Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1133 | Birth Control Made Her Blind; IVF Made Her Pro-Life | Guest: Chelsey Painter Davis

Episode Date: February 3, 2025

Today, we sit down with Chelsey Painter Davis, host of "The Blind Mom Life Podcast," to discuss what parenting as a blind mother is like and how she uses humor as a coping mechanism and a tool to share her story. She tells us about how her blindness was caused by complications from hormonal birth control and how she struggled with her faith throughout that time in her life. Chelsey also shares how she had to fight for her son while she was pregnant with him when her doctor pressured her to abort him. Her son is now perfectly healthy and thriving. We also talk about how she, in her own words, is an "IVF survivor" and what that looked like for her growing up knowing about her "discarded" siblings. She also talks about what it's like living as a blind mom and how she uses her social media presence to raise awareness and be a light in the world. Buy Allie's new book, "Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion": https://a.co/d/4COtBxy --- Timecodes: (01:10) Chelsey introduction (03:23) How Chelsey went blind (18:33) “IVF survivor”  (26:49) Chelsey’s faith struggles (29:17) Fighting to save her son (41:12) What it’s like being a blind mom ---   Today's Sponsors: A’del — Try A'del's hand-crafted, artisan, small-batch cosmetics and use promo code ALLIE 25% off your first time purchase at AdelNaturalCosmetics.com EveryLife — The only premium baby brand that is unapologetically pro-life. EveryLife offers high-performing, supremely soft diapers and wipes that protect and celebrate every precious life. Head to EveryLife.com and use promo code ALLIE10 to get 10% of your first order today! Jase Medical — Go to Jase.com and enter code “ALLIE” at checkout for a discount on your order. --- Related Episodes: Ep 1004 | Harrison Butker Calls Out IVF, Abortion & Feminism | Guest: Ron Simmons https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-1004-harrison-butker-calls-out-ivf-abortion-feminism/id1359249098?i=1000655842202 Ep 976 | Birth Control: What the Media Won’t Tell You https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-976-birth-control-what-the-media-wont-tell-you/id1359249098?i=1000650764644 Ep 254 | Birth Control, IVF & Surrogacy https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-254-birth-control-ivf-surrogacy/id1359249098?i=1000475691301 ---   Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise – use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Chelsea Painter Davis is known as the blind mom on her podcast and on Instagram. She has an incredible testimony of how she has trusted the Lord through many challenges. She became blinded by hormonal birth control when she was 19 years old. Fast forward a few years when she was pregnant with her son. She was pressured for weeks and weeks by her doctor to have an abortion. She has such a unique look on life, not only. because of her blindness and her pregnancy complications, but also because of the circumstances surrounding her conception. She is an IVF baby and describes herself as an IVF survivor.

Her look on the sanctity of life and the faithfulness of the Lord is so refreshing and encouraging. You're going to love this conversation with Chelsea. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to Good Ranchers.com, code alley. That's good ranchers.com, Code Allie. Chelsea, thanks so much for taking the time to join me. Oh, I'm so happy to be here today. Thank you, Allie. Yes, we were just talking, always have people send me your videos, and they're so fun.

They're so entertaining. Thank you. They're also really encouraging. Your podcast is called Blind Mom Life. That's kind of like the moniker that you're known by on Instagram, the blind mom. So tell me a little bit about like why you started your page, why you started your podcast. Yes. I have, oh my goodness, I have always been a huge pro-life enthusiast and I just never really felt like I

could do much about it. But as I've gone through my life, I have racked up quite a challenging testimony. And I just really saw opportunity with now that I've healed through a lot of these things, how I could use them to point not just to my pro-life ethic that I guess. up from my faith, but also how this really applies to all the decisions that you make in your life. Like, don't give up on your life just because it's difficult. And I really saw an opportunity there to share. And it was kind of scary at first. I was like, I don't really know what I'm doing. But the more that we've started making videos and putting things out there, it's just, it's really good to see how people are hungry for just that encouragement. Like, just because

you're pregnant in crisis, like your life is not over. Like, we can handle this. You can get through this just because you had a horrible accident and now you're disabled for the rest of your life. Like, you can do this and people really need to hear that. And all of these things are a part of your story. Can you tell us how long you've been blind? I lost my vision when I was 19 years old. I'm 29 now. So I just hit my 10 year anniversary this past Christmas. It was it was really hard. I thought I'd adjusted really well to it. And I think I have, but there's only so much you can there's only so much you can be okay with when you grew up one way thought you were going to spend the rest of your life like that and then you get hit with near total blindness but it's just it's every

day just yeah not quitting and tell us what happened how did you become blind when you were 19 yes so i started taking birth control pills because that's what all the little good protestant girls do or so i thought when you're about to get married i sat down with my primary primary care physician, discussed what my options were. I had done some research myself because I was very exposed to pro-life issues, pro-life ethics, growing up a survivor of IVF. I just, I wasn't afraid of these topics. And so I had noticed online, they were saying, sometimes birth control pills can cause the lining in your uterus to thin, and that can accidentally keep the embryo or the zygote from attaching. and that really concerned me.

