sueeeus

There is a little old lady who stands on the street corner across from the hospital holding a giant sign with a picture of a bloody dismembered baby. In huge letters it says ‘abortion kills’ and there is a measuring tape that shows the baby is 21 inches long. This is a very horrible sign. I think they want to imply to the general public that this is what abortion is like. Always. I don’t think so many people have elective abortions in the late term. I can’t imagine why they would. I can see how they could find themselves in the second trimester after a time of denial, but it’s very hard to imagine the scenario, apart from grave fetal anomalies such as absence of brain tissue or brain tissue growing outside of the skull, in which a woman would choose to terminate at such a late stage. But I’m not informed, so I really don’t know.

Three months after I turned 18, I had an abortion. I was 5 weeks along, or possibly 6. It’s a very hard thing to say, now that I see the words in print. It’s one of those things that I’ve spoken of very rarely, and to only a very few. It happened from a one-time event, and the condom broke. The odds are staggering (not for the broken condom, but to fall pregnant having had intercourse only once), yet there it was. I spent many years in anguish over that choice, and it took nearly two decades to forgive myself. In the early days after, I went to the library in a depressed stupor and looked through picture books of abortions, torturing myself. I nearly walked in front of a bus, to punish myself. I didn’t have the courage to go through with it, but I punished myself relentlessly, internally, for years. I mulled the whole scenario over in my mind, time and again, trying to make sense of it, trying to find a way to forgive myself, or just continuing to punish myself. I was angry that my boyfriend wasn’t supportive. He was on summer vacation with his family and he told me he couldn’t talk. He wanted me to get rid of it. I don’t know how much remorse he ever felt, if any, but years later, when he married, he and his wife were unable to have children, and stopped trying after one or two miscarriages. I felt sad for him, and wondered if he ever felt like he was being punished for that teenage choice. I spent the latter part of my twenties and most of my thirties thinking that I was being punished for that teenage choice.

Eventually I came to a somewhat settling conclusion. I thought it was such a shame to have done what I did. But upon deeper consideration, it occurred to me that the real shame was shame itself. The driving force behind my decision was the simple fact that I didn’t want my mother to know, because of how ashamed of me that I knew she would be.  To this day, I’ve still not told my mother.  I couldn’t live with her judgement. I would rather face whatever emotional repercussions that might be in store, than disappoint my mother. The real shame, therefore, was the perceived inability to seek guidance from anyone besides my own, immature, shaken self. She would have been upset, yes. She would have said hurtful, judgemental things, most likely. But she would have gotten past that and quite possibly would have helped me find a way to cope, either through adoption or even keeping the baby. But I didn’t know that. A few years later, when a younger brother and his girlfriend wound up in the same predicament, he had more courage than I did, and he told our mom. I don’t know how she reacted, but they continued with the pregnancy. His girlfriend went away to a boarding school, delivered the child, and they gave her up for adoption. I think my brother got to be there when she was born, and it was an open adoption. He was allowed to maintain written contact with her as she grew to be a fine adult. When she was sixteen, he got to meet her, and later he got to meet her daughter, his grand-daughter. Their story ended well, and his daughter, my niece, spoke of how she always considered him her hero, for letting her live.

So I sometimes wonder if mine would have lived. And I sometimes wonder if I’d have miscarried anyway. They say fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. I found myself pregnant again a year later, under nearly the same circumstances. More shame. Shame on me. I miscarried that one, very early, around 5 weeks. I was relieved to miscarry at that point in my life. I did tell my mother about that one, because the doctor recommended a D&C, and it didn’t have the same shame factor, because the baby had gone on its own. It became just a medical thing, rather than a life choice thing. I assumed, from that point on, that I was Fertile Myrtle, just like my mother. She bore nine healthy children in rapid succession.

I tried valiantly to conceive throughout my thirties, to no avail, then finally became pregnant with the help of Clomid. Twins. I miscarried. My first missed miscarriage. Then came my beautiful perfect boy, for whom I am eternally grateful and blessed. And then my second missed miscarriage last December. And now, my third. I don’t know why my body doesn’t figure out that the baby has died, and goes on fooling me for weeks and weeks. It seems that I don’t get past 5 weeks, yet my body goes merrily along until 10 or 11 weeks; 13 weeks, by the doctor’s calendar wheel.

I started spotting this morning, so here I sit, waiting for the contractions to start, hoping they’ll start soon, but not too soon. If it can wait until morning, I can check myself in to the clinic for a D&C. My doctor said to wait and see if the bleeding stops, because he still doesn’t want to rule anything out. If the bleeding becomes heavy then it will be certain, and he’ll do the D&C. But I know it’s inevitable. I KNOW. Not wanting this to drag on for days and days. Not wanting it to happen on the weekend. Just wanting it to be done with. But I’ll do as I was told, and I’ll wait.