Regret-free Abortion

Today is Roe V Wade's anniversary. The other day our shithole president addressed March for Life (butlolfuckyouifyouarealreadyalivingchildorwomanonthisplanetespeciallyawomanorchildofcolor) protest, claiming he gives a shit about the lives of children and women. Women called bullshit, of course.

Women aren't going to stand for his dumbass bullshit, trying to drag us into back alleys for our abortions. And in case you didn't know Dump was a flaccid flip flopper, here's proof he is lying to his redneck anti-woman base.  

So if you believe Dump is anti-choice, you're wrong. I bet there are dozens of women who have expelled Dump's nasty cell clumps from their uteri. I mean, christ on a cracker, we can't have more Don Jr and Erics and Ivankas running around. That's fucking disgusting. 

I have had two abortions and I have not had a single moment of regret. The first guy who impregnated me was abusive, and he was excited about the pregnancy. He wanted the baby, way more than he wanted me. He wanted to marry me. He also barred me from leaving a room when we got into a fight, and pinned me to the wall. He also cheated on me during our brief summer fling. I had no doubt that I would be having an abortion, and I did. I dodged a big bullet with him.

The second time was with a boyfriend that I later married. He supported the decision, and I don't know if he really wanted me to have the baby or not, but it doesn't matter, because I didn't.   No regrets, not a single moment wondering what if I hadn't. Two regret-less abortions. 

The situations were quite different but my decision was not and I am happy I made those decisions. The most harmful thing about the process for me was when I naively went to a Crisis Pregnancy Center expecting them to provide what they advertised, referrals for abortion. Instead a nasty old woman in polyester pants tried to convince me to keep the baby, even sent me a postcard at home, a clear violation of privacy, and called my house as "a friend." She gave me booties for my precious baby, which I threw in a dumpster.

Every Child a Wanted Child

Today is the 39^th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and it’s Blog for Choice day.  I thought this was the appropriate time to share my second abortion story, because my second abortion didn’t involve complications or drawn-out denial or an abusive partner—it was a more typical experience, I think, and I think it’s just as important to share this story.   

After my first abortion, I didn’t go on birth control because I wasn’t seeing anyone and I didn’t see the point.  A couple of years later I started seeing someone, and became pregnant again (no condom.  Yes, stupid.)  I told the father and he told me he was supportive of whatever decision I made.  I didn’t hesitate.  It is still amazing to me that through the years, though I’ve been willing to sacrifice a lot of things for a man, and though I’ve avoided confrontation with others by being passive-aggressive, I’ve always, always been able to stand firm when it came to my reproductive choices.  It’s not even difficult for me. 

The father accompanied me and I went and got my abortion, by the same wonderful woman, Dr. Susan Wicklund.  And this time when the nurse asked me at my follow-up visit if I was interested in a birth control pill, I said yes. 

I don’t regret either of my abortions.  I couldn’t imagine being tied to either of those men in any way.  I grew up positive I didn’t want to have kids, which probably fueled my pro-choice slant from early on, and I only changed my mind when I met someone who somehow made me believe I could be a mother, who just took it for granted I could be a good mother, when I’d always seen myself as someone who’d be terrible at and who would also hate it.   

My Abortions Story Part 2: Complications and the business of payment

On the day of the abortion, I had lunch at the dorms with Eva, though I didn’t live there, and then we drove to the clinic. I wore those track type pants that swooshed, with a long tee shirt. After a short wait, I was called back to the counselor’s office. She was kind, and asked me questions. I told her the father didn’t want me to have the abortion, but I had made up my mind. I was frightened but sure. Then, I went back to sit with Eva for a few minutes.

My doctor was a woman, maybe in her forties or fifties. She had long, straight, silver-gray hair. Her face was softly lined, and she was calm. I remember bright lights and the whirring vacuum machine, and that’s it. After the procedure was finished, the doctor and a nurse helped me to the recovery area, which was a small room with two couches, a table with juice and cookies, and some magazines. I rested there for 45 minutes. They let Eva come in. When the time came, the nurse nodded and I got up, already reaching for the door handle, and then everything went black and I was sitting on the couch again. I’d passed out. I felt nauseated and closed my eyes, swallowing mouthfuls of saliva. More juice and cookies, and 45 minutes later I got up again, slower this time, and black splashed my eyes again. Over and over I rested, tried to get up, and passed out. Eva looked a little worried when the nurse came in and checked my stomach. She paused. “Does your stomach normally look this way?” I looked at Eva. I didn’t even know if my own stomach was pooched out more than it normally was. I didn’t even know what my own stomach looked like, the part of my body I’d always hated. This is how oblivious I was to what was going on with my body. I had no idea if it was bloated, and I told her so.

