putting my uterus where my mouth has always been

Within four days of conception, the thought that I was pregnant strayed across my mind and I. Could. Not. Shake it. For the most part, my body felt normal. Ebulliently healthy, in fact. The only thing funny was that my tits hurt. And not with the familiar, liquidy, pendulous ache I feel every month. They felt tight and like they were filled with large-grade gravel. I chased that pregnancy thought around my head for a while, shoving it into corners and under other thoughts, but when my period was one day, two days... six days late, I was not terribly surprised.

***

I keep having versions of this conversation:

Friend: So, I haven't talked to you in a while. How've you been?

Me: Better. I mean, I'm good. I mean, yeah, good.

Friend: What do you mean "better?"

Me: I mean, well, last week was strange.

Friend: Strange?

Me: Yeah, kinda rough. Strange.

Friend: What happened?

Me: I had an abortion last week.

I don't usually lead with announcements of this sort. Mostly, I assume people don't really want to know the details of my physical person when they ask after my well-being. I'm not one to revel in the overshare--or, at least, I'm not when not writing for this blog. But I have been pointedly acclimating myself to saying it. I had an abortion. I've been getting used to not cringing in anticipation of receiving a response I might not like so much. I've been consciously choosing to not hide the simple fact that a terminated pregnancy is part of my personal history now. And also, I've been seasoning myself to the fact that I feel shame about exactly none of it--not the sex, not the pregnancy, not the termination.

Upon the materialization of that nefarious little plus sign, I told a few friends. I waited a while to get used to the idea and then I told my mom. A few people immediately said, "You're not going to write this, are you?"

"I might. Probably. I don't know. I haven't decided."

Under normal circumstances, even the best-intended unsolicited advice makes me tic and shudder with irritation. But I must say I was unprepared for the sort comments I, a girl who happens to do a thing with words now and again, received upon intimating that I might write about aborting a fetus. "Be discrete," they said. "Be reverent, somber." "Protect yourself. It's too personal. You don't want those pro-lifers giving you their opinions on your blog, do you?" "Be respectful. Don't make jokes. This isn't funny." People said these things to me.

You know what? Fuck that.

First of all, I have more rhetorical ammo in my arsenal than any pro-lifer could ever hope to dodge. Seriously, people. If you have a problem with my terminating my fetus on principle, bring it. You people don't scare me. You don't scare me primarily because I can't take you seriously. You stand on the side of neither ethical correctness nor personal responsibility and therefore I have very little respect for your opinion on what goes on in my uterus. I know full well that I write this blog under my true legal identity and I wouldn't be publishing this post if I didn't think I could take the heat.

But secondly, though I know they didn't intend it, having people weigh in on how I should write this story felt tantamount to their telling me how I should feel about my predicament--and the subsequent solution. Somewhere in those well-meaning admonishments, I detect the implication that I, a writer and a woman who has had an abortion, am somehow supposed to be delicate in my discussion of this topic. But guess what? This process begins with fucking and ends with a red-brown smear on a comically thick maxi-pad. There aren't too many delicate things that happen in between.

That said, my decision was as clean, unconflicted and singular as a decision could be. Within 10 minutes of the appearance of my plus sign, I had already called a clinic for an appointment. Since, I have not wavered in my conviction that I was doing the right thing--not even once. Like a premonition, I wrote this post a few months back. In it, I confessed that I had no idea what I'd do if I found something unwelcome in my uterus. And truly, until it happened, I didn't know what I'd do. I mean, all along, I've been aware that I pay an extortionate mortgage on a small-ish condo in one of the most expensive real estate markets in the country. I'm aware that my social infrastructure is a little scanty in the child-rearing-support department. And I know that I am reticent to give my lifestyle the overhaul that having a baby would require I give it. But it was not something I could decide beforehand. I could not be automatic about it. But then, neither could I have known, in advance, of the blissful clarity of thought and internal calm I'd feel in the reality of that moment. I had no idea--not until I felt it.

There really is only one reason the decision was so easy for me. Inviting the guy, whose notch on my bedpost will heretofore be tabbed "the impregnator" (and, alternately, "the narcissist"), into my life--and bed--constituted a poor choice. Truth be told, had the precision-engineered genetic material squirted forth from virtually any other male member with which I've had contact in the last year and a half, I'm nearly positive I would not have felt such single-mindedness. In some strange, inverted way, I suppose that makes me lucky.

