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Jun. 24th, 2022 02:34 pmI guess I should talk about this. I might put this under lock or delete it later, I might not.
About nine years ago, I made the decision to have an abortion at about twelve weeks. (Sometimes, at the time, I said I hadn't made the decision, because I hadn't made the final final decision -- see below -- but I had. I had scheduled the hospital appointment and everything.) Because of the timing, the specialist ob-gyn who had been called in said that it was better to do it at about fifteen weeks. (I actually still don't really understand this part, which I feel like I've never heard people talk about otherwise -- his explanation was that it to do with the way the uterus thickens at about this time, so it's not great to do some methods after twelve weeks and other methods are easier after fifteen weeks.)
It turned out that in the end, I did not have an elective abortion. My unborn child, a little boy, died the week before I was scheduled to go into the hospital, for the same reasons that I had chosen to have an abortion in the first place. We found out during an ultrasound when the doctor was about to do the confirmatory testing for us to finalize our choice. I did go into the hospital the day I was scheduled and had the procedure I was scheduled to have, only I am lucky enough (and I mean that unironically -- it made things much easier at the time as well) that I can talk about it as an induction of a missed miscarriage instead of an elective abortion.
During this whole process, which was the hardest time I've ever gone through in my life (yes, I've had a good life, but still), I was unutterably grateful that no one in the process who might have considered themselves to have a say -- my husband, my doctor, the state -- did anything but support me in my decisions.
Since then, I've never thought about it as "my body, my choice," although of course that's a valid way to think of it. But for me it's this: I'm the one who carried this child in my body, under my heart, who endured weeks of nausea for his sake; who else but me would love him (and me, and our family) enough to be able to make these kinds of painful decisions for all of us?
And if you don't think that, why the hell are you letting me have babies at all?
About nine years ago, I made the decision to have an abortion at about twelve weeks. (Sometimes, at the time, I said I hadn't made the decision, because I hadn't made the final final decision -- see below -- but I had. I had scheduled the hospital appointment and everything.) Because of the timing, the specialist ob-gyn who had been called in said that it was better to do it at about fifteen weeks. (I actually still don't really understand this part, which I feel like I've never heard people talk about otherwise -- his explanation was that it to do with the way the uterus thickens at about this time, so it's not great to do some methods after twelve weeks and other methods are easier after fifteen weeks.)
It turned out that in the end, I did not have an elective abortion. My unborn child, a little boy, died the week before I was scheduled to go into the hospital, for the same reasons that I had chosen to have an abortion in the first place. We found out during an ultrasound when the doctor was about to do the confirmatory testing for us to finalize our choice. I did go into the hospital the day I was scheduled and had the procedure I was scheduled to have, only I am lucky enough (and I mean that unironically -- it made things much easier at the time as well) that I can talk about it as an induction of a missed miscarriage instead of an elective abortion.
During this whole process, which was the hardest time I've ever gone through in my life (yes, I've had a good life, but still), I was unutterably grateful that no one in the process who might have considered themselves to have a say -- my husband, my doctor, the state -- did anything but support me in my decisions.
Since then, I've never thought about it as "my body, my choice," although of course that's a valid way to think of it. But for me it's this: I'm the one who carried this child in my body, under my heart, who endured weeks of nausea for his sake; who else but me would love him (and me, and our family) enough to be able to make these kinds of painful decisions for all of us?
And if you don't think that, why the hell are you letting me have babies at all?
