Chicago Sunrise

I am naked. And although the shower is running, and my clothes are on the floor, I can’t seem to focus enough to do either: get dressed, or get in the shower. I stumble back and forth between my room and the bathroom. I spin in circles. Even though I’m alone, I am stammering and mumbling nonsense as if I’m trying to explain what is happening to someone else in the room. 

 

The test is sitting on the bathroom counter.  I sort of planned to glance at it before I get in the shower, sigh with relief, and then go on with the rest of my day; the rest of my life.  When I see the two blue lines, it is as though my entire world comes to a screeching halt.  I can physically feel my surroundings slam into them selves, the walls, the air, and stop. 

 

I am pregnant. 

I am pregnant.

Oh. My. God.

I am pregnant.

 

Less than an hour before I left my boyfriend’s apartment, after a fairly unexplained, unpredicted argument in which he demanded to know why I had turned into such a whiny, complaining baby the last few weeks.  We were on our way to look at a puppy, and after fighting the entire way there, we decided maybe we were not ready to share a dog.  Ironic. 

 

I manage to put on completely different clothes than those I had just taken off, and rush to my car, bra-less, panti-less, shoeless.  The entire way to my boyfriend’s house I am checking my test against the box.  “Simple and easy!” it  reads, “Two lines= pregnant!”

 

Driving over 70 miles per hour along local roads to get to Scott’s place, I am anxious at each stoplight.  My plan if I get pulled over: continue driving and have the police officer follow me there.  After I tell Scott I’m pregnant, the police officer can give me what ever ticket I deserve.

 

I pull into Scott’s apartment complex, and practically cut him off as he is turning into the leasing office parking lot.  His face looks puzzled, and I am certain that Scott is thinking I have returned to apologize for my “complaining” the last few weeks.  Scott parks next to me, and his roommate is sitting beside him in the passenger seat.  I don’t care.  I hold up the e.p.t. box and just stare at them both.

 

“You’re pregnant?!” Scott’s screaming, “You’re pregnant?!” But once again, my world has turned hazy and I can’t really see.  By this point, I’m on the parking lot pavement outside of my car.  “Get up baby,” he says, “Get up” and he lifts me to stand on my bare feet.  “Do you want to get rid of it?” he asks.  I force out an almost silent no.  “Okay” he says.  “Then we’re going to be parents.”

 

(I don’t think it was until this very moment that I realize how telling that first conversation actually was.  Do you want to get rid of it? Those words are echoing inside my head right now, and I’m not sure they ever have.) 

The week following is like seven days of complete …. incompleteness.   That same evening, we tell Scott’s parents.  It is the most unreal experience of my entire life.  We are sitting across the living room from them on the couch, crying.  I think everyone is crying.  Scott is asking me questions like how I feel and what I’m thinking, and his mom is answering for me.  “She doesn’t want to ruin your dreams,” she says.  “She doesn’t want for you to be unable to move to California like you wanted.” The sick part is, she’s right, and I’m nodding. Then, like it’s any other night in May, we decide to go to a movie, a double feature, the four of us. This was not any night, this was… life changing. 

 

In the time between leaving Scott’s parents and the movies, we tell my parents.  My mom hangs up on me, and leaves my dad on the phone, and then I hang up on my dad.  During the two movies, Scott’s mother is whispering in my ear.  “I think that baby needs married parents” she says.  As if I can plan a wedding, in the 9 months before I’m supposed to have this child.  As if getting married is the first thing I’m thinking about right now.

 

Throughout the next few days, it is as though we are playing the role of  “happy couple preparing to have a baby.”  We break the news to our best friends, and co-workers.  We even tell our boss at the restaurant where we serve tables.  We pick out baby name books, and buy Pregnancy Fit magazines.  I start taking prenatal vitamins, and I have my first doctor’s appointment.  I am told my due date: January 25, 2006.  We even unofficially decide where we were going to live, together, as a family, and solicit one of my friends to live with us for the first year. 