So. The guy. Yeah. I met a guy. We went out. On the first date, I thought he was a little boring and had an inflated sense of himself. I didn't imagine we'd go out again. When he texted me something suggestive later that night and followed up with a rather sweet email the next morning, I was flattered. I am easily flattered. But then, over the course of the next two or three dates, I began to tick off a list of inanities as they fell out of his mouth. A vaguely racist comment here. A few tacky digs about other men I've dated there. He frequently claimed to be "charming as hell," which, predictably, had the dual effect of making him seem socially ill-at-ease and uncharmingly arrogant. He accused me of being a film snob and of "over-analyzing" everything. I thought, well, if you don't like that I engage as deeply as I can with every cotton-pickin' thing in my world, you really don't like me. Then I realized it was me who didn't like him. Unceremoniously and definitively, I cut it off.

Two days later, I felt that tightness across my chest. And I couldn't decide what to wear. I blamed girly neurosis and commonplace sartorial indecision when I began changing my outfit 14 times every morning. Nothing fit right. It all itched and hung at an angle. I'd never, in my adult life, felt less sexy--in every last article of clothing I own. And then, internally, recurrently: I'm pregnant. Quiet. It's nothing. Fuck, I'm pregnant.

I still shake my head at the boneheadedness that got me into this age-old pickle. With a dude so cacophonously sub par, no less. But, simply put, I've had worse sex. Had he been able to keep some of those stale pomposities corked up inside him, he might have kept me entertained for another week or two with the sex alone. Between my inability to deflect the lavish demands of my libido and my irrational, yet persistent, anxiety that I may never have sex again, I'm rarely motivated to say "no." So, I don't know, somewhere around Round Three or Four one night (so as to not paint the poor fellow as utterly irredeemable, I really should concede that his stamina and resilience were definitive checks in his pro column), we ran out of his preferred style of condom. He imperiously objected to whatever I happened to have in my purse. Then, classily, he proceeded to make fun of me for having dated guys with cocks small enough to fit into them. He totally did. In the moment, his uncouthness left me too flummoxed to say anything about the teasing. Perhaps if I had said something, I would have been better able to shed the bitterness I continue to taste when I think of him.

So, sure, I knew I was ovulating. But I was also burnt out from having to play rousing games of Condom Police with nearly every guy I meet. I've had a perfectly good education about birth control methods, thank you. I know my options. But my experiments with hormone-therapy-based birth control have been disastrous and I'm nervous about slippage and increased recurrent UTI risk (I'm already quite prone) with copper IUDs and other insertable items. So condoms remain my only and my last resort. I'd love to generalize, averring that women are simply more aware of their personal consequences, in terms of condom-free sex, but, of course, that's not universally true-- I certainly have been with incredibly meticulous men who are all about the condom love. Regardless, I so often feel put in the position of being the safe-sex enforcer--a stance of suckage. I am the one, after all, faced with the decisions, the costs and the bodily disturbance when worse does (did) indeed come to worst.

That night, I was wet and lacking conviction when I suggested we delay. I caved. And he probably waited about a beat and a half too long to pull out. He came mostly into the crease of my thigh.

I realize this story is rife with dumbassedness, especially considering we weren't a couple of ill-prepared teenagers, but rather, two sexually experienced adults in our 30s. But it's exactly that that makes it a particularly valid little cautionary tale. Folks, it happens. It happened. What can I say? Fecundity, sex drive, all of it: signs of proper bodily function. Of health. They're also terribly dangerous toys.

***

I don't owe anyone a justification for my decision. I'm not trying to convince anyone I did the right thing. But because I'm shooting for accuracy and honesty, here's what was in my head as I stared at my fateful pee stick: I figured I had three options: 1) I could have the kid and selfishly deny it access to its father, out of my own shuddering distaste for him; 2) I could have the kid and spend the rest of my life resenting both it and the guy, the guy and I could have 18 years worth of epic battles over personal values and child-rearing decisions, and I could stretch my already tight budget beyond capacity, thus raising my own child with far less privilege than my parents granted me; or 3) I could terminate.

I was so lucky. My choice couldn't have been clearer. Option #1 was out of the question. I could never prevent a kid from knowing its father. That's ugly karma in which I don't care to partake. And no way, no how was I going to bind myself, for the rest of my life, to an anti-intellectual jockstrap registered fucking Republican ("I voted for Obama, though. Hope I don't regret it!" Oof. Like a post-coital whomp to my belly. ) -- much less do so to some poor, unsuspecting infant. The chances of him and me being able to maturely co-parent with a reasonable degree of accord? Laughably slim, right? I simply couldn't have let it happen. It would have made not two, but three lives exponentially more difficult. No argument in the world could convince me that there's a shred of ethical propriety to be found in that option.

***

I've written several drafts of this post. I've been bashing my head into it, unable to settle on an approach. I thought about detailing the procedure itself and the two fairly harrowing days that proceeded it. Fears of miscarrying, extra blood tests, delays, cramping, nausea, nerves-- all of it. Because no account of the abortive experience was real for me until I had my own. At times, I thought maybe I could try my hand at that version.

