you can want your baby and still need an abortion.<\/p>\n
my partner and i, both staring at our mid 30s, decided we were ready to \u201ctry.\u201d we committed to one year, to accept how our life would unfold and to not become obsessed with the idea of a baby. willing, but non-committal. excited, but not obnoxious. not trying, but not preventing.<\/p>\n
three weeks later, multiple positive pregnancy tests prompted the first of many lines i would regret saying over the next 16 weeks. \u201cthat was easy.\u201d<\/p>\n
i would have decorated the baby\u2019s room the day of our first ultrasound. high on the words \u201cstrong heartbeat\u201d and \u201clow risk,\u201d all i could think about was being a mother. i created a family in my head. i named our baby, i thought about school, i read a brochure about getting the most out of kindergarten. i imagined tackling tough times with my partner as a team. i was stuck on that word, \u201cteam.\u201d i lived out every family clich\u00e9 in my head and it felt amazing. on the outside i remained cautious and reserved. i honored life\u2019s fragile beginnings by saying out loud, over and over, to anyone who would listen, \u201canything could happen,\u201d \u201cthere is no baby until i\u2019m holding a baby,\u201d and by never letting go of the thought that this could end at any time.<\/p>\n
as the weeks ticked by, it was easy to replace the terrible thoughts with pleasant ones about the amazing things happening inside my body. i remember the week i announced our baby could pee. we laughed. i remember the week we read our baby was officially developing parts to make it a girl or a boy, when the baby\u2019s ears reached the right spot on its head, when it started to grow hair. when its goobery baby mass strengthened into tiny baby bones. i smothered my fear with the words \u201cstrong heartbeat,\u201d \u201clow risk,\u201d words i was told by trusted professionals, words i repeated to put me at ease.<\/p>\n
you can hear it a million times, and until it happens to you it means nothing. but seriously, life changes in seconds. at our 20-week ultrasound, something was wrong. the baby was hard to see. the ultrasound technician was awkward and silent. i was told to make an appointment at the high-risk clinic. \u201cwe send women there all the time,\u201d i was told, and thus repeated it to myself. \u201cthere isn\u2019t anything to worry about at this point, just go to the appointment,\u201d i read and reread the email from my doctor. \u201cit\u2019s just a way to get a better picture of your baby.\u201d<\/p>\n
pictures, perhaps i\u2019ll look at one day.<\/p>\n
\u201cyou don\u2019t have any fluid,\u201d \u201cyour baby does not have any kidneys.\u201d that day we laughed about our babying peeing? yeah, that wasn\u2019t happening.<\/p>\n
the next several hours are a blur. there is a scene with a doctor outlining our options, telling us, \u201cit\u2019s a lighting strike,\u201d \u201cthis will never happen again,\u201d it\u2019s not genetic, you did not do this.\u201d there is a scene on the patio where i tell my boss i can\u2019t come in to work, another scene where my partner is on the phone with the doctor asking him to help us schedule our \u201csurgery\u201d and then a scene of us walking the dogs. there were tears, wine, a sleeping pill\u2026i survived, i just don\u2019t remember how.<\/p>\n
between the news and the \u201csurgery,\u201d there was time. days. my body was pregnant, but my mind was attempting to know better. do you wear maternity pants when your baby won\u2019t make it? what are you when every part of you is pregnant, but in reality, or in the reality that is your very near future, you are not? how do you make the best of the space between normal and new normal? how do you simultaneously live and die, hope and hate, heal and crumble?<\/p>\n
those days were dark. that\u2019s an understatement. i could live in the darkness for pages, but that is not really what this is about.<\/p>\n
i need to note that i had access to the most phenomenal care a woman, a mother, a family, could ask for. i was blessed to have a compassionate team looking out for me, who chose their words as carefully as they prepped my tiny, dehydrated veins for ivs.<\/p>\n
i\u2019m not much into blood or anything medical, so despite the invasive severity of the situation i did not find myself wanting to google what was going on. two days of laminaria to prep, d&e on day three, home by noon. over. as i was being prepped for surgery, i was making small talk with one of the nurses who was distracting me, lovingly, with photos of her golden retriever. somehow, the conversation turned to my natural intrigue with the job of the seaweed sticks (laminaria) versus my desire to understand them better.<\/p>\n
\u201cthe material online isn\u2019t always friendly or accurate,\u201d she said, shrugging her shoulders. \u201ci mean, technically this is an abortion.\u201d<\/p>\n
oh, shit.<\/p>\n
but this isn\u2019t my choice! i want this baby! my choice is to have a healthy baby. this isn\u2019t an abortion\u2026is it?<\/p>\n
i had known the answer the entire time. i signed the bright orange paperwork with the word \u2018abortion\u2019 printed all over it. i had even talked about it in the context of such. \u201csurgery\u201d was just a more socially acceptable word that was used in my presence by those protecting me, and that i used in the presence of those i was protecting.<\/p>\n
there is the idea of abortion i understood before this experience, and the abortion i understand now. ownership is empowering and necessary. calling it anything other than what it is downplays the importance of the choice i was able to make and threatens the choice for others who will, unfortunately and inevitably, find themselves in the same situation.<\/p>\n
we were blessed to get pregnant, and blessed to have the opportunity to make the right choice for my family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
you can want your baby and still need an abortion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_世界杯2022亚洲预选赛b组 ":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[296],"tags":[344,348],"class_list":["post-20660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion-stories","tag-fetal-anomaly","tag-later-term"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"\/\/www.k12fl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20660"}],"collection":[{"href":"\/\/www.k12fl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"\/\/www.k12fl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.k12fl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.k12fl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"\/\/www.k12fl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20660\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"\/\/www.k12fl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/世界杯2022亚洲预选赛b组 ?parent=20660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.k12fl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.k12fl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}