I've been pro-choice all my life, or at least all my life since I've known about the issue, which for me dates back to the original Roe v. Wade decision. Roe v. Wade was decided at about the same time I hit puberty. As I stumbled and bumbled into a cursory consciousness of my own fertility, only beginning to grapple with what that might mean in the moment, the political and public culture of the United States was also grappling with questions of reproductive agency and its political, legal, social and moral implications. "Choice" entered my awareness at the same historical and biographical moment* that my own fertility did. Because of this quirky configuration of time and biography, the two have been important partners and traveling companions throughout my adult life. My understanding of both has, unsurprisingly, deepened over time, in some ways culminating in, but never completely captured by, my own experiences of and as a mother.
As Mother's Day weekend dawns I was reminded of the role that "Choice" has played in my own journies both away from and into motherhood. Rather than thinking about flowers or breakfast or the strange carnival barker role that the holiday postures over mine and my family's emotional palette, I was led to ponder the very real dimensionality of this much-maligned, and I believe, poorly understood political principle. In honor of Mother's Day, join me after the squiggle, to unpack, expand and hopefully better (or at least differently) understand some experiences of "Choice".
What follows is NOT a teleplay for a bad television drama, no matter how much it may appear so. Neither is it a plot for my own self-published anti-romance novel.
I am a mother. That, alone is a powerful statement. It says a great deal, but also not enough. I am a mother by virtue of an unplanned pregnancy. Given my own biography, shaped as it is by a history of emotional and mental illness it is unlikely that I would have ever seen fit to plan for and actively, decisively pursue motherhood; the guilt, insecurity, indecision and regret would have been too overwhelming. Because of my unstable brain chemistry, some choices that often appear to be the most natural and available to all women, did not feel or seem available to me. I did not and never have experienced this most conventional of options toward motherhood (do you want to be a mother, will you organize and lead your life in such a way as to actively make that happen?) as a choice. I experienced it as a boundary, a limit.
For is something truly a choice if an entire range of options is unavailable (for whatever reason) to the person making a choice?
The last is a philosophical question, but one I have lived in many ways.
In order to have "Choice", one has to make a choice. But in order to make a choice, one must first experience choice, that is, one must live and inhabit the opportunity of options as real and available. I have found myself in the position of not experiencing options. I know what it means to know, genuinely, at some given moment, I am not capable of raising and caring for a child. Because being a mother requires a mental and emotional wholeness that I know I do not possess at this point in my life, being a mother is not an option, no matter how deep and committed and serious the intimate relationship which gave rise to this pregnancy may be. This kind of a recognition does not reflect a choice, it reflects, instead, an understanding of limits. Choice in an instance like this, then, has no dimension, it is flat, non-existent.
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I am a mother by choice. That is, because my pregnancy was unplanned and because abortion was always an option for me, I actively and decisively choose to become a mother. Not everyone who is a mother, can say this. Those whose personal, political, religious or moral templates, as well as their legal or social statuses in some cases, do not have a space or the option for the possibility of controlling their own fertility post-conception. I did have that choice, and I took full advantage of it.
Let me deepen the understanding of this particular choice and the act of taking it at full advantage. While I am, in the present, a mother by choice, I have also been Not-a-mother, by both choice and necessity. And I had been Not-a-mother by choice and by necessity, before I chose to be a mother by choice. In fact, I'm still not sure if I could have become a mother by choice, if I hadn't earlier been Not-a-mother by either choice or necessity. I honestly don't have an answer to this question.
I do know, however, that much of the time that i was pregnant with the son who now graces my life, I spent thinking about my earlier pregnancies and coming to the realization that I was in a kind of Sophie's Choice: had I become a mother earlier in my life when faced with unplanned pregnancies, I knew that I would not have been there in my life, continuing a pregnancy by choice and eagerly awaiting the child I was then ready for and was, indeed, awaiting. What all this pondering revealed to me was that my earlier choices and non-choices to be Not-a-mother, were in fact, the right choices. While the world, my own psyche and legions of right-wing, anti-choice activists strove to convince that I should become uncertain and regretful of those choices and non-choices I had been confronted with earlier in my life, the act of actively choosing at a point and knowing that it was the right choice served to still any unease that might have (and in my case was, sometimes) lingering. Those were some of the very rare moments in my life when I have actively "known" something as a certainty. And what I knew was that I had made the right choices, both at that moment in my life and earlier, as well. Because without the earlier paths and choices/necessities, I would not have arrived at the one that I knew to be right, correct and moral. At that realization "Choice" became real for me; it acquired a depth in my own understanding that I could not have previously identified or expressed.