Eva and I had made plans to go to our friends’ house, the two friends who I mentioned earlier, so that they could take care of me. They were cooking spaghetti, and we’d watch Friends. It was a Thursday. But the afternoon passed, and the clinic closed. I passed out repeatedly, and everyone around me was nervous. But I was calm. I’m not sure if it was just the weakness, or my general obliviousness to things happening around me, but I never got worried or frightened. Finally, around 8 p.m. the doctor came back to the clinic. She felt around on my stomach and said I might have a clot. She’d need to get me back in the procedure room to take a look and get it out if needed. But she’d need help.

She and Eva grabbed either arm and we stood up fast and made it to the exam bed just as I went limp. I woke up and vomited. I wasn’t nervous, but I was shaking uncontrollably. The doctor started up the vacuum machine again, the rumbling filling the room, and I looked over to see Eva in the room, her arms wrapped around her stomach. I moaned—I hadn’t wanted her here for this. She was pregnant and I knew she had to be having some conflicting stuff going on. But soon they called Eva to duty and asked her to squeeze my IV bag. Apparently I had an IV by this time. She stood by my head and told me to look at her, and I did. “Breathe,” she kept saying. “Breathe, pal.” And I’d take a breath and hold it until she reminded me again.

After, I was able to leave the recovery room standing, and we drove to our friends’ house. The spaghetti was cold, and they had antoehr friend over, who didn’t’ know about the abortion. I’m a pro at glossing over though, and I sat cross-legged on the floor eating microwaved spaghetti. When the friend used the bathroom, Eva told me that there was blood on my sock. They hadn’t taken my socks off when they put me on the exam table the second time, and a neat round circle of bright red blood covered the heel of my white ankle sock.

The abortion cost $360, and my friends paid for it. I had just moved back to school, and I hadn’t found a job yet. The father had promised to send half of the money to me before he’d gone to California and I’d come back to college, but it never showed up, so I had to ask my friends, who had a little money. Two friends lent me $180 each, and I paid them back bit by bit over the next year.

Despite the complications, which were actually quite serious, despite the heavy stress the whole situation put me under, I remained somehow apart, somehow unaware and calmer than I should have been. I guess it was my body’s way of getting me through it. I’m learning more and more to trust my body. Eva, who is now a labor and delivery nurse, told me recently that I was hemorrhaging that day, and that I could have died. I went to her for her memories of my abortion experience, because I guess I kept a lot of that stuff on the periphery of my mind, and she filled in some of the blanks for me.

Having been rather out of it during the entire pregnancy and termination, you might think I’d have these great feelings of regret or distress or despair now that I’ve had time and opportunity to look back and reassess those weeks. But instead, I am calm. I have not regretted that abortion for one second. I have not wondered what would have happened if, because I’m more concerned with what did happen and what’s happening now, which is raising my three beautiful children with a beautiful, beautiful man.

And I am thankful every day for what my friends did for me. Without them, I probably would have allowed myself to ignore the pregnancy for too long. And if I hadn't ignored it, I would have gone to the Pregnancy "Care" Center by myself. I would have gone to the clinic by myself. But probably, that wouldn't have happened, because without my two friends who paid for it, I wouldn't have been able to afford the abortion. Thank you, friends. Because you were there I was able to use my reproductive choice, and it was the bravest choice I could make at that time. I will try to pay it forward.

My Abortions Story Part 1: Denial and the Crisis Pregnancy Center

I was 20 years old and working as a lifeguard at my hometown pool. Home from college for the summer, I was actually working with two of my best friends at the pool. One of our other best friends, Eva, had gone that day to a doctor's appointment because she hadn't been feeling well. I happened to be the one to run to the pool house when we heard the phone ring.

