Florida’s abortion law almost killed my wife | Opinion

From the first moment I saw Anya’s face, I knew she would be my wife. It only took a year for us to get married, and it wasn’t long before Anya told me she was ready for us to have a baby together.

I still have a video on my phone of Anya showing off that first positive pregnancy test. It was only a few weeks until we had a miscarriage. Then another, and another and another. Despite the heartbreak, we weren’t ready to stop trying.

One thing you need to know about my wife is that she is determined. When all of this was happening, Anya took pregnancy tests every day. Yet, every time we got pregnant, it ended in a miscarriage.

Then came Bunny. Bunny was special. She was a fighter and such an active baby. When my wife was 16 weeks pregnant with Bunny, we went out to dinner to celebrate. Outside the restaurant, Anya’s water broke.

We rushed to the emergency room. When we finally saw a doctor, he said we were going to lose the baby. But that’s all he could do. We had to wait for the baby to arrive naturally in 12- to 24-hours, the doctor said: “There’s nothing I can do.” Then he explained about Florida’s 15-week abortion ban that, two years ago, had just gone into effect.

I thought, “What about your oath? What about helping patients in need?” But all the doctor could do was apologize and explain that he could lose his license or even go to jail if he tried to help my wife and perform the abortion she needed.

He sent us home and Anya told me she was going to die when the baby died. She just had a feeling. Her body wasn’t right. I was in denial. I said, “We’re gonna get over this.”

The next day, Anya asked me to take her to the hair salon. A strange request but she had a friend who had died without getting her hair done and she didn’t want to burden her mother with having to deal with her hair after she died.

So, I took her to the salon and while I waited in our truck outside, she called me from the salon bathroom and said, “Babe, she’s here.”

Anya was bleeding a lot. Finally, an ambulance showed up and rushed Anya to the hospital. Anya lost nearly half the blood in her blood that day.

She would lose the baby and now my wife’s life was in danger. The doctor said the operation should take an hour. It turned into eight hours. At one point, the doctor asked me if I wanted him to focus on saving my wife’s life, or her uterus.

I couldn’t go against my wife’s wishes. I knew she wanted to have a baby more than anything. But I also knew that I couldn’t live without her. So, all I could do was ask him to please save both.

There’s such a huge difference between hearing about abortion laws and having to live them. Before this, I can honestly say that I never used to think much about abortion. I just figured that, if that’s what someone wanted to do, they should be able to do it.

But when that 15-week ban came down in Florida, we got caught in it. And then, they turned around and told us 15 weeks wasn’t enough – now they implemented a 6-week ban.

Why does the government think they have the right to control women and their bodies? When Anya was having her surgery, I wasn’t calling the government for advice. I was praying, because that decision was between me, my wife and God.

When Anya got out of surgery, the doctor said, “I don’t know what kind of prayers you did, but she’s going to be OK.”

All of this is overwhelming, but what keeps me going is hope that, on Nov. 5, Florida voters pass Amendment 4, which would limit government interference with abortion so no other woman has to go through what my wife went through.

Now, I am happy to announce that Anya didn’t give up. We now have a 9-week-old baby girl.

Derick Cook, who lives in Broward County, is an advocate with Men4Choice. The group educates men about reproductive health and encourages them to become more active in supporting abortion rights.