PHOTOS: Stacie Crimm, the mother who refused chemotherapy to save her unborn daughter

This is one of those times when I hope that, as an atheist, I'm wrong.

No government, no bureaucrat, no religious person should be involved in that decision.

Stacie knew the odds were stacked against her and rather than go through all of the chemo only to find it was ultimately ineffective at preventing her death, she might have felt that some good could come from her own tragedy by refusing treatment so the baby could live.

I respect what this woman has done but to me it sounds like it was a choice she kept very private with her doctors and loved ones she wanted involved with this decision. It also sounds like the baby girl will be in good hands with her Uncle and his family.

End of life decisions are so heartwrenching that it amazes me how certain people in our goverment and religious crazies feel they somehow have the right to meddle in that decision.

It's heartwarming to read that the mother was alive long enough to hold her baby. I hope they were able to take photos, it'll be ones that the daughter will cherish for life.

But that's her choice....

Bad enough to have a little girl grow up without her mother, even worse to be the cause of the mothers death. But that is just my opinion and I'm not the boss of what people do with their own bodies.

The mother had pre-eclampsia and didn't make it. The daughter never felt guilty about being the cause of her mother's death and called her stepmother "mom."

My youngest daughter developed a very serious form of pre-eclampsia, called HELLP syndrome and had to have an emergency C section. Luckily, she was far enough along that the baby, my grandson, was just slightly premature. We were all scared to death for a while but all went well. My daughter decided not to have any more children, tho, since she was approaching age 40.

I always wondered if my daughter's pre-eclampsia was "inherited" from her grandmother...

given her condition, chemo might not have saved her life anyway.

http://forums.adoption.com/adoptee-support/341712-birth-mother-died-while-giving-birth-me-how-cope.html

snip
"birth mother died while giving birth to me...how to cope?
Hi,
I'm new to the forums. I'm a 22 year old female from Los Angeles. I've always known that my birth mother died while giving birth to me, but I still can't get over it, or at the very least, how to deal with it.

I have always blamed myself for her death and still do; it;s a belief that has kept me from truly being happy. I never feel as though I deserve anything good because of what I've done.
I also miss her terribly. I have a wonderful adoptive family, but I'm always thinking of my birth mother and feel so alone without her. I feel closer to her than to anyone else." end of snip

I had something very similar to this happen in my extended family twice and the girl and woman who were the daughters have shared very similar sentiments with me.

it is wrong to kill children. On the other hand if during the first trimester the embryo is not a child then we won't have to overturn row v wade, obviously you are the expert.

Choice is choice, I have some serious reservations about what she did but I'm not the boss.

First, some background. I've always wanted to have a biological child. A little over a year and a half ago, I was diagnosed with the early stages of uterine cancer. Unfortunately, I have a rather sad history of cancer in the family - my dad has bladder cancer and his mom died from ovarian cancer. I agonized over what decision to make. The ob/gyn said that she could get me pregnant - no problem. The question was if I wanted to leave my child motherless and my husband a widower. I made the choice to forgo biological motherhood and have a hysterectomy.

I'm alive and cancer-free. That was my choice. This woman made her choice as well. It's a choice I would have never made, for sure, but the key word is "CHOICE" of the kind that the GOP and its ilk would like to take away from me.

What bothers me about this story, however, is that it seems this poor woman's only objective in life was to conceive - not to be a mother or a parent. I find that it is so sad that in the year 2011 many young girls and women are still conditioned to think their worth is strictly tied to their uterus. Not every woman is meant to conceive (and not every man either). There should be no shame if a man or a woman chooses not to or cannot have biological children.

There should be no shame in telling our young girls that you don't have to get pregnant to be respected. We have 7 billion on this planet. We have plenty of kids who are abused or malnourished looking to be adopted by loving parents. This woman's relatives already have 6 kids of their own and this poor child is premature and may need special care the rest of her life. I wish them the best.

- My 2 lb. 7 oz. daughter born in 1979 is fine. She is a teacher, mother of one with another on the way. Given the advancements in medicine in the past 30+ years, its quite likely that this little gal won't have any problems at all.

How did you get that from the article? She found out about the cancer AFTER she was pregnant. How in the world do you get that her "only objective" was to conceive? There's no "objective" there. The poor woman was pregnant and got cancer - so she had some choices to make that were not clear cut and for better or worse she made her choices. I admire her courage under pressure.

I'm just wondering if the father of this child simply gave away his paternal right to raise his daughter or whether she turned to her brother because she was alone in the world. Had she experienced a hard life? What were the factors that made her decide to make this sacrifice? Perhaps her brother will shed a little light on her at some point...

I know so many of us love these stories of martyrdom, but all I see here is a person blinded by stories and another person who will grow up knowing her life came at the cost of her mother's own.

who made such an intensely personal and painful CHOICE is being co-opted by the anti-choice, forced birth zealots. They call her a hero (which she was) and a testimony to the power of love (which she also was); but they kind of gloss over the fact that if they had their way she would be neither of those things, because she would have been forced to bear the child anyway.
I despise those miserable sanctimonious bastards.

Even those who would have a real chance at recovery and life (and those with other children at home who need their mother which evidently was not the case in this example). It is disgusting for these vile people to capitalize on one woman's tragedy in this way...but I'm not surprised...

it WAS a choice.

sigh.

picture of mom at the end did it.

sad, tragic story

to stick their busy-body nose into it and force her to go either way.

not only family helping one another, but that her choices were respected.

:scared:

And I am grateful that the law did not intrude upon her body in this matter.

I fully support her choice, because it was her choice. Think of how ugly it would be if force were involved.