Eva was crying when I picked up the phone. She was still out of town, had just left her appointment. "Pal..." she wailed. "I'm pregnant." I listened to her and asked questions or made statements, and in one of them I promised not to tell our other two friends. She wanted to absorb it a bit, I figured, and to tell them herself. The girls questioned me, though, because they were expecting a call from her about what the doctor had said. I covered a bit awkwardly.

I was on the phone with Eva, alone in the pool house. My best friend was confiding in me and she was frightened and hurting, but still I didn't tell her that I was pregnant, too. I couldn't, really. I hadn't even let myself admit it. Pregnancy simply could not happen to me. To say I was a naive and unprepared girl is to give me way too much credit. Even though I'd been having sex for five years at that point, I had never once thought about birth control. My step-mother tried to talk to me about it once on a car ride somewhere in high school. She said she'd bring me to the doctor, and we'd get me on the pill. It was a kind offer, but I was so uncomfortable talking about sex, about my body, that I clammed up and shook my head. It's stunning to me now, to look back and see that girl so heavy in denial that she explained away nausea and sore boobs, and yet hoped in the back of her mind that breathing the cleaning fumes at the pool would cause a miscarriage. It was an odd place to be, almost of two minds--unable to say the word pregnant even in my head, but already planning an abortion.

The father was onto me. And he was thrilled. He loved kids, and he took to rubbing my stomach and calling me Mama. He sensed I was leaning towards abortion, when I could eventually talk about it with him, and he put me on the phone with his mother, who he had told. She prayed and I cried.

But the father was abusive. Locking me in a room is the worst thing he ever did to me, but he'd told me he beat up his ex-girlfriend's parents and his sister, and I'd seen his eyes go cold when I stayed out too late with my friends. This guy wanted me to marry him, move to California, where he was from, and have the baby. I knew this was not happening. Crazy thing is, if I hadn't been pregnant, I was stupid and desperate enough to have married him. But even with a complete lack of self-esteem and little confidence, it was firm in my head and my heart that I was not going to have his baby. At the end of the summer, I still hadn't told my best friends or anyone else, and I headed back to college.

I finally told Eva one day, or rather she encouraged it out of me (I guess I wasn't as discreet as I thought)and she agreed to go to a clinic with me. Our university's campus newspaper had an ad for a Pregnancy Care Center. Free pregnancy tests, it said, and abortion referrals. Eva drove me there. The building was downtown inside a tall, dark, old building. We climbed up silent, soft forest green stairs and down a hallway. The door looked like an office door, not a medical clinic, but we went in anyway.


It was an office. It was small and looked like it should belong to an insurance salesperson. Right away we saw one of those "abortion" pictures, and we looked at each other. Still, we stayed. I went into their small office bathroom with rust circling the sink drain, and I peed in a Dixie cup, then left it on the dish towel on top of the toilet. The elderly lady who had led me there wore old-woman pleated slacks and a sweater, and she went into the bathroom and placed an Equate brand pregnancy test stick in my piss. After she pronounced me pregnant, she asked me what I was thinking of doing, and I told her I was thinking of doing abortion. I can't remember much of what she said, but I remember this: "Have you felt the baby kicking yet?" At 13 weeks, which I was,that was, at the very least, very unlikely. The woman gave me a handout to study up on, mostly about the emotional trauma I would feel. I was worried about this, but not as worried as I was about being pregnant. In the end, the woman gave me a Thank You certificate from my fetus, as well as a pair of tiny booties. This mystified me. I wasn't sure if the smallness of the booties was supposed to bring out my maternal instincts, or if someone figured it was the lack of booties that was causing me to want to "murder" my "child." At any rate, later, the woman called my home, where I lived with two cousins, and left a message from a "friend," and then followed up with a postcard.

After we left that place, I cried all the way to Eva's dorm, and then I told her I wanted to have an abortion. One other thing I was worried about was Eva's reaction. She had told the dad, had a plan, and she was having a baby. Terminating my pregnancy was the only option I ever considered, but I was still frightened she'd think badly of me. But she scolded me for thinking it, hugged me, told me she'd go with me, and asked if she should tell our two friends. I said yes, and then I went home and phoned the local women's clinic and made an appointment.

Part 2: Coming up with the money and medical complications