So I wanted to have a real conversation with my primary care physician. When I came in, I was like, I wanted to choose something that's safe, something that's effective, and something that's ethical. And she was not interested in having that conversation with me. I felt really belittled

just by something as simple as facial expressions when I was talking to her. It really felt like she just wanted me to take the prescription and leave. She didn't want to discuss what that medication would actually do to my reproductive system. Or the embryo, because what you're saying,

and some people don't know this, we've talked about this on the show too, but birth control, any kind of hormonal birth control might not actually prevent you from becoming pregnant. It might not prevent the fertilization of an egg. It can. It's supposed to prevent ovulation, but it doesn't always. So what can happen is that fertilized egg, because you're on birth control,

because like you said, the lining of the uterus is being thinned, that embryo, that fertilized egg just can't attach to the wall. It's preventing not the fertilization, but to the implantation in that case. And if we believe, as we do, that life starts at conception at that point of fertilization, then that means that hormonal birth control has the potential to be abortifacient, which is where the ethical concerns rightly come in. The Catholic Church has always been super strong and clear on that. You mentioned, like, being Protestant, I'm Protestant too.

There's like less guidance on that growing up. And so it just seems like you were trying to understand, okay, because you said you're about to get married at that point. You were just trying to understand, like, okay, I want birth control, but I also have these concerns and the doctor wasn't super helpful. Exactly. And now as an adult looking back on it, I think she didn't know. She was a nurse practitioner. I think she genuinely didn't understand. And that's where those weird facial expressions were coming from. But in my teenager mind, I felt like I was being judged. I felt like I was being judged. I felt like I was being pushed. I felt like she was looking at me like I was stupid. And so I just said, whatever, just give me the pills. Like at that point, I'm sitting in a doctor's office with puppy stickers on the

wall and my mom and a nurse practitioner staring at me talking to me about sex. I just wanted to be out of that room. I didn't want to do it anymore. I didn't want to have that conversation anymore. And so I just started taking the medication. And I did not really feel okay with that. But I was a virgin at the time. I wasn't having sex. I was like, okay, well, it's not that big of a deal. Like, it's not like I'm causing any problems with the baby right now. Like, it's not even possible for me to be pregnant right now. But next time I see that PCP, I'm going to ask, I'm going to push her, I'm going to switch.

I've double-checked my research. I know I'm right. And I'm just going to find something different. But before I could do that, I ended up in the hospital with a pulmonary embolism. I almost died. And later, recovering from that. How many, how long had you been taking birth control at that point when you had the pulmonary embellins? Really? Only two weeks. And that is also a potential side effect of hormonal birth control that a lot of

people don't realize. Yes. It was something that it got run through very quickly the possible side effects of the birth control. You know, they give you like the little paper and, but you, you see like heart attack, pulmonary embolism, stroke, death. You don't take that seriously, especially when you're only 18, 19 years old. Yeah. So I was just like, okay, whatever, like that's not going to happen to me. Even though I just had a friend die from taking hormonal birth control, you still just don't think that's possible. How did that friend die?

She also threw a clot. She died before the paramedics could get there. Wow. And, but for some reason, you still think like, oh, that's a fluke. That doesn't mean there's something wrong with birth control. That just means, oh, well, there's something wrong in her body. That would never happen to me. This is a horrible, horrible tragedy.

it could never happen again. But I threw a clot too. I was amazingly lucky. That's why I say I'm lucky I didn't die like she did. I recovered from my pulmonary embolism. They realized that I had blood clotting disorders and combined with the birth control pills. That's what threw the clot. But I started getting headaches after. And I went to see that same PCP. And I said, hey, my head hurts really bad. Like, I'm trying to take my college classes. I just had my wedding and Tylenol won't cut it. Like, I cannot get this headache to go away. And the same kind of attitude of like, I really kind of need you to leave this office.

