"Because women in my family do it on our own."

I'm fifteen. I'm standing in the hallway upstairs at home. "I don't want you to stay over at his place", mum says. Enraged that she won't let me decide what I get to do, I defiantly spit back "If you're worried about us having sex, we can do that anytime!" I can tell my words land like a slap. I'm too mad to feel guilty. She takes a moment to answer "Well I hope you're at least using protection". "Of course we are!"

We weren't. 

A week later, it's been seven weeks since my last period. I bring home a pregnancy test. Pee. Wait. And there's the blue line. I have a problem to solve and I move into action. I call the health clinic and ask for an abortion. I have to go in to the clinic and confirm I am pregnant. I'm indeed pregnant. I get medications to take at home, and an appointment at the hospital for the day. I'm staying at my aunt's that week. I lie about why I need to catch the bus in to town for the day. I get to the the hospital, nervous that my mum will show up at the women's clinic or that the staff will recognize me and tell her. She works at the hospital and we look so much alike. I have the required psychological assessment. It takes no more than 15 minutes. Am I really sure. Do I need any support? I just want to get it over with. The ultrasound confirms I am 10 weeks pregnant. I'm down to the wire for a medical abortion.

I get my own room. They give me a pessary to soften the cervix. The pain is excruciating. I'm told the cramping I am experiencing is like pre-labour. The nurse offers an injection of additional pain relief. My best friend arrives, but she has brought another friend I don't know. I now feel like a zoo animal they have come to look at. Lunch arrives and I can hardly eat. Moments later I vomit. I just about make it to the sink by the side of the bed. When I go to the washroom, clots splash into the bowl. I wonder if one of them is the fetus. I don't remember leaving or getting back home. It's another two weeks before I tell my boyfriend. He looks at me with wounded eyes 'why didn't you tell me?' 

Because women in my family do it on our own. 

Despite growing up in abortion access heaven (Sweden), the internalized shame was too big of a hurdle. 

20 years later, I finally tell my mum. I confess I never told her because I didn't want her to know she was right; that she knew better and I needed her. She says "Well isn't it great that you had access, and it worked, even all those years ago." I'm relived to no longer carry the secret and finally sad that I went through it alone. For the first time, I cry over the loneliness I felt all those years ago.

Over the years, I would sometimes imagine the child we never had. "He would be 5 years now" (I was convinced it was a he). I struggle to even imagine how different my life would have been. I'm grateful for everything that came since.

Part of the abortion stigma is the myth that surgical abortions can cause scarring that impact fertility. Knowing what I know now, I wish that option had been offered and encouraged at the time. Later term medical abortions are more intense because of the size of the fetus at that point. 10 weeks (or 70 days since last menstrual period) is the last recommended use of RU-486.

Stigma: a story of systematic oppression

About a year ago, I was working at my internship where I collected and filed oral histories of people living with HIV. The objectives of our department were two fold: to create spaces where marginalized bodies could feel safe; to help destigmatize HIV by disseminating their stories and exposing people to the truths of living with HIV. The point was to show that people living with HIV aren’t homeless drug addicts, and/or perverted homosexuals living deviant lifestyles. They are people whom are themselves marginalized prior to contracting HIV because of systematic barriers to economic and social mobility, healthcare, and education. These barriers are due to poverty, immigrant status, racism, xenophobia, sexism, transphobia, etc.

I had just been listening to a female sex worker living with HIV who was pregnant and decided to abort when my sister sent me a photo of a positive pregnancy test. I already had been thinking a lot about oppressive systems and the lack of accessibility to health care, sexual education and abortion, but it all went out the window when my sister sent me that photo. I selfishly got excited by the prospect of a baby joining our family. I immediately got my sister on the phone to talk about her pregnancy, and discuss the pros and cons of keeping the baby. She told me about the symptoms she was already experiencing, such as how her breasts already looked larger. We played around with all kinds of scenarios, the most exciting being the one where we’d have a new family member. However, realistically and monetarily it was not the right time. Her boyfriend was working very strenuous hours at the time and spent most of his time away from home travelling around the country. She was working part-time and had yet to finish her Masters. There was no stability - financially or otherwise. She and her partner decided it wasn't the right time but that one day they would welcome a new life with the love and appreciation it deserves.