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I am also a single mother by choice. This, too, adds another dimension to my own understanding and experience of "Choice". At the time I realized I was pregnant by virtue of an unplanned pregnancy the relationship that had given rise to my pregnancy had ended. I was also in the very last stages of divorce proceedings from a man from whom I had been separated for many years (and who was not the biological father or my child). I was, on multiple counts, beginning my life anew and alone. There was much that was positive in my life, for all that posed problems then and there. For added textual flavor, let me add that only four months earlier I had survived a serious suicide attempt and had been subsequently hospitalized as a crisis management intervention. My decision-making skills and processes were thus being facilitated at that time by a very skillful and caring therapist. I offer this information not so much for drama (my melodramatic tendencies cannot be completely silenced, I fear), but as context so that readers understand that the support networks I had in place were primarily professional rather than personal in nature. For some reason this seems important, though if you were to ask me at this moment and location in the paragraph, I'm not exactly sure why anymore.
How does all this relate to the multidimensionality of choice? Choice has depth; I've lived that myself. Choice also has breadth, and here's the breadth. After having gone through my own decision-making process about what to do in this, what some might deem, less than optimal set of circumstances to find oneself pregnant by virtue of an unplanned pregnancy, the man to whom I was once married and was soon (3 days) to be no longer married to, asked me what i was going to do. When I told him that I felt as if I was going to continue my pregnancy and take the step into becoming a single mother, he asked me, "how do you know you will be a single mother?" When I replied, well, [duh], I'm single -- (he knew my previous relationship had ended), he, rather on point observed that i hadn't become pregnant singly. He then proceeded to lecture me that while I might, very well end up being a single mother, if motherhood was the path I had chosen, I didn't really have the right to unilaterally "choose" the single part myself. That is, I had a responsibility to let the man who had helped create the pregnancy know that same was the outcome and this man, regardless of his actions toward me vis-a-vis our relationship that had ended, still had the right and responsibility to decide for himself about impending fatherhood or no. What he was saying to me was that I didn't have the right to take this man's choice away from him. "Choice" wasn't just a woman's prerogative. And, of course, he was right. I had been seeking to protect myself from hurt by simply predetermining what his decision would be then "saving" both of us, but mostly me, the difficulty of needing to express that decision. But my very smart and very supportive (even though it didn't feel like it at the time) soon-to-be-ex-spouse set me straight.
And so I went to the biological father of my son and told him. I told him not only of my pregnancy but of my own decision making process and where it seemed to be leading me. I also told him that my decision-making process was completely independent of any decision he might make, and that was then and remains today a true statement. I also told him why I was telling him all this and here's how I expressed it: "All my life, I've made a big show and an important issue about my belief in 'Choice'. I think that I've faced up to those beliefs and I've tried to live in accordance with them. If I believe that I have a right to choose about becoming or not becoming a parent, then you have that same right. But in order to exercise that right, I have to give you the opportunity to make a choice. Since you and i are independent people, our choices have to be independent choices. But you can't make a choice without information from me, so that's the reason I'm telling you and the only reason I'm telling you. I don't have any other expectations of you, and I'm going to make my decisions independent of you. Oh, and you have B (my former spouse) to thank for this great wisdom, because I doubt I would have gotten to this point without him kicking me in the ass on this one, I'm really not very smart or noble, you know".
That's probably not an exact quote, but it is a pretty good paraphrase. It was 15 years ago, so I'm claiming faulty memory at this point. Long story short, biological father decides independently fatherhood is not what he wishes at this point and we part respectfully and with no expectation. My decision to become a mother has become my decision to become a single mother. But in the process, "Choice" has gained not only depth, but breadth: what is my choice is also yours, and thus must one live with one's principles. I must confess, however, that I was pleased with his decision, because it did make my life easier, and fit much more comfortably with my own vision of my decision.