She just looks at me and she's like, okay, Chelsea, you need to understand. That issue with the blood clots is over. You're not sick anymore. You're just really stressed out. You need to cut a few college classes and go get a massage. Like, you just need to calm down. And I was so embarrassed. and that appointment, I just completely shut down on myself. And I believed her. I really genuinely thought

I had just been over-dramatizing it. I'd had, I mean, planning a wedding is very stressful. It's very hard to get married at 19 years old because everybody thinks it's silly. And they don't take you seriously. And it's just hard. And so I just completely thought everything she was saying to me was true. And now looking back, one of the biggest regrets in my life is that my husband knew something was wrong. And he begged me to go to the emergency room when these headaches wouldn't go away. Like, I was standing up and I would vomit, trying to go to class. I couldn't take any noise. So it's not just, oh, this is uncomfortable. This was like migraine level. Severe. So severe. I couldn't get out of bed. I had to drop out of college. It was so bad. And I just told my husband,

I said, I'm not going to go back to the hospital and have someone embarrass me again. She told me to just stress. I just need to calm down. That's it. And I was so, so, so wrong. First sponsor for the day is Adele Natural Cosmetics. This family-owned business has been formulating and packaging high-quality cosmetics and skincare products in the U.S. since 2014. This is an amazing company that truly makes really effective and holistic products. I use both their makeup and their skincare. When I'm not in the studio, I love their moisturizing foundation, their cream blush, their glow. It all comes in like that stick form. And it's really convenient and works really well. It gives you that like glowing, moisturized, no makeup makeup look.

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Okay. Yes. So once you throw a clot from birth control pills, control pills, the immediate standard of care is that you do not take hormonal birth control ever again. Okay. And then especially combined with my blood clotting disorders, I'm on anticoagulants for the rest of my life. So the absolute worst thing I could do is add in hormonal birth control. So this is just side effects from having taken it at all. And I got worse and worse. I didn't realize how bad my vision was deteriorating because I kept making up excuses. I was like, oh, well, we just moved into this new studio apartment and it's just really dim in here. Like there's not a lot of windows, you know, we're kind of poor. We just got married. It's fall. It's turning into winter.

Oh, I just need a new pair of glasses. Like, there's nothing really going on. And it wasn't until my mom came to visit me for Thanksgiving and we were setting up the Christmas tree because I'm that kind of person. Yeah. She asked me to hand her the purple Christmas ornament and I was holding two of them and I couldn't tell which one it was. And that's when we knew something was very, very wrong. But that was scary. You go into such a state of denial for that. I just, there's really two phases of denial for blindness. Number one is that there's anything wrong with your vision at all.

You don't want to believe that. And then number two, it's that this is going to be permanent. So I fully went to the doctor thinking that they were going to fix me. They were going to give me some pill or something. And I was going to be fine. But I ended up having pseudotomor cerebride, which is a buildup of cerebral spinal fluid that squished my optic nerves to death. And because I was so delayed in coming to get a proper diagnosis,

there was nothing they could do. The first round of treatment they tried, which is a diuretic, did nothing. And secondly, they put a drain in my spine to get rid of that extra fluid, and all that did was keep me alive. I am almost totally blind. I lost all this vision within a matter of a few months. And the whole time I was in the doctor, they were blaming me. They're saying, like, well, this just happens to women in their 20s who are overweight.

Like, we don't know why, but it's just women like you get this. Like, we have no idea, but that's just how it is. And maybe if you hadn't eaten so many cupcakes, this wouldn't happen to you. And once again, like, why would I not believe my doctor? Like, my doctor's supposed to be on my side. My doctor's supposed to be telling me the truth. But as soon as I went home and they washed their hands of me medically, I started seeing all these lawsuits on the television, listening to it.

And they were like, have you been blinded by pseudomor cerebride? And the more I looked into it, birth control companies found out in their clinical trials that their medication was causing pseudotomor cerebride. And they just decided not to put it on the bottle. Are you able to say what the brand was? I am not sure. If you're not, that's okay. You don't have to.

I know that, you know, I was taking a birth control pill. again, like it was not for, not even to prevent pregnancy. It was like all of my friends were told we had like PCOS or if our like period was just like a little bit delayed when we were 17. Everyone was put on birth control. Even if we weren't sexually active, which we were not. But I was put on yes because that's what everyone was. And now I see those commercials like if you took yes and then you got like a breast cancer diagnosis or something. And it's like I don't even remember hearing any potential side. effects of those. And I wasn't on it for very long because I just realized, I don't need this and it doesn't make me feel good. But I mean, there are women who are on those for years and years and years and never know that the reason that they're feeling bad is because their hormones are jacked up or whatever else is in the birth control. And I feel like the doctors are so infested in protecting birth control just as a whole industry that they're not really sitting there and being honest with you. It took about a year after.

