LIFE OR DEATH PREGNANCY

By Oholiav Abutbul

I will never forget that fateful evening. My parents were sitting with relatives who had come with a life and death question. The tension was apparent in everybody in the room. “In normal times, everything was simple. We would call the Rebbe’s secretariat and the Rebbe would say what to do, but now, what should we do?” My father attempted to engage the relative with this question.

After a few minutes of explaining about writing to the Rebbe through the Igros Kodesh, the woman began to pour out her painful story on paper. For over an hour she went into every detail, as trivial as it may have been. “Should I include the test results?” she asked.

The story began six months earlier. The results of the last test showed that, thank G-d, she was expecting. The great joy was double since it was the first pregnancy after 15 years without children. Boruch Hashem, they have children, but in the last birth, over a decade ago, it was a complicated operation after which the doctors warned her against additional pregnancies.

Confident in divine providence and prayer, she went to a doctor. The doctor, who had seen everything by then, looked at the test results and said, “Better to end the pregnancy now than in a few months from now. This pregnancy is not viable.” The woman tried to convince him and find a ray of hope, but to no avail. “There will be no birth,” he concluded the discussion. Heavy of heart, she left the clinic and tried to distract herself with prayer and positive thoughts.

As the pregnancy advanced, the medical exams went up a notch. Every week she went to be tested and every week she contended with warnings from the doctor. Days passed, weeks passed.

When she was about to enter the sixth month, the doctor had her attend a meeting with the head of the department who specialized in pregnancies like this.

In excruciating detail, they described to her and her husband what would happen during the birth. “It’s either you or her. Someone will not emerge alive from the delivery room. As a mother, you need to take responsibility and stop playing with your life. You have children and they will become orphans!” He ended with the usual stereotypical diatribe about the responsibility of the religious community towards its children.

Now, when pushed against the wall, they had come to my parents’ home to hear what Chabad Chassidim do; what did the Rebbe say? And they presented this life and death question to the Rebbe.

With utter solemnity, along with good resolutions and prayers from the depths of their hearts, the woman tearfully signed her letter to the Rebbe. “Rebbe, this is your baby. What we need to do, we will do.”

She and her husband went over to the bookcase and took out a volume of Igros Kodesh. My father stood nearby as she began to read the letter she opened to. The woman turned pale and found it difficult to stand. She sat down on the couch and after drinking a cup of water she continued reading, “May Hashem complete the days of your pregnancy properly and easily, and she should give birth in a good and successful time.”

Tears of joy poured in that living room. My father said, “No more worrying. There will be a birth! There is a healthy child.”

Encouraged by the letter, my relative photocopied it and when she went home, hung it up on the fridge.

The doctors, who were waiting for her to sign off on ending the pregnancy, did not know whether she had lost her mind or had fallen into a depression. “Are you willing to sign that we take no responsibility for what you are doing?”

“Happily, where do I sign?”

The next three months consisted of ups and downs for the couple, but the Rebbe’s answer kept them going.

You can guess the happy ending. The moving birth was headline news in the department. The medical team came to wish mazal tov and before they left they looked at the baby who had just entered the world and concluded with a smile, “She seems a bit prettier than the others that are here.”