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Fuck you, Frank.
Which reminds me of my abortion doctor who, upon seeing two embryos on the ultrasound, said that would make me it “a double murder”.
This when I was already in stirrups and ready - and willing! - to have the procedure. Yes, you have to wonder why men like that become abortionists. I remember thinking: that makes you a mercenary though.
Out of the whole procedure they was the worst thing. It was a light procedure and the overwhelming feeling afterwards was relief.
Pregnancy is a big deal but precisely for that reason it can be a huge relief to have access to an abortion. You don’t HAVE to go through all that.
For me a pregnancy was out of the question for several very good reasons. I’m pretty sure I would not have been alive today if I’d not had an abortion. That said it doesn’t have to be a matter of life and death for the woman.
Not wanting to be pregnant is ENOUGH REASON. I had a mandatory waiting period of 5 days. I didn’t need to think about it. There was no doubt. I was an adult woman, a mother. The fuck I needed a reflection period.
It meant I went past the time limit for a medical abortion and had to go to a clinic. That would not have been necessary. Living in a country where abortion is not legal I had to go back to my country. For basic fucking healthcare.
* I’m pretty sure he said ‘it’, not ‘me’.
This should have been straightforward but instead it became painful and complicated and incredibly stressful.
As I had to go back to my own country my insurance nor my own country covered the procedure and I had to lend money. I called a friend.
She knew my situation and understood pregnancy/having twins was not an option. But she didn’t want to lend me the money because she was against abortion for religious reasons.
Fair enough. Didn’t really appreciate her husband shouting in the background that I’d never find another man if I had four kids. That was the end of that friendship.
I told my parents, expected them to be shocked but they were super sweet and supportive. *insert a few tears because they’re both dead now*. They both went with me to the clinic. I can only imagine how they must have felt sitting in that waiting room.
My mum tucked me in bed in my old bedroom and brought me tea and biscuits. I felt sad but above all so incredibly relieved.
In hindsight so much of the pain of the abortion had to do with external factors... being in the middle of a marriage crisis, realising my husband was abusive... I’d had two miscarriages just months before, we were trying for a third...
Knowing this marriage was not going to make it and not trusting my husband enough anymore to tell him about the pregnancy. Having had complications in my first pregnancy that made a twin pregnancy very dangerous.
(Irony: I’d always wanted twins!) Regardless if my marriage survived or not I knew I would not survive taking care of twins. I was practically mentally destroyed already.
The difficulties in accessing an abortion, the reaction of my “friend”, the misogynistic doctor, plus the huge stigma on abortion, all of that made it an ordeal. The abortion itself was the easy bit really.
No regrets. If one of my daughters ever gets pregnant and wants an abortion, we’ll make an appointment, I’ll drive her there, I’ll pay for it, and will tuck her into bed with tea and biscuits. And I hope she’ll feel NO SHAME.