This was an incredibly hard decision for my sister to make because she has always been the maternal type. She very much helped raised me and always protected and cared for me. She has always wanted to be a mother. My sister’s abortion reminded me of the importance of bodily autonomy. It is of the utmost importance that we let people take control over their lives and give them that agency, whether the person with a uterus is privileged, white, upper class, straight, QTPOC , or poor. After all, we would never expect cis men to give their lives for another creature (yes creature because a fetus is not yet human). I believe if cis men could get pregnant, abortion wouldn't be stigmatized. It would be seen as a right of the rational, practical, and objective man who wishes to advance economically before bringing life into the world.  We live in a capitalist world where everybody must produce and consume to survive; a world where community and emotions are seen as unnecessary and inhibiting to people’s success in life. We judge people with uteruses and prohibit them from being able to take the same steps towards safety and economic capital. This seems to be a clear systematic compulsion to bar some people from the same opportunities and social mobility as white cis men.

Akin to the lessons in the stories of people living with HIV, stories about abortion are important ones to share too. Abortion is not an individualist choice, one that is either bad or good, as christian moralists would have us believe. Abortion is a social justice issue steeped in historical, systematic, and economic disenfranchisement.  Platforms like “so, I had an abortion…”  form a community; sharing stories in resistance to a society that wishes to separate, isolate and devalue us; destigmatizing abortion as a collective.

I want to write that it wasn’t a big deal.  I want to write that I understand the thing inside me had a heartbeat but could not be heartbroken; that my feelings of loss were based in romanticized ideals of motherhood.  
 
The day before the + sign appeared, I wrote:  “I’m not sure what the tears are for, that spring so suddenly.  There is sadness in your possibility, and in us not being able to meet each other.  There is sadness in knowing how well I would love you, and in knowing that for my future children and future self, I have to be selfish, now.  I was selfish, already, feeling flesh instead of latex.  It feels unfair to you, though, because all you did was triumph, and all you will do is grow and reach for love and nurturance.  I feel lucky to have a choice, but also terribly saddened by it.  The thought of you growing inside me is terrifying and stillingly peaceful at once.  I haven’t taken a test, yet, so my brain is yet to wander to the realness of decision and procedure of abortion.  Rather, I just imagine feeling you; imagine hosting and warming you, imagine the tranquility you could feel inside me.”  
 
My dad picked me up from the train station, after a 10-hour nauseating ride from university to my hometown.  My boyfriend met me at my house; he was wearing my favorite turtleneck of his, and a bouquet of roses sat on the kitchen table.  The days before the abortion, he stopped smoking because the faintest trace of the smell nauseated and repulsed me.  My mom took me to the Planned Parenthood clinic.  She sat in the waiting room with me, rubbing my back when I returned from puking in the restroom.  In the second waiting room, another girl waiting asked me how far along I was and if it was my first abortion.  She asked me how I felt.  
The procedure was quick and painless.  On the car ride back, I felt exhausted relief.  My nausea was gone by the time we got home. 
 
The intense experience of being pregnant and then suddenly not made me distance daydreams of motherhood further into my future than before my pregnancy, while simultaneously assuring the secure, strong feeling that will come with having a being growing inside me.  
 
My mom later shared with me about her own experience having an abortion when she was 17 years old.  She went to the clinic alone, and never told her parents; what an isolating experience it was for her, compared to mine of connectedness and supported autonomy.  
 
My abortion was a big deal, and something I will never forget.  My reproductive knowledge, nurturing from my own mother, love for babies, supportive social network, and acute awareness of my privilege of safe choice were all integral aspects to how I experienced and continue to experience my abortion.  
 
Before I took the pregnancy test, I finished writing: I will be hugely relieved if I am not pregnant.  In essence, I think I believe I am, but I also know I will feel hugely stunned if a test is positive.  I can imagine the moment of a negative test, better.  I would cry joy for you not being, yet, and for knowing that next time, I’ll be ready for you, I promise.      

If these walls could talk

* "Brian" is the author's selected pseudonym *

It was January 12th and we had to be at the clinic by 9am. They take you into a few rooms before the procedure. You’re asked a bunch of questions, advised of all your options and then they take your physical. I remember giving Brian a kiss goodbye before heading down it’s stark and uninviting, white walled corridor. Brian and I could make it through these fickle twenties and have a wonderful life, just us and our baby, I thought as I sat waiting in a cramped and cold room all by myself, naked, staring down at my tiny belly saying goodbye to the baby I would never know, and the life that could have been. Yet and still, even now in my weakest moment the truth that my gut kept trying to whisper to me… “He’s not the one. He’s not the one. He’s not the one.”