 

And then, at the end of that week, on Saturday, I don’t hear from Scott all day.  Just the night before, he says that he’ll take me shopping the next morning, and we’ll buy my first maternity shirt.  He takes my head in his hands, and tells me I’m stuck with him forever now, like it or not.  I somehow find this statement romantic and comforting, and feel excited for our lives together. 

 

But after not talking with Scott all day, I know something is going on.  Finally, at four in the morning I call him.  He tells me we need to talk and shows up at my apartment a few moments later.  He’s crying when he comes in, and asks me, begs me, to not show my stomach.  He can’t even hug me because he doesn’t want to touch that part of my body. 

 

After several hours of discussing (or maybe arguing is a more suitable term), Scott, says the words I will never ever forget.  “It’s ultimately your decision.  But if you decide to keep it, I’ll resent you and the baby.”

 

And then he left. 

 

I couldn’t breathe. 

 

So, this is my story.  And it is not the story where the man leaves the pregnant woman and she keeps the child and raises a wonderful person, as a single struggling mother for the rest of both their lives.  I respect these women tremendously, and I commend them for  being so amazingly strong.  But this is the other side of that story.  This is the story about the strong woman who makes the other decision; and that decision is just as difficult as it’s counterpart. This is the story the world doesn’t hear too often.  And that’s not really fair, to those who live it.

 

A few days after Scott left my apartment promising to resent me and our child, I returned to the biggest support network I had: my parents and family.  My dad asked me the best question I needed to answer.  “Hunny,” he said holding me at arms length, “Aside from anything else…aside from the religious or political conversations, aside from what your friends or family may think, do you want a baby right now?”  I think it may have been the first time I was asked to think about myself in this situation. 

 

The answer was no.  In truth, I probably could do it.  I could raise a child, financially, and could love a son or daughter unconditionally.  But I didn’t want to.  I didn’t want a baby.  I had just graduated college.  It was the first time that I didn’t feel responsibility to anyone.  Not my professors, not really my parents.  I was free to do whatever I wanted.  And I didn’t want to have a child.  Especially with Scott.  I’ll be damned if I ever have a child with a man who has already decided to resent the child and the child’s mother.  No way. 

 

The clinic did abortions on Wednesdays.  Scott couldn’t come.  He couldn’t take off work… or something.  My mom took me and sat in the waiting room with me all day.  We arrived at 9am, and I was nervous the entire time.  I was jealous too.  A lot of other women had men with them, holding hands, some crying.  I wanted Scott there with me, promising me we were doing the right thing, and we’d make a baby when we were ready.  I wanted to feel loved, and not abandoned by the very person who told me he’d never leave.

 

The actual procedure was simple, and only seemed to take a few minutes.  I was crying, and visibly agitated, and the doctor and nurse asked me repeatedly if someone was making me do this.  I assured them, albeit not very convincingly through tears, that I did want to be here, that it was my decision.  And it was, I just was not prepared for this moment in my life.  I could barely relax my legs enough for the doctor to complete the d and c.  Eventually, the anti-anxiety drugs I was given kicked in, the doctor placed four needles into my cervix, inserted a medical tool about the size of a straw and then pressed a button on a large machine.  It was like a vacuum.  Thirty seconds later, the procedure was over, and my uterus was empty.  I lie there on the table not wanting to move and completely uncertain of where my life was going to go once my feet touched the floor.       

 

Scott didn’t call me the entire day.  Later that night, I couldn’t take it any more and just wanted to be with him.  I was driving the two hours back from my parent’s house, and Scott let me know he was going to the bar and I could join if I wanted.  I turned back around and spent the night in between my mom and dad in bed.