my symptoms started for me to sit down with my hematologist, my new hematologist, and he said, do you realize when he was taking my patient history? He's like, you realize that you didn't have any problems until you started taking those birth control pills. And once you started taking them, you were hospitalized four times in one year. Your body went, it was wrecked as soon as you started taking those. And I was, by that point, I was like, yeah, I started to figure that out. But when I was going through the process with the neuroophthalmologist, with the primary care

physician who'd prescribe me the birth controls in the first place, they're not bringing it up. And in a way, like, I almost kind of understand because the birth control companies did lie and they refused to put it on the warning labels. But at the same time, how many doctors actually read those warning labels? Do they really know what they're prescribing to you? And unfortunately, for me, it had lasting permanent side effects. I will, I'll never see again. There's nothing they can do for me. So is it confirmed that the blindness was caused by the birth control? There's no other possibility for the cause? There is the possibility that I just got it. It's just random. That is just random. That's what the first doctors were trying to tell me. But there is a lot of information

online about how it is connected to birth control pills or hormonal, hormonal contraceptive. And it makes so much sense because when he's telling me, like, you just, it just happens to women in their 20s. And I was like, you mean people who are on birth control? Yeah. That's true. That's a very interesting correlation you're suggesting there. But I even watched, because it is in my mind, I'm still questioning. I'm like, maybe I just got it. Maybe, maybe this is really what happened. But I'm never going to know for sure because I can't go back and try my life a different way. But I did watch a whole seminar for medical school by a neuroophthalmologist. He was teaching the students. And he literally went through with them like pseudotomor cerebroseum causes. I know it says

in your textbook that hormonal birth control causes pseudotumor cerebride, you need to understand a lot of times it just happens to women, even though that's not what your textbook says, listen to what I say, except if there's a venous sinus thrombosis involved, then it's definitely the birth control pills. I did have a venous sinus thrombosis involved. Okay, tell us what that is. Okay, so that is a clot that you have that they noticed on the MRI for me. And there's so much going on in those three, the three times I was hospitalized, it was within a month of each other. I couldn't even keep track of everything that was going wrong in my body at the time. But when he was going through that in the medical school school, I'm like, I'm recognizing these terms and I know they're on

my chart. And he was confirming. He's like, if you see this, then it was the birth control medication that caused that pseudotumor cerebride. So I'm just very, I don't want to be like ridiculous in my analogies, but I'm very in the dark on this. And it's just always that lingering thing of like this was found in these clinical trials. This is written about in a textbook. I've had another doctor say, your body went to trash after you took those birth control pills. Like how can I not sit here and say, that's what happened to me? Yeah. And I want to zone it on something that she said that doesn't directly have to do with birth control, but it has to do with just the reproductive world in general. You called yourself an IVF survivor. Yes. Can you expound

upon that? Yeah. So I was conceived in a pre-productive. Petri Dish in 1994 in a IVF clinic in central Florida. And I have siblings who died in that process. I have siblings who were intentionally killed in that process. And I refer to myself as a survivor because 80% of the embryos that are created in an IVF laboratory do not get to leave the IVF laboratory. They either die in the freezing process. They are left. there indefinitely, they're intentionally killed by being sprayed with toxic solution when they're no longer wanted. They're weeded out for eugenics purposes. So I feel very chosen to have been allowed to live at all. And it's a very, IVF is a very brutal, brutal, horrible process. I don't even know

how many siblings I have that were killed in an IVF laboratory, and I will never know. How many living siblings do you have? I have two other siblings who survived to birth. from the IVF process. I'm very grateful for them. They're two years younger than me, a brother and a sister, but those are not the only siblings that I have, and the others are just gone. And I feel like I have to address my relationship with IVF as a survivor, because I cannot pretend like those siblings were not real. When did you start looking into the IVF process? Because as you know, you're in my position on IVF is in general, like a unique one. Even a lot of Christians that listen to this podcast, they do not like when I talk negatively

about IVF. So at some point, you must have really researched the process and the risks. Tell us about that. Yes. So I am so grateful for my parents' honesty about IVF and as I got older about their IVF experience because it really gave me permission as a young child. talking like 12 years old to get online and start researching healthy sexual reproduction what's happening in our body like I found that interesting like eggs sperm fusion like I found it

fascinating and so at a very young age I was researching it on a level that most children don't or are even aware of and so of course as I start looking into what is the IVF process like how do you How do you make a baby in a petri dish? Like, that was fascinating to me. I saw very quickly the abuse and the brutality of what is happening in that industry. I think it's very branded as, we just want to help infertile couples have babies. I think that's a beautiful thing to want to help an infertile couple have a baby. I think that infertility is one of the most tragic, horrible things that happens in our world.

It's awful. And that's why that PR is so beautiful. It sounds so nice. but as soon as you pull back the veil on the science of like, okay, well, what's actually happening? Because you can't just like roll some dice and shake your magic eight ball around and then you have a baby in a petri dish. You have to go collect sperm. You have to go collect an egg. Those are complicated, challenging, concerning processes in themselves.