Don’t get me wrong, we were very much in love, I just knew deep down it wasn’t ever going to work out. We were too different. I, the emotional wreck and he, the stoic Stalin: a term of endearment our roommate had given to him several years later but it’s fitting, you see- we complimented each other in the best ways and clashed in the worst.

He, an emigrated Russian Jewish boy, with bright baby blue eyeballs, adorned with eyelashes so long he looked like a doll. If Chris Pine and James Marsden had a baby, it would be Brian. Brian was loud, boisterous and funny. You either liked him or hated him, there is no in between and when we met, I liked him. I really, really liked him.

I invited a group of people to play spin the bottle one night. I told Brian, that tonight was the night! I was going to kiss him. I had too. He gave me all the feels. And at some random Irish bar deep in South Brooklyn, we played spin the bottle and I laid it on him. It was a wrap after that. He introduced me to his parents not even three-weeks-later and after dating for about six-months, while he was hitting it doggy-style, he told me he loved me. His love was intoxicating, consuming. I needed him. His energy was as good as gold.

Soon came the jealousy, and mistrust. We fought as hard as we loved. But love we did. It took five-years for us to figure out it wasn’t working anymore. I am Catholic, he is Jewish.  Neither of us have any interest in converting, and this was the biggest issue in our relationship. Religion.  

It’s never an easy decision to make, but I had Brian and we could get through anything, right? I remember crying before they injected me with anesthesia and I woke up after, still crying. The moment I could, I retrieved my belongings and off we drove into the cold, winter air. Paired with my icy heart and the guilt that preceded my operation came in two-fold; as I dealt with my struggles as a catholic girl committing a mortal sin by having this procedure done.

At a wedding, we attended the bride asked, “When are you two love birds getting married?” he and I caught eyes as he responded, “Not any time soon, but I love her so much.” My heart broke. I didn’t have sex with him that night and the next morning I didn’t want to be around him. I ended it just two days later.

I never went to therapy after my abortion. Not for real anyway. I had gone for a session and cried the entire time. It was the most beautiful release. I cried for my baby, I cried for my body. I cried for my guilt. I prayed that God wouldn’t punish me, and that when I was ready to be a mom, I would be.

THE END

Dorm room

I will always remember the day I found out I was pregnant and had to tell my boyfriend at the time. I was not in a good relationship at the time, emotional abuse was the least of it, and none of my friends or family members liked the male I was involved with at the time. No one supported it, and that should have been my first sign.

I was absolutely terrified to tell him, and he did not take it well. There was no other option but abortion. This pregnancy was a wakeup call for me as I could not imagine spending more time with him and I could not imagine being a mother in my very early 20s.

In North Carolina, there are strict abortion laws and very few places to get an abortion. The first place I sought help actually turned out to be an anti-choice place in disguise and they would not even discuss options or procedures for abortions. I finally figured out I would have to drive over an hour away to Planned Parenthood for help.

We made an appointment and drove to Planned Parenthood for the first appointment. They confirmed the pregnancy and reviewed North Carolina laws with me.  When I got my abortion, and still now, the North Carolina law requires an ultrasound prior to the abortion, state-directed counseling that included information that seemed to discourage an abortion AND a 72 hours waiting period after your first appointment before having the procedure. It all felt like a punishment designed to make me change my mind.

 An even more absurd NC law now exists that requires doctors to send the ultrasounds of women seeking abortions to state officials.

It was very restrictive when it was my decision and, to me, it felt very much like the state was trying to persuade me against my own decision, which I should have a right to with my own body.

Ultimately I chose the Misoprostol route, which was very painful with the cramping induced for me, but that was the best choice for me. I paid out of pocket since it’s not covered under insurance and, being under my mother’s insurance at the time, I would not have wanted it on any record my conservative mother could see.

I took the Misoprostol pill and went through all the steps and experience in my single occupant college dorm room. I was miserable, I felt tremendous pain from the cramps and, with all the heavy bleeding, I was very nauseous.

Does the guilt still get to me? Yes.

But I will always remember it was the best choice for me at the time and I do not regret my decision. I hope to help other women by sharing my story.