The following is a true story.
Who I Am:
I’m a 25-year-old woman-child lucky enough to live in semi-liberal Los Angeles, California. I live in a tiny studio apartment with an angry dog and angrier spiders. I ride a bicycle everywhere. I haven’t done laundry in nearly a month. There is currently a fruit-fly infestation in my kitchen. I have over 200 bottles of nail polish. I still watch Gossip Girl.
These are all important facts about me. Another fact? Last year, I got pregnant. And then, I had an abortion.
Some Background:
There’s a reason I’m sharing this story with you: politically, the rights of women are being chipped at, again and again. Other people are dictating how people’s lives should be lived. So I figured, the best way to showcase what these rights mean is to tell the real story of a woman who has actually gone through this situation. I apologize in advance if I come off as glib. It was a stressful situation, and the way I deal with things is with humor. This is the first time I’ve ever written this out before.
Finding Out About My Pregnancy:
I hadn’t had sex in a while. I had sex. I didn’t think much of it at the time. It was only in hindsight that it became A Big Deal, so I won’t highlight these gory details.
I’m a responsible person and go to the gynecologist yearly to get my check-up and make sure all the plumbing is running correctly. At the time, I didn’t take birth control, but I did use condoms.
There was a month where I started feeling terrible. I woke up groggy and exhausted. If I had a couple drinks, I felt hungover for days. I was sluggish and constantly felt bad. I thought I had mono. A fetus growing inside me never crossed my mind. In retrospect, I feel pretty slow not to have connected those dots sooner.
My period has always been notoriously spotty. It’s short, and infrequent, so a missed period, or two, wasn’t a subject for concern. However, three was alarming.
When I had my appointment with the gynecologist, I mentioned that I’d missed a few periods. I told her that I generally always skipped them, but I just wanted to be sure it wasn’t something serious. She said something about my thyroid and scheduled me for several tests. I peed in some cups, had my wrist pricked, and the next thing I know, I’m at work, later that day, when she calls me to tell me I’m pregnant.
Naturally, I left the office to freak the fuck out, and promptly called my mother and sister. My sister told me I had to tell the man involved in my situation. My mother offered me support. After I had calmed down and assessed the situation, I knew I had a decision to make.
I called and set up another appointment. You have to have a consultation before you can be referred to an abortion provider. I knew that there was a provider near my apartment, because I have actually walked past picketers before.
At the consultation, the nurse listened to my concerns. I’ve never had any surgery, or been put under anesthesia, and this is kind of a big deal, even for how common it is. She handed me literature to read, and some information about the pill. I was referred to a family-planning clinic in Santa Monica.
The Big Day:
Because of the nature of the procedure and the anesthetics, you have to have someone drive you to and from the clinic. My best friend in the world drove up from San Diego to do the deed for me.
The clinic was located in a big office building and there were no protesters. I’m glad, because if there had been, I would have punched them in the face. I was hungry and scared. Because you are going under, you can’t eat the day of, in case you throw up or die or something. Those were the things that I was worrying about.
“Oh, I should keep the baby?” “Did you support universal healthcare? Cuts to programs like WIC?” “You don’t get to pick or choose when you care about life.” I had all sorts of witty retorts saved up.
In the room, I played the waiting game. Fill out some paper. Sit. Wait.
There was one girl who didn’t have enough money to pay. I don’t know if you realize this, but abortions are pretty expensive. Nearly $500, if you don’t have health insurance. My friend ended up giving the girl $20.
Inside the room, they make you change into a gown and you wait some more. Then, I had to get a blood test. I have small, hard-to-see veins, so the person giving me the blood test tried four times, gave me a bruise, and then I had to do the finger prick.
After that, I got to sit in a room, reconfirm my details, see a brief image of the thing I was paying 50% of nearly $500 to get rid of, and then walk awkwardly in fake plastic shoes into THE OFFICIAL ROOM OF ABORTIONS.
This is when I started freaking the fuck out. I burst into tears. I was hungry, terrified, wondering if I would die while getting an abortion and Dear God, what would the obituary say. I felt like a monster for not having my shit together enough to provide for a theoretical child. The nurse calmly told me to stop crying or it would be difficult for me to breathe while under anesthetic, and the next thing I know, I am waking up and puking into a bucket.
The Aftermath:
I ate some crackers. Had some juice. Awkwardly tried to navigate a hallway and walked into a wall. My friend drove us to the 3rd Street Promenade and bought me some chicken soup at Wolfgang Puck’s. I was slightly delirious. She gave me a gift bag with Season 1 of Glee and some candies, condoms, coloring books, and a card that told me how much she loves me.
When she took me home, I read the literature that the clinic gave me. I couldn’t wear tampons for the next week, despite the bleeding, in case I started to hemorrhage. Clots of terrifying size dotted my pads, but thankfully, they were all smaller than a golf ball, which is apparently the sign that you are not in fact hemorrhaging. I called my mom a lot, panicking, all the same.
I spent that day, and the next, laying in bed watching The Big Bang Theory and Glee, eating crackers, and weeping uncontrollably, and sometimes sleeping. On Monday, I went back to work.
The one truly bad thing I really did was the next week, when I was supposed to get my follow-up appointment. I went to the clinic near my apartment and it was closed. I stood outside for a minute, surrounded by picketers who looked just as confused as I was. They told me it was closed, and asked me in Spanish if I would take some literature and consider keeping the baby. This offended me.
I explained to them, in English, that they were too late and I was just here for a follow-up to make sure they didn’t accidentally leave anything in me, like a scalpel or a jellybean or an undeveloped fetus. One of the protesters lent me her phone to call the clinic to find out what happened to my appointment. They sometimes close sporadically, to throw off the protesters, I guess. They rescheduled me but I never went back. I just trusted to God that I was okay, and as it turns out, I was.
Today:
That was 2010 in a nutshell. I spent a lot of time being angry, pondering if I made the right decision, trying to imagine how a baby would fit into my life now, trying to think if I can handle the academic rigors of going to grad school.
When I consider it though, ultimately, I made the right decision. I love children and someday want to have a child. But I want to give that child opportunity, and love, and all the chances that having a baby right now, by myself, with no financial security or even situational security, would never have. To me, it was the only responsible thing, and the kindest thing, that I could do.
I never really gave consideration to adoption because I didn’t want to go through all of the rigors of pregnancy and give up the baby at the end. I also feared that I would change my mind, and do the child a disservice by trying to keep it, or that the baby would never be adopted because I am a person of color, and people of color don’t always have the best luck in foster care, or that I’d lose my job by having to go on maternity leave to recover.
I may be wrong, but I have the political right, and the moral right, to make that decision for myself. I know I’m lucky as hell to live in an urban area with medical providers who know how to provide these services, and the right to access them.
It was hard as hell to do, and live through, even with my liberal mindset and luckiness in location. When you consider the conflicting emotions a woman has to go through in this situation already, without factoring in the political and moral debate/posturing that goes on, you know it’s not something any person goes into lightly. It’s a serious decision, and I’m better off having made the choice I did, but I wouldn’t wish this situation on anyone.
Birth control needs to be inexpensive and easily accessible. Sex education needs to be rational, and ubiquitous. Nobody likes abortion. Believe me, having had one, it sucks. But the answer isn’t, “Ban it and make people suffer.” Offer prevention, help educate and make it easier for women to have control over their bodies, before they ever get pregnant. Be there for them when they do get pregnant, and understand the conflicting thoughts they have to sort through when they decide what to do. Support them, no matter what their choice is.
I’m still pro-choice.