And then you have a baby in a dish that needs its mother that needs to be attached to the uterus for survival. But for most babies, like I said, they don't do that with them. they try to decide, oh, is this baby good enough? Is this the one that we want to use? Because it's not about one baby at a time in making sure that they're safe, protected, and cared for. It's about how many babies can we do as quickly as possible to save as much money as possible to inflate,

to honestly, like disingenuously inflate the success rate of IVF that we project in our PR. So couples will feel very comfortable with what we're doing, even though what we're doing is killing or permanently freezing 80% of these babies. How can we pretend that they're not babies, even though it is a human life unique with its own DNA that is growing? What else can we call it? What can we do differently? And I just was always raised with this very kind of black and white perception of morality.

And sometimes that can be hard because it can make empathy difficult for you in some situations. but sometimes it can be so freeing because you can just look at something and say, I don't care what size that baby is you don't get to kill it just because it's in a dish. And you're right. That makes me a very controversial person sometimes because I think a lot of people expect me to just hug IVF with open arms and say, oh, it's wonderful, it's amazing. No, I'm going to call out the abuse when I see it, especially because it happened to my own family members and especially because it's continuing to happen.

and every time that Christians or pro-lifers try to justify the brutality in in vitro fertilization, they are minimizing the humanity of human beings. And I take that very offensively, just on a personal level, because I was in a dish at one point, and I deserve just as much respect then as I do now. And when they deny the humanity of those babies in a dish, it hurts me. It makes me feel very angry because then they're denying my humanity as well. And I get very upset very quickly.

How do your parents feel about this now? It is really hard for my parents. It is not easy for me to talk about this publicly on my parents. I have a lot of sympathy for women who went through IVF in the 90s because they didn't have an iPhone in their pocket to fact-check the things that their doctors told them. They didn't have really. anywhere else to go for their information. So when your doctor tells you, oh, I know you have more babies in the freezer, but I don't know that you should really be having any more babies

yourself. And it's like it's not really like a baby anyway. Like it's just it's just a potential for a baby. Yeah. Exactly. Like what were my parents supposed to do? What were they supposed to think? Who are they supposed to believe? I have an amazing privilege growing up after 1995 being able to even look up IVF and see what it was. And my parents didn't have that. So there is a lot of regret from my parents for the embryos that they agreed to be destroyed. But I think my mom sums it up the best when she said she didn't know she was killing her babies. And that's just doctors are supposed to be there to support you, tell you the truth, help you make a decision. They're not supposed to be there to lie to you about your babies. And that's what happened to my parents.

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Everylife.com code alley 10. Tell me about how your faith has developed through both of these things that we've talked about so far and we still have more to your story that we're going to get into. But discovering what happened to your siblings, but then also going through the tragedy of birth control, losing your sight. I know that you were raised to Christian, but this is a lot for a young person to wrestle with. It really is.

After the blindness, I really started to believe in this subtle, very dangerous lie that, okay, God loves me. and God, you know, he wants me to serve him, but God doesn't find me special is what I started to believe about him. Because I was praying to be healed. So many people prayed for me to be healed. The doctors told me I was going to get my, told me I was going to get my vision back and they were wrong. And it just seemed like turn after turn, things were going not the way they were supposed to. And I kept crying out to God like, why would you let me go blind and 19 years old? I just got married. only been married three months, this is not okay. And so I just started to believe in almost this kind of deism about God where it's like, yeah, he's, I know he's there. I know he's like,

think has an order to this world that he has planned, but, you know, I'm not special to him. He doesn't pay much notice to me. And I really stayed in that place for years until I got pregnant with my son, he's my second baby, and we really got put on a path to, for me to stand up on all of the pro-life issues, all the pro-life ethics that the IVF and birth control situation had really opened my eyes to. And then I realized, wow, everything that God has put in my life, even the fact that I was manufactured in a laboratory, even the fact that I was what felt cruelly blinded at 19 years old. He has been paving my path so I could be ready to give the fight of my life to save my son. So tell me about that.

You said that this is your second child and you had to fight to save him. What do you mean by that? When I was 12 weeks pregnant with my son, he had to. an abnormal ultrasound. And I'm not talking like, oh, there was like a little glitch in the ultrasound machine or something that they thought might go away. The ultrasound image was so bad that the ultrasound tech had to leave the room, show it to the maternal phenal medicine specialist, which is a extremely high-risk OBGYN, who was on call at the hospital that day, go back in to take more pictures and then send him into my room for an impromptu meeting to talk about abortion.

There was a mass in my son's abdomen that was a third of his body. Wow. They had no idea what it was. They told me it could be bowel entanglement, best case scenario, more likely Down syndrome, more likely something that we would never identify because I'd miscarry him so quickly. we were terrified me and my husband. We didn't know what to do. And they just immediately brought up abortion.