Two days after having received my son's father's decision, I made my final decision and two days after that my divorce was final. From that point on, I announced to everyone I knew that I was going to have a baby. And my path toward motherhood was put in place. But this was not my last encounter with my old friend "Choice" Choice is not an issue that ends or is put to rest with the decision to continue a pregnancy, or to become a mother (these decisions, of course are not synonymous). In this instance I had decided both. In other instances I had decided neither one nor the other.
Even after becoming a mother, however, I have been confronted with choices about how to be a mother and how Not to be mother and how to let someone else be my son's mother and how other people's "Choice" about parenting and mothering and fathering are an extension of my original "Choice" to be a mother.
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This is how "Choice" in my son's and my life grew tall, gained height.
Single mother by choice. For me this was both an important and an exciting choice. It was a choice that defined my life for many years. And in some ways it was a choice that I allowed to become too important, because I allowed it to be more about me than about my son. And that kind of arrogance has a price.
There is a funny story about my son's birth. Single mother by choice. Goes into early labor. Six weeks bed rest is prescribed. Single mother lives alone. OBGYN refuses to release single mother from the hospital. Insurance company steps in a offers to pay for home health care aide to assist single mother rather than absorb cost of neo-natal care for premie infant that OBGYN is promising without said home health care aide. Insurance company for single mother's hospital employer sees the light, once OBGYN presents the matter as such. Still, OBGYN (male) has doubts, as OBGYN consistently has trouble remembering that single mother is in fact, single mother and asks repeatedly where single mother's husband is. (Some of the humorous, though at times annoying trivial dimensions of life as a single mother by choice).
Enter single mother's cadre of gay male friends who band together to form posse of meals-on-wheels and chauffeur service for six weeks of bed rest for single mother. (Honest, this really isn't a teleplay for a summer replacement show). Six weeks of bed rest are achieved and single mother is allowed to go back to work so she can get full 12 weeks of maternity leave, fully expecting that she will deliver on first day back at work. Single mother works three more full days before compete exhaustion sets in and still no delivery. Single mother has attempted to mow her lawn in order to prompt promised labor that OBGYN has been threatening will occur moment single mother steps out of bed. Single mother grows enormously tired of OBGYN and said pronouncements as well as cadre of gay male friends, everyone she works with at hospital and even not yet born infant. Single mother has evening therapy appointment after third full day back at work and gay male friend for Wednesday night shift drives single mother to therapy appointment and promises to return when appointment is over in one hour. Gay male friend is off to own abode to feed cats and water plants, etc. Therapy appointment begins and 10 minutes in, single mother's water breaks. Single mother calls OBGYN and get OBGYN partner on call for the evening who asks cursory questions, tells single mother she probably has several hours and needs to get herself to hospital (her own hospital is about 30 minutes away from therapy appointment site) within next two hours. On call OBGYN will head to hospital himself, shortly.
Remember: single mother by choice.
Single mother then calls gay male friends home to try and reach him. No answer, leaves voicemail (Days before cell phones). Male therapist informs single mother that she should head for hospital. Single mother repeats what OBGYN on call has told her, and states she'd like to wait until her friend/ride picks her up and will head to hospital. First contraction hits. Next contraction hits 5 minutes later. Single mother begins calling gay male friends office, therapist pushes for departure for hospital. Second contraction hits 5 minutes later. Therapist insists upon taking single mother to closest hospital, single mother leaves note for gay male friend on door of therapists office telling friend therapist has driven single mother to closest hospital.
