The Supreme Court’s overturning Roe v. Wade represented the largest blow to women’s constitutional rights in history. A series from Ms., Our Abortion Stories chronicles readers’ experiences of abortion pre- and post-Roe. Telling stories of then and now shows how critical abortion has been and continues to be for women and girls. Share your abortion story by emailing myabortionstory@msmagazine.com.
Editor’s note: This story includes discussion of pregnancy loss.
I expected to hear faint thumps, the tiniest of booms.
When we finally listened to our first child’s heartbeat, we were surprised to hear instead quick, fluttering swishes that more adequately captured the work that had been set into motion mere weeks after conception. It was the first of many things we would notice and marvel at as my entire body rallied around the stowaway that had lodged itself in my womb. There was work to be done, but my inexperienced flesh and bones seemed to understand their assignment. There was life to be sustained.
Harboring and bringing forth new life puts a woman’s frame and entire being through its paces. The first time mine completed its biological task, the squalling result was a tiny force to be reckoned with.
We named her Eleanor. Saying her name still makes us smile. Just two years later, we caught ourselves anticipating, marveling again. This time, it was our son, a different soul altogether from his big sister, who eyed him warily at first, but grew to love him in her fierce way.
We were fertile, healthy and capable in all the right ways to welcome a third child. We made assumptions my third pregnancy would yield the same easy, chaotic joy. Well on our way to the finish line, I went in for a routine checkup. The doctor and I made small talk as I heaved myself onto the exam table. Things were getting unwieldy and with two small children at home, afternoon naps for Mama were harder to come by. I watched the doctor’s face as she listened for a heartbeat. She slid the instrument over the tight skin of my belly, and even asked me to shift a few times. She patted me and said she’d be back.
Moments later, she returned with reinforcements. Another doctor listened carefully for a tense 15 minutes or so. There were no life-affirming swishes to indicate that all was well.
In my narrow, unchallenged understanding of terminology and all the nuanced possibilities that surround a woman’s reproductive choices, ‘abortion’ meant deliberate removal of a viable pregnancy. … With a more empathetic, informed lens, I could easily see that circumstances are always nuanced.
Instead of an immediate dilation and curettage, I was sent home to wait for nature to take its course. I was told that my body would detect soon enough what had transpired, and I would naturally go into labor. Why on Earth I accepted this as an option, I’ll never know. Perhaps it was shock.
I went home tearful and broken to my two children who were oblivious and full of life. My husband cut a business trip short and headed out on the next plane.
Time stood still for two weeks. I was weepy and tried to keep myself distracted. This was challenging because throughout those long days and nights, I could feel movement. The first few times, I was on the phone right away with the doctor’s office. Perhaps there had been some mistake? I was hopeful that this babe had just been playing hard to get, but was assured that such involuntary movement was quite common.
Finally, my body got the memo. We drove to the hospital, and the procedure was completed. I woke up on the maternity ward, right next to a woman who had given birth to a little girl. The contrasting outcomes felt cruel and uncalled for. Later, when I saw the discharge papers, I saw the word abortion. It offended me. In my narrow, unchallenged understanding of terminology and all the nuanced possibilities that surround a woman’s reproductive choices, abortion meant deliberate removal of a viable pregnancy. In my sheltered mind, it was synonymous with being selfish, reckless.
We went on to have another lovely daughter. But the loss humbled and haunted me. Understanding the rigors of raising children, even from my perch of privilege, also forced me to rethink my stance. With a more empathetic, informed lens, I could easily see that circumstances are always nuanced. I am past childbearing years, and mother to two grown women who currently do not have a full range of options available to them. If I am being honest with myself, it is easy for me to see how easily I might have made different choices about pregnancy depending on where I was in my life at the time. There were times when I would not have been equipped to be a mother at all, and certainly not if I were facing it alone. I’ve been broke a few times, but never poor. I’ve always enjoyed a deep bench of people who have and would support me in a crisis.
I am past childbearing years, and mother to two grown women who currently do not have a full range of options available to them.
One of the primary characters in my debut novel, God Bless the Child, experiences a full range of reproductive choices throughout her life and the book. With each pregnancy, Elizabeth sits in a different space. The product of an inconvenient pregnancy that never should have happened, she is raised by a needy, surrogate mother and her vulnerable, childlike birth mother. Despite having two “mothers,” she is largely unsupervised as a promiscuous teen and ends up pregnant. Not willing to “raise” another child, her stand-in mother, Mary Kline, insists on an abortion. The experience shakes both women.
Later, a married, but still traumatized Elizabeth gives birth to a daughter. The experience is lovely at first, but unaddressed childhood trauma and the abortion haunt her, rendering her ill-equipped for the role a second time around either. Her little girl bears the brunt of a mother unprepared to nurture her with consistency. The sad irony isn’t lost on Elizabeth, but it’s too late. She is already pregnant with another baby, a son she is not able to carry to term.
Readers firmly fixed to either end of the ideological spectrum on reproductive choice for women will likely be as disturbed by the brief, but visceral descriptions of two abortions as they are about sad sets of conditions that swirl around Mary, Elizabeth and the book’s other characters: rape, shame, poverty, privilege, regret and the capricious nature of circumstances that children find themselves in when assigned to biological or adoptive parents.
Multiple truths can and do coexist in our minds, in conversations and the complicated world we live in.
According to KFF, 80 percent of the U.S. public thinks decisions about abortions should be made by women in consultation with their healthcare providers. I count myself among this group, but I do understand and share a sense of discomfort and conflict about abortion because it is hard and sad. Multiple truths can and do coexist in our minds, in conversations and the complicated world we live in. We can believe that women must have autonomy over our bodies, and acknowledge their choices are neither easy, nor are they made with equal parts logic, necessity, emotion or fairness.
I try to keep that in mind when I have the opportunity to connect with someone who doesn’t share my views. Somewhere, in that gray area, is where we can feel around for and find our shared humanity.
Editor’s note: For help, please look to these trusted groups:
- Safe websites to buy abortion medication: Aid Access, Plan C Pills, Abortion Finder, I Need An A
- If you need help affording abortion care, contact an abortion fund near you.
- To protect your digital privacy when planning your abortion, click here.
- For free legal help as a patient or doctor, call If/When/How’s Repro Helpline: 844-868-2812
- For medical advice, contact the Miscarriage & Abortion Hotline: 833-246-2632
- If you need to know the abortion law in your state, look to the Center for Reproductive Rights.
(Thanks to Jessica Valenti of Abortion, Every Day for this list.)
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