As soon as I said, well, what's the plan? What are we going to do for my son? They said, well, that depends on whether you're going to continue with a pregnancy or terminate. I was just shocked because I thought that when you're pregnant and you go to the doctor to help you keep your baby healthy, they would understand that the last thing I would want to do is kill my baby. But they seemed to think that would be the first thing I wanted to do. They were telling me about likely disability permanent for the rest of his life. They were telling me about significant cognitive delays and just really pushing me on trying to make an abortion decision quickly before I approached the state's legal cutoff in a way that they were just implying that my son is going to be so messed up.

My son was going to be so disabled. There's no way that I could ever want him. And that's hard enough to hear as a mama who loves her baby, who wanted her baby, whose baby was completely planned. But it hurts so much more being a disabled woman. And the lack of awareness on my doctor say essentially to me, there's no way you could love this disabled messed up thing. I just couldn't even believe that he could say those words to me,

knowing that I'm sitting across from him with permanent blindness. And I realized that everything God had taught me, opened my eyes to through IVF and birth control, even allowing me to stay blind when all the doctors said that I wouldn't. He moved all of that textbook knowledge, all of that head knowledge to a heart knowledge, and I was ready to fight. I couldn't be lied to by my doctor.

I knew that my life wasn't at risk. I knew that my son had value. Even if he was going to be stillborn, like they told me it was very possible, even if he was going to be cognitively delayed, even if he was going to have bags and tubes and wires and scanners and all these things that a normal able-body mom doesn't feel like she could handle. Now I had to handle with blindness. it didn't matter. He was my baby. And I was going to take care of him. And it was a long, long time until they had a

diagnosis for me. And the shocking part is that as soon as I hit that state legal cut off, they suddenly knew what was that? It was 20 weeks at the time. This was before the Dobbs decision. Yeah. It was actually, Dobbs was actually being brought to. to the courts at the same time I was going through this. So I had no relief from the subject. It was in the news. Everybody was talking about it. I was being harassed about having an abortion that I didn't want.

My doctor even called me at home to talk to me about abortion. He just wouldn't let it go. But then as soon as the hospital couldn't make money off selling me an abortion anymore, they dropped it. They completely dropped the discussion. And they had a diagnosis for me that was non-serious liver calcifications. and they went away on their own, and my son is completely perfectly healthy and fine. So when it was no longer legal for you to have an abortion anymore,

they told you that the diagnosis was actually fine and something that could resolve itself. Yes. Wow. And it did. By his first birthday, his liver calcifications were completely gone. They didn't have to do surgery. He didn't even have to take a pill. They went away on their own. They completely dissolved, which in that first appointment, we asked the doctor,

is there any way your ultrasound machine is wrong? He said, absolutely not. He said, is there any way this abnormality can go away on its own? He said, absolutely not. And that's exactly what happened. And I was able to push back on him to shut out all that, just evil, honestly, evil for a doctor to come in a room and tell a disabled woman that she doesn't want her disabled baby and she needs to kill him. Was because of everything God had put me through, through knowing I grew up IVF, through being blind from birth control pills, all of this preparation he had given me, I realized in that one moment that was all to save my son. And now I just look back on that time. It was such a dark place. I was so scared. I didn't know what was going to happen to my baby. I didn't know if I could take care

of him. I didn't know what to do. And now I realize that that pain was so much worse, so much worse than my blindness. Even though my blindness is forever, if I had to go blind, to know how to save my son's life, I can't think of a better reason. Wow. And think about how many moms would listen to their doctor because they felt like, well, this is the responsible thing to do. I don't want my child in the womb. They might justify it like this. I don't want my child in the womb to suffer. The doctor knows best. If I do it in the first trimester, it doesn't matter. They go through all of these justifications. And it kind of makes me wonder because a lot of the stories that we hear post-obs are, you know, I had to abort my child

because of this diagnosis. I wonder how many of those women, and maybe we all would in this position, are almost convincing themselves and even like exaggerating what the doctor told them and believing the worst case scenario of what the doctor said was possible in order to make themselves feel better about the decision that they made when in reality in many instances it was maybe like yours where it was a possibility that it was serious but it ended up being something that could have been resolved and I'm just sad thinking about how many toddlers and teenagers and adults we could have in this country had more women pushed back against their doctors and said no I'm going to save I'm going to fight for my baby yeah and even a lot of

women don't understand the science behind pregnancy. They don't understand the science behind fetal development. And so that's why I feel like God gave me such a gift, such a gift by having the weirdest hobby in school at 12 years old that I would go up, I would get off the bus and I would go upstairs. And instead of like playing video games or something with my brother and sister, I would get on pro-life websites and read all about the baby and everything that was going on. That's such a gift from God, because even I felt the pressure from the doctor when they were talking about my son, even I was wondering, can I do this? Even I was asking this silly question, like, is this going to put my health in danger if he's handicapped? And I really had to just sit in my room by myself

and calm down and say, what do I know? What have I learned? And as soon as I started doing that, I realized that everything they told me, everything they were telling me was a lie, everything was manipulation, everything was pressure. And I realized that, and I realized that, that because I was on Medicaid at the time with that pregnancy, they probably would make more money if I chose abortion than if I went through a very difficult, labor-intensive, expensive birth for the hospital. And it just really, like, showed me exactly what was going on. And it gave me the strength to make my decision.