In therapists' car, contractions come every three minutes, ten minute drive to closest hospital is somewhat harried. At hospital, no doctors available as single mother is taken into OBGYN wing. ER doctor is called, is working on a broken arm, states will report to OBGYN wing as soon as broken arm is set. Single mother is rushed into strange hospital, where unknown OBGYN RNs settle her, then go in search of doctor to deliver infant whose head is now crowning. RNs, admission attendants and now, OBGYN attending her own laboring patient in adjacent room who hears RN's plea for a doctor immediately and responds, all ask single mother for brief synopsis of her own case history, while male therapist stands to side and watches in wonder. Son of single mother is delivered 45 minutes from time first contractions began in therapist's office. Shortly after birth of son, gay male friend arrives in birthing suite. Male therapist takes his leave.
Single mother by choice.
Once single mother and son are home, brought there by cadre of gay male friends who pick them up from the hospital, then settle them in at house, leaving the two alone to bond, all is well. During course of maternity leave, single mother delivers birth notices to various important people, including biological father and family to let them know son/grandson has arrived. Maternity leave ends. Single mother finds day care, places infant in day care, returns to work. Mother and son develop new patterns. First mother's day arrives. Single mother by choice receives her first mother's day card. Said card is from her own mother.
Single mother by choice.
Son is 7 months old, single mother by choice gets phone call from biological father, who wants to rethink fatherhood decision. Single mother by choice agrees to meet with biological father to discuss his choice, will consider what he says. Biological father wants to choose differently, single mother agrees, but notes that this is one time change, that the right to "choose back again" doesn't exist. Wants to insure this is understood. This one condition is accepted and biological father becomes actual lived in life father in infant son's 7th month.
Single mother by choice.
Single father by choice.
Single parenting for two continues until single mother by choice gets job offer in distant city and mother and child move to NYC. Child is 2 years old, stays with biological father and new girlfriend while mother moves household and sets up house in new city. Father flies son to NYC and leaves him with his mother. Child is happy to see mother, adjusts to new life. Father returns to his home. Marries girlfriend. Four months later father is stricken with malignant brain tumor. Undergoes brain surgery, chemo therapy and radiation treatment. Father loses memory of child. Child maintains relationship with paternal grandfather via telephone and frequent visits. Child's father's condition deteriorates. 18 months pass. 9/11 happens in NYC. Two weeks after 9/11 child's biological father dies.
Single mother by choice.
One year later child and mother leave NYC and move to metro DC. Child enters school. Single mother by choice is now unemployed in new city, establishing base for child. Members of gay male cadre of friends are local and help to emotionally and socially support single mother by choice and infant son. Single Mother by choice falls into deep depression. Suicide attempts follow. Single mother by choice loses last family member, has no support system other than gay male friends in city. Single mother by choice's condition continues to deteriorate and realizes she will need to send child to his paternal relatives who live 400 + miles away as she is no longer able to properly care for son. This is single mother by choice's Choice. Gay male friends of single mother by choice step in and choose to parent son of single mother by choice, so that son's life will not be turned upside down and relationship between mother and son can be maintained. At some point after being declared legal guardians and sharing joint custody with single mother by choice, son moves in with gay male friends into their household. More serious suicide attempts as single mother by choice's condition deteriorates even further. In the meantime, gay male friends become parents by choice, very active choice, of 9 year old boy to whom they have no biological connection what so ever. Choice gains yet another dimension, soaring taller than any mountain.
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There's more to this story; lots of other details about choice and choosing, and not-choice and not-choosing and learning to respect all the multiple aspects of choice that everybody involved in the story of who is parenting single mother by choice's son, including the guilt involved in the choice single mother by choice made when she forced herself to choose to let someone else choose to be her son's parent. I won't go into all of that now.
I will note only that Choice in this story, as probably in any others that individuals might detail, is no empty ideological filler here. It is an active and real part of how people make decisions about important issues surrounding parenting and care of children born to them or not. And the real ability to understand this and to benefit from it, comes in the confluence of experience and understanding.
I will close the story with the very nice anecdote about how son of single mother by choice got to be the best man when his two gay dad's by choice got married one rainy weekend in Massachusetts by the lesbian minister with his single mother by choice as the only guest and photographer. It makes a nice side note to the ongoing story of familying by and through choice and how everybody comes to understand what "Choice" can and does mean in multidimensional ways.
*This use of moments was inspired by Socratic Method's quiet Community Spotlighted diary.