You may have seen the religious right-wing billboards in your lovely community posing the question: "Pregnant? Need Help?" I see at least two every day in my liberal town of Austin. It is a deeply personal sign for me - not only because it offends my belief that right-wingers need to stay out of women's lives (and their bodies), but also because it painfully reminds me that there are women out there who have something they don't want but I do - desperately.
You see, I have very definite answers to the questions posed by the sign: no, I am not pregnant, but yes, I need help.
In February 2006, my husband and and I decided to start a family. We thought it would be so easy. A number of our friends have kids and it never took any of them too long to conceive. Fast forward to December 2006 - still no luck. I go to a fertility doctor; even have surgery to check things out. I'm fine, hubby is fine. So we decide to do what is known