I thought about writing a letter to my doctor. I wanted to tell him about how rare and thoughtful and cautious and empathetic I found him to be--and how lucky I felt to have serendipitously become his patient. For the first time in years, a conventional medical practitioner put aside the hierarchical doctor-patient relationship structure in order to listen to me. I have a mild clotting disorder. Even minor surgery is a little more risky, a little more nerve-wracking for me. He talked to me, called for extra bloodwork and reassured me. The clinic I chose does a volume business, so his personal attention was more than that for which I could have asked.

Lucky. I am. Really.

Oh, and the sorority. I've begun initiating conversations with women close to me--the ones I knew had also terminated pregnancies. I wrote to women who'd written their own narratives-- to learn more, to say thanks, to affirm and be affirmed. That day in the clinic, even, I shared how-I-got-knocked-up and I'll-never-do-that-again stories with the jittery women waiting with me. All of those stories--varied as they are--are in my head now. They're part of this, crammed in here too. It's a bond. I can't explain it.

And I'd be remiss to not speak to very cool part of being pregnant. I felt such unexpected relief when I realized that, somewhere in the my mind's recesses, the fact that I'd never gotten pregnant before, despite all the messing around I've done, had bred a niggling worry that I might not be able to if I tried. In a strange synchronicity, it seems the author of one of my favorite blogs, Nightmare Brunette, has been going through something similar. She says this about the body's independent machinations:

Conception is still fundamentally a pretty amazing thing. In this condition, I could move to a place with no other people and, in less than a year, I would have made my own company. It's stupid to try to pretend it isn't special, to act like it's mundane and not miraculous to have this event trying to happen inside my body. You don't have to be religious or spiritual to think the ways nature works are exciting. You just have to not be a cynic.

She's not wrong.

And then there's my body's healing process: roughly 48 hours after an abortion, progesterone and other pregnancy-elevated hormones begin to dissipate in the blood. Morning sickness subsides. The mind sweetens into new relief and pre-pregnancy order. And despite all my best intentions for putting myself on a sex diet, my body began feverishly campaigning to get its pregnancy back. Gnuuh. Fertility. The staggering uptake in my cocklust had me swimming in flesh in my dreams, both regular and day. I've been haze-headed, soupy, lit-aflame-with-the-libidinous-directive and, really, nearly euphoric.

But it's all just too much. Too big. More than one measly blog post can possibly hold. I'm sorry. My form fails me.

***

Ultimately, I suppose the particularities of any of the writerly approaches I might have taken do not comprise anything unusual--and maybe not even anything all that interesting. The Planned Parenthood website says that "1 in 3 American women have abortions by the time they are 45." That's an awful lot of us. And yet, I've only read a handful of firsthand accounts. Why is that? The sheer paucity of these narratives is a problem, I think.

Right after my procedure, my doctor asked me, "OK, what are you going to do now for birth control? Because I don't want to see you again unless I run into you on the street. Although, of course, you might not want to acknowledge how you know me." Even he, a man who makes a living by providing this necessary service to his community--and, as Dr. Tiller's murder reminds us, risks his life to do so--is so deeply inculturated with the notion that unintended pregnancies and their subsequent terminations are humiliating for women that he back-stepped at his own hypothetical musing about he and I running into each other. But I wasn't humiliated. I said, "Doctor, I am not ashamed of this. Actually, I'd be proud to acknowledge that I know a man who does what you do." I don't think he was expecting me to say that. But I meant it.

Nevertheless, there still aren't all that many women telling this story--not publicly, not with their names attached. Even the article I linked in my previous post was submitted anonymously. Had I been able to write to its author and thank her personally, I would have. I was, however, able write to one Ms. Chelsea G. Summers to thank her for her three remarkable posts in which she details her experiences, and the fallout of telling of her experiences, over on her blog. Her posts gave me perspective and, well, kept me company that night after my surgery. And also, she makes a point that, frankly, goes unsaid far too often:

It’s no secret that I've had seven abortions, which is, I admit, a lot. I have narrated my abortions in stark detail, and I have discussed how people who identified themselves as pro-choice castigated me for my recurrent choice to terminate my pregnancies. Looking back on my life and the fifteen-year period of these abortions, I believe that my choice to abort was absolutely correct, even if my fuzzy choices that led to my getting pregnant were not. Faced with the same decision again—an unlikely scenario as I’m now about as likely to get pregnant as I am to die in my bathtub—I would unhesitatingly choose to terminate the pregnancy.

