I realized, while attempting to answer Gianna Jessen's question about what her rights should have been when her mother had a saline abortion, that in a way, I'm her opposite -- yet we're also similar. I think that's why her story is compelling to me.

Both of our mothers got pregnant at a time when the best birth control was the Pill, and IUDs still hadn't been perfected. We both suffered birth trauma that caused doctors to predict we would be both intellectually and physically disabled (I was far luckier physically, but Gianna explains herself pretty well about the silver lining she sees in her cerebral palsy). We can even both laugh at the same dead-on Donald Trump parodies.

But instead of my mother trying to kill me, the situation was reversed. While obstetrics has improved enough that vasa previa and marginal placenta previa can be detected by ultrasound, they didn't catch it until the pressure of my head caused her water to break (which is generally when things go wrong in those cases). Fortunately she was already at the hospital, or the placenta tearing at the same time as the unshielded umbilical cord junction rupturing would likely have killed both of us -- she could have bled out in 10 minutes, and me sooner. We both still required blood transfusions. Essentially, I tried to kill her. (Sorry, Mom!)

The reason I am alive is because Mom was asked, on the way to the OR for her emergency Cesarean, which life she wanted them to save first. She chose mine. Had she chosen differently, I wouldn't be here... but it was, and should have been, her choice.