The Aftermath
I found out I was pregnant right after Thanksgiving and went to Planned Parenthood just before Christmas. I opted for the medical abortion – you take a pill, you go home, you take more pills, fetus dies and is expelled. I think I thought it would feel like “less” of an abortion. Safety of my own home, no weird equipment, no doctors poking at my insides. I’ve always believed women have the right to an abortion. I just never thought that “women” would be me.
I never told anyone, not my friends, my family. Not Boyfriend. He would have supported me, my parents would have, my friends would have, but…I don’t know. I felt so ashamed. So stupid. I lied about what was going on with me, found another disorder to fit my symptoms. Boyfriend wanted to come out for the surgery – for what he thought was the surgery – but I insisted he stay put. I didn’t want to have to admit it to him, what was really going on.
The medical abortion was horrible. My uterus contracted for hours, hard and painful. I don’t know if that’s what giving birth would feel like (probably pretty close)…if it is, I don’t want anything to do with it. I laid in bed and I cried and I took pain meds and I threw up a lot. I suffered all by myself. I deserved it, I thought. If it hurt I had nobody to blame but myself. And then I laid in the shower for a long time, until the hot water stopped working, and when I stood up…plop. A purplish-red blood clot. I assumed it was the fetus, the tissue, but I couldn’t see. The water washed it away.
I bled a lot, over the next few weeks. I had to get blood work done twice to track hormone levels. They both came back abnormal, so January 9 I went back to Planned Parenthood. I hadn’t expelled the pregnancy, after all. Or not all of it. They ended up having to do a surgical abortion anyway, the quick and relatively painless procedure I’d avoided in the first place. It was over fast. The nurse held my hand.
I got into a program at one of the local hospitals. They give IUDs to women with no insurance who either just had a baby or just terminated. I got mine on Monday, had to say “abortion,” “terminated pregnancy,” had to face all the things I’ve been burying and ignoring for so long. My uterus is sore, crampy, aching.
I used to think getting pregnant would be like flicking a switch in a spiritual sense. I thought my body would just blossom and it would be beautiful and wonderful, things working the way they’ve been working for other women since the beginning of time. Instead I was tired. Exhausted. My boobs hurt. I was nauseous all the time. Couldn’t eat yogurt. Couldn’t stand the smell of cucumbers. I cried and cried and cried.
I wish I had told someone, at least a friend. My mom. Boyfriend. I wish I’d had someone to cry with. I wish I had someone to cry with now, but I don’t know if they would understand why I waited so long to say anything. I don’t know if it’s more selfish of me to keep something like this hidden from the people I love or to try to share my burden, try to lessen my own grief.
I don’t regret the choice I made. But I wish I’d done things differently. I wish I felt like it was getting better.