I've written about how difficult it was for me to come forward and tell the story of my abortions. I haven’t written so much about how rewarding it has been to hear from other women who have suffered as I did in the shadow of their silence. These women were afraid of voicing their experience of choosing to terminate a pregnancy, just as I was. We all lived in fear of being judged. Reading my story, many women came forward and thanked me.

Though I have been quite open about all this with most people in my life (and now with whomever reads my blog), I continue take her point well: no matter how right the decision, the telling of the tale is still a loaded act.

It's been a real challenge for me to write this post. My usual blurt-it-out-don't-look-back writing process had been shot to hell as I've fought through an anxiety about whatever judgment may yet come my way. Not only do I feel like what I'm writing is important enough that I care whether it's "good," but I also feel nerve jabs in my stomach every time I get close enough to finishing it to hit that "Publish Post" button at the bottom of my screen. Atop all the self-doubt I usually feel about my writing, an excruciating awareness of the political load that this issue bears has threatened to snow my post under more than once. As I said before, it's not that I'm ashamed of the act--any of the acts. But I will be ashamed if I can't manage to write a piece compelling enough to be worthy of the textual heritage of the issue at hand. For that reason, I too have been afraid of voicing my experience. Plainly put, I am more afraid of letting down my sorority sisters with a half-assed telling than I could ever be of a bunch of folks who disagree with me on the basis of religio-social principles that have no bearing on my life.

That said, the stories are, indeed, beginning to wend their way out of the closet--and with increasing momentum. The other day, a friend sent me a link to this HuffPo article about Ms. Magazine's upcoming "We Had Abortions" issue. 5000 women signed a petition, which will appear in the issue, acknowledging that this event is part of their histories too. Signing that petition is no small act, considering that people continue to die for us to have this right. That article also mentions another Steinem brainchild, The Choices We Made, which anthologizes a series of celebrity-written essays on the topic. The narratives are piling up, and as they do, I can't help but feel like the politics I've been preaching for all of my aware life are being validated. That's the power of these stories. We need them because the dominant narrative (Abortion is traumatic! It's emotionally depleting! It's crushing and sad and conflicted!) that exists in the social imagination doesn't have much in common with the reality of the experience.

I wasn't traumatized. It was the pregnancy that depleted me; ending mine restored me. When it's right (and I do not assume that it's given that abortion is always--or even often--right), it's neither sad nor burdensome. It's not even terribly upsetting. I didn't feel anything of those things.

***

I did feel something, though. Three things, to be exact.

I expected I'd be scared. I was scared. Not petrified, really, but on tenderhooks, for sure. I'm wary of conventional medicine in general and having my guts plumbed isn't high on my list of favored party games. I was scared in the way that I'd be scared before any medical procedure--not, specifically, because I was to have my uterus sucked clean. The specifics of the abortion, in fact, were really only incidental to my anxiety.

I also expected to feel lonely. I can't deny that, in the exam room, I had one of the most acute moments of psychological isolation I've felt since I was a kid. That room contained one doctor, one nurse and one patient. In truth, it was me and my decision, alone on a cold table. When the nurse offered her hand, I leapt at it. So grateful was I. In that singular moment of my own exaggerated cognitive withdrawal, another human recognized that I was a human--a human in pain. And she held my hand. Almost immediately, I felt like I was imposing (because I usually feel that way when people are kind to me) and I thanked her. And then I realized it was her job and felt silly...but still grateful. Such are these moments, I suppose.

But I never expected I'd feel moved. It's one thing to feel imperturbably assured of the correctness of your choices. It's quite another to feel uplifted deep down in your consciousness by the very ordeal to which your choice has led you. In the hours and days that have followed my abortion, and even in the recovery room immediately thereafter, I've been thinking quite a lot about all the activists who've spent their productive lives fighting for me to have all the readily available options that I do. The abortion providers who continue to be murdered as a direct result of their conviction that we should trust women have come to new prominence in my thinking. And I've been remembering how I was the only girl at my 8th grade lunch table preaching the pro-choice ethic that forcing a woman to bear a child is a disproportionate punishment for a few seconds of orgasmic accident. In the end, I didn't wish this mess upon myself. However, I have found the experience of living out the bottom line of my own long-held political stance--in a tangible way, within my own body--to be a profound one. Asserting this sort of empirical authority over my physical person hits deep. No other way to say it.

***
And after that, what is there left to say?

This, I suppose: in publishing this post, I'm aware that I may be forfeiting (tiny readership or otherwise) whatever privacy to which I might once have clung in favor of asserting that my abortion is not something I want to hide. That, too, is my choice.

I think it's a good choice. But I know it's a choice that may well might me bite me in the ass. That's okay. A little ass-biting is still better than forced parenthood.