And I found some support from my local pregnancy resource center of how I needed to navigate those. complaints with the doctor because I had already told the hospital, hey, I told him no abortion and he won't stop talking to me about it. Didn't matter. He came in and did it again. Wow. And I just didn't know how to break through with them. So getting the support from the local PRC of like, okay, Chelsea, you need to say it like this because these are all, this is a pro abortion space that you're going into. And you can't just come in and say, I'm pro life and cry and then take you seriously. You need to know how to navigate. Like, don't say I'm filing complaint. Say I'm asking for a second

opinion like little tricks like that to get the medical staff to take you more seriously so you're not just labeled the hysterical woman in exam room 12 yeah wow it was so helpful and it's exactly what I needed I knew what I had to do but I needed my community and other pro-life resources to just give me the strength to do it mm-hmm and now you have how many children I have two who run around I am also 29 weeks pregnant oh congratulations so we, I've got a busy, I've got a busy, messy, very crazy house right now.

But it's just, I just sometimes like, really on my son's first birthday. We were saying, him happy birthday and I just sobbed. Yeah. I just couldn't stop crying because I was told that that was not going to happen.

Yeah. And it just, it breaks my heart knowing that one day I'm going to have to tell him what happened and that the doctor who was supposed to fight to save him thought it would be,

totally fine if he died. Yeah. And I just, I know that that will probably push my son in a good direction for how he views the world, for how he has compassion on other people, especially people with disabilities. But it's just no mom should ever have to hear that about their baby. No, absolutely not. And I just am thankful for your courage. And I know that your son, even if he doesn't understand, it's all.

also thankful and will be thankful for that fight. Last sponsor is Jace Medical. If you are in an emergency situation, you don't want to be without the medication that you need, whether that's an antibiotic for a life-threatening infection or whether you need an emergency round of ivermectin, you might need an epipen or Tamiflu. You need to get an emergency medical kit from Jace. Jace Medical offers you this stash of antibiotics and other items. that you might need in an emergency situation if you cannot get to this kind of medication through the traditional means. They also have something called a Jace Daily case, and that is a year-long supply of the

prescriptions that you and your family rely on. We talk about making sure that we're prepared in a variety of ways, your food supply, et cetera, but you can also make sure that you are taking care of your family by preparing them medically. You can do that confidentially through the telemedicine process at Jace Medical. go to jace.com use code alley 10 at checkout you'll get a discount jace.com code alley 10 can you tell us a little bit more about what it's like being a blind mom um like i love the just the sweetness the sincerity and the fight and your story and going through all of these challenges but you also have an awesome sense of humor and you kind of make light you might have like make light of a lot of the challenges that you have which i mean you kind of have to because we're still called to

live a joyful life. So talk to us just about kind of like some of the practical parts of being a blind mom. Yeah. Well, humor has always been my coping mechanism. Yeah. That's definitely how we've gotten through a lot. I remember like when I first went blind and it had been a little bit of enough time for me to start making jokes. I told my dad, I was like, hey, dad, you know how you spent all that money on IVF? And like you're supposed to get a healthy baby from that. Maybe you could get a refund now since I went like my dad did not think it was funny. Yeah, he probably did it. I thought it was hilarious. And that is definitely how I get through a lot of these days because I deal with all of the

same challenges that every mom deals with. I just have to do it with a blindfold on. So for example, my most popular reel on Instagram is me slipping in a puddle of pee from my son. Oh, yes. I think that's the first one that I saw from you too. Okay, tell us that story. Tell us what happened about you slipping in pee.

Okay. So, of course, when you're setting up camera for Instagram, Instagram. Like, I'm a real mom with a real life. Like, I'm not running around filming myself all of the time. So me and my husband were thinking, like, what is like genuine to like what happens in my actual life? And during, while I was pregnant with my son, that is when my daughter at like 20 months old decided she was going to potty train. And she would, her way of potty training was just stripping off all of her clothes and pooping wherever she wanted in the house. Oh, no. Because my husband worked all the time. Like, I wouldn't know she'd pooped.

until I stepped in it. And then I'd have to be on my hands and knees at 36 weeks pregnant, cleaning up poop, hoping I got it all. So I have to FaceTime my mom and say, like, do you see any more poop in this living room? And she's like, well, hold a camera steady. I'm like, I'm on my hands and knees at 36 weeks pregnant. Like, I don't know what you want for me right now. I'm just trying to clean up all of this poop before my company comes over.

And so we're like, how can we turn that into a reel? And so we staged the reel and set it up. like just what would normally happen. My son rips off his diaper. He's on the floor. He runs away. I find it an hour later. But the trouble with the video is when we went to pretend to fall down in the pee. I actually fell down in the pee. Oh my goodness. I stepped on the diaper. I slipped. I've hit the ground so hard. I literally just called my husband. I'm like, I hope you got that take because I don't want to do it again. Yeah. That was a real fall. Oh my goodness. But luckily my my booty absorbed the whole thing. The whole fall. How do you like how do you cook and all of that? Yeah so believe it or not

some things as a blind person are a lot easier than you think they are and some things are way harder. Cooking is one of the easiest things I do. Doing dishes unfortunately is one of the easiest things that I do so I can't get out of it. Yeah. Transportation is the hardest thing that I have to figure out because I can't drive. I have two kids with car seats. I'm about to have a third kid in a car seat. I have to phone a friend. because there's only so much you can take on the bus. There's only so much you feel safe taking on the bus as a blind mom with now about to be three kids you're taking care of. So when my kid is homesick and they need to go to the doctor, that's really hard for me to figure out.

Because I have to call someone to babysit the healthy kid. Then I have to call someone else who can fit me and the sick kid and the car seat in their car to take us all the way across town to go to the doctor. Like, it's a lot. There's so much that surprises you about being a disabled parent. You're like, this is really hard. But there's also a lot of community if you reach out and you just ask for help. Like, my church has stepped up so much to be there for me.

I have a friend who takes me and my son to mom's group in the mornings while my daughter is at school, just these amazing blessings that. that show up also with the disability. Because I think that so many times people look at an issue, like with their pregnant and in crisis, or if they're disabled, or if they're having financial burdens. They're just like, oh, I have to do this by myself.

And I can never, I can never get that done. But like what God says in 2 Corinthians 12 verse 9, he says, my power is made perfect in weakness. Like the point of our lives is not to be Superman. The point of our lives is to be weak and to be fulfilled by him. and the blessings and the mercies that he gives us. So there are so many times from like, oh, I could never, I'm never going to be able to handle this.

Like, what am I doing? Like, who am I right now? Like, I'm a full-time stay-at-home mom. And yet somehow I've become a pro-life speaker and influencer. I'm like flying across the country, telling my stories. I'm just, that should not be possible with a four-year-old, a two-year-old, and a 29-week-old in my belly slowing me down and making me nauseous. But God has just shown up in so many ways.

And that's why I really try to communicate. to people on my platform. I'll get like devastating messages from people saying, well, I'm disabled and if I ever got pregnant, I would have to have an abortion because I could just never do it. That's so not true. That's not true. And it's heartbreaking because not only is that very possible. Like there's no reason a disabled woman can't get pregnant.

We have lives too. We have husbands. We have dreams for ourselves. What's devastating beyond the fact that she would consent to an abortion. that she doesn't believe in herself. She thinks that she is that inferior that she cannot endure. She cannot thrive throughout these weaknesses. And like I said, accept the blessings of God and really make it through. And so I really try to push out to people like, life is hard, matter of who you are. You don't have to be blind for your life to be hard, but you can be sustained.

You can keep going. Our lives are not about ourselves anyway. They're not about a, about how happy we were on Tuesday, about how easy it was to get the dishes done. Our lives are for other people. Our lives are for God. And we just have to not quit. We have to keep going because there are amazing blessings that show up unexpectedly. Like my son, I love my daughter and I love my little girl who's coming. But my son's life is, there's just something about it because of what happened and this blessing that we have now.

Because we, me and my husband, we chose, like, no, we don't kill baby. that's just the mantra we don't kill babies and we trusted God I said I don't know how I'm gonna I don't know how I'm gonna take care of tubes wires bags on on this little boy but I'm gonna do it because God gave me this baby I'm gonna fight for him yeah wow I love seeing God's just a hand of redemption and your story and what Satan meant for evil and could have used for evil as you described all of those moments of being ignored of being pursuing made in a way that, I mean, it really silenced you and really hurt you physically and emotionally how God used that for not only your good in His glory, but also to save the life of your child.

And how he's continuing to use that, as you said, to give glory to himself. And that's one theme we see throughout Scripture that God will stop at nothing to give himself glory, even if that means things happening to us or in our lives that we do not. understand. And you are just a really beautiful example of that. So thank you. Thank you for your courage and thank you so much for taking the time to come here and share your story. It's going to help a lot of people.