This post was submitted to us on the condition that we not disclose the author’s name. ~ Eds
Originally posted October 12, 2011
By the time you read this, it won’t really make a difference. Tomorrow, I will kill what some people would consider to be my unborn child. To me, tomorrow marks the day that I get rid of a parasite. Is that inflammatory to say? Yes, of course it is. I know it is. But for me, at this point in my life, this thing that has taken residence inside of me is not even a fetus as of yet—it’s just an unwanted little creature that has taken control of my body without my permission.
Sure, you could say that by having sex, I gave control of my body over to Mother Nature, but the truth is that this can happen to anyone no matter how safe you are. It doesn’t matter if this was the result of having tons of sex with my boyfriend or a couple of one night stands in the past couple of months—the numbers game remains the same no matter what your relationship status is, and Mother Nature doesn’t give a shit about how many sexual partners you have when you’re fertile.
Tomorrow I get a pill that prevents the pregnancy from continuing. On Saturday, I take a series of pills that forces my uterus to flush itself out. The process doesn’t sound so bad on paper. I know that, in reality, it’s going to be anything but easy. Swallowing some pills sounds like a really simple solution to a really complicated, scary problem, but I know that the havoc this will wreak on my body will be intense and probably extremely painful. I suppose that can serve as a reminder that I have to be even more careful in the future.
You never think it could happen to you. If it ever does, the feeling of shame—the stigma that comes with the accidental pregnancy and the subsequent abortion—is pretty potent. And the fear is surprising, even for those of us who think we can handle it. I’m sure there are some people who can handle this without a blink of an eye, but I am not one of those people. I had my freak-out, but now I’ve reached a strange mix of fascination, annoyance, acceptance, and even some nonchalance.
I want to think that this is a step forward, actually, and that I won’t be left broken after all of this. I mean, on the bright side, I know I’m able to get pregnant (and yes, I have questioned that in the past, not that I’ve ever tried before, but the thought of trying in the future did occur to me) and I am also finding this whole pregnancy thing to be somewhat interesting, after getting past the anger. Sure, I’m only roughly six weeks into this, but I’ve known for weeks. Not known for sure, but I just knew. I felt off, even though my symptoms have been few and minor. Had I not skipped my period, I wouldn’t have considered pregnancy. But now that it’s been confirmed and I know it’s going to end soon, I’m at a weird place where sometimes I even laugh at the situation. Coping mechanism? Maybe.
I will say that I cannot wait to get my life back and regain control over my body. It was never an option for me to continue with this. I don’t have the time, the patience, the desire… I can’t even carry it to term and put it up for adoption because it would actually destroy my life in a number of ways. I know, that’s a heavy thing to say, but it’s true. And I’m dealing with this mostly on my own. I’m paying for it myself, not informing my parents (my poor mother is so obsessed with grandchildren that I think she’d be even more upset than I was when the two pink lines showed up on my pee stick), not dealing with the father (who doesn’t live here and certainly never wanted to be part of this decision, anyway), and probably not covered by health insurance. It’s OK—I accept the responsibility for this, not because I have to, but because I choose to. I am just happy that I have trustworthy friends who have offered to spend much of the weekend with me as the pills take their toll on my body and I deal with my self-induced miscarriage.
Whenever this makes me feel like a failure, I just remind myself that this is more common than I think it is. 1 in 3 women in the US have an abortion before the age of 45. I am in good company. It’s not just a poor person problem, a minority problem, a lack of education problem, or an apathy problem. I never thought this sort of thing was relegated to those groups, of course, but I also somehow thought I was immune. Don’t we all, though? Intellectually, I knew I wasn’t, but that didn’t mean I didn’t believe that I was.
Also, I’m writing this not just to help myself, but to potentially be of help to anyone else who might be in such a situation in the future. When I took the home test, my world collapsed on me, even though it only confirmed what I already pretty much knew, intuitively, to be true. I didn’t expect to have that reaction, and when I did, all I could see was the end of everything I’ve been working towards. But here I am, on the eve of my abortion, and I mostly feel hope, relief, and peace. This is, in no way, an easy decision to make, no matter how quickly one makes it. And there’s no way to prepare for the feelings that bombard you when you find out you have an unwanted pregnancy that you just can’t or don’t want to keep. But I guess my hope is that we can start working on removing the stigma from this scenario. A sort of “it gets better” call for women who have sex while taking precautions—whether with a single partner or many, pre-martial or marital—and still have to deal with mother nature’s wrath.
It’s the curse of the uterus, in essence, and it sucks. I say “curse of the uterus” for this particular situation, because it’s something that guys don’t seem to grasp, and it’s a serious imbalance in terms of the sexual liberty that many men and women embrace. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard about or experienced a guy either immediately trying to have sex without a condom or has reacted incredibly negatively—even harshly—to a woman who wasn’t on birth control. The issue of birth control still seems to be largely a woman’s problem and the reason why is because we’re the ones who have to carry the burden if things go awry. It’s our responsibility to not get pregnant, and that’s a big part of the stigma that persists in our society. The shame is not put on the men nearly as much because they are not the ones who got pregnant and I think that’s a ridiculous situation.
I don’t know where this swing back in the direction of not being safe is coming from, because, to my knowledge, we still have STDs to worry about, but this attitude of “it’s all your fault if you get pregnant” is sickening. It takes two for a pregnancy to occur, and every time I think about how ashamed I should feel that I “let myself get pregnant,” I think about how easily this can happen because we’re just built for pregnancy, and that it’s not my fault any more than it’s his fault for having sex with me. Think about the alternative—people only having sex when they absolutely want to have a baby. Who does that? Very, very few people, I can assure you.
If anyone is offended by what I wrote, I sincerely apologize because I was not intending to offend, even though I know some of what I said may be controversial and possibly offensive. I did not say anything with the goal of being offensive, even when I clearly indicated that I knew I was approaching that line. I wanted this to be an expression of how I feel about what’s happening, and it’s possible—hell, even probable—that what I feel is offensive to others. Please do feel free to disagree with me and voice your opinion about these things, though. I don’t want anyone to feel like they can’t speak their minds because I’m in this situation. If anyone has experienced any of what I talked about, I hope I did you justice, at least somewhat, with some of the things I wrote. And if anyone ever has a scare or is in this situation in the future, I hope that, if any of what I wrote here comes to mind, this will only be of help or comfort to you.