 

Scott and I broke up a few days later.  The summer following was horrific.  I was so convinced that he was the only person that could possibly understand what I was feeling, that I was blind to everything else he was doing to prove he had absolutely no idea.  I was out of my mind.  I even had unprotected sex with him again.  It wasn’t that I didn’t learn my lesson; I just so desperately wanted a second chance to relive this situation.  I didn’t want to become pregnant again because I felt that I would make the decision to keep the child.  I just wanted to be in that situation in a different light, where it didn’t end with so much pain. 

 

Enough about Scott.  I am not sharing this story because I want to talk about the jerk who broke my heart.  He was young, and immature, and didn’t know what the hell to do.  Neither did I.  That’s fine.  I am telling this story for the other women who have made the same decision and had to live the life that follows.  I am in no way trying to be the voice for these other women, we all have different reasons and stories that led us to terminate a pregnancy.  I do not share my story as a spokesperson, just as a supporting friend.   

 

I think there is the assumption surrounding the decision to terminate pregnancy that after the procedure is complete, the issue is over and everything carries on as usual.  In my experience, this couldn’t be farther from the truth.  I sort of see my termination of pregnancy as the pivotal point in my life: I have a life before the abortion, and my life after.  I don’t like this, and most certainly don’t do it consciously.  But there is absolutely no doubt about it, this experience has changed my life. 

 

It’s not that I openly think about my abortion daily.  But I am aware of the fact that I terminated a pregnancy every single day.  If the pro-life activists had their way, I’m sure that sentence would be placed on a jumbo billboard on any local highway, right next to the ridiculously untrue warning that abortion causes breast cancer.  I need to make something very, very clear: I do not regret my abortion.  Just because I am discussing feelings of sadness, does not mean I regret my decision, or that I don’t think it was the right one to make. 

 

I was, however, incredibly sad.  I mourned the loss of my thoughts of future motherhood.  I often wonder if the cells inside me would have developed into a boy or girl. (Scott and I had decided on a name for either.) I labeled myself.  I don’t consider myself a religious person, but even I gave into the signs and protesters; I felt guilty sometimes. 

 

The decision to terminate pregnancy is a legal, and simple procedure.  (I want every woman who may read this, who have made or are contemplating the decision that I made to understand that.)  There is an incredible disservice in this country surrounding abortion and women who find themselves in the situation.  There are few organizations, political stands, or healthcare professionals that say “we understand that your decision to terminate pregnancy is just as difficult as the decision to carry a child to term.” 

 

I have experienced an intensely emotional journey in the time since my termination.  The things I have learned about myself as a woman would be an entirely different essay, and may be incredibly boring to read if you aren’t myself or my therapist!  If there is one thing that resonates the most with me, it is the thought that as human beings we are all traveling our own paths and we need to learn to support each other as fellow humans.

 

My story is not over yet.  It’s still developing, and I’m still learning from my experience. While I don’t want my abortion to define who I am, I definitely want it to play a part in the way I can be of assistance to other women like me.  In my circle of friends I have sort of become the “abortion therapist”.  It seems like anyone who knows my story comes to me when anyone they know may be struggling with an unexpected pregnancy.  I am always willing to share with the woman on the other side of the phone what I experienced and empathize with the difficulty of her situation.  I am working on an online support network for women who have made the same decision and may be feeling the incredible, unexpected aftermath.  Eventually, I would love to work personally with women who have chosen abortion.  I want to work against the stigma of women who choose to terminate.  It is an unfair judgement on the individual, and ultimately can horrendously affect the women who chose to abort.  In fact, I think it may be dangerous to those who truly aren’t ready to raise a child, and find themselves doing so anyways because of this stigma. I never thought I would be “the girl who had an abortion”, but that label doesn’t really say anything about who I am as a person. 

 As I expressed earlier, I am sharing this story for other women like me.  I think that this essay has also been therapeutic for me in erasing my own label.  For years I have sort of felt like this was my big secret, and sometimes even felt shameful.  This was a way for me to tell the world that I made the decision to terminate my pregnancy and that is okay.  Thank you for listening.