letter.
The abortion process was long and painful. The doctors induced labor and Travis was born stillborn, still in his amniotic sac. Gunn recalled, “I did not know what it was to keen (a loud wailing, a lament for the dead) until the moment he came out still in his sack, and I held him and said goodbye. I will never forget.”
Gunn is now using her experience to speak for and to women who are also considering abortion. “It is not easy any way you choose, but there is support and understanding,” she wrote.
Her letter ends with a brief address to her lost son, Travis: “And for my Travis. You would be 12 years old next Wednesday. I have loved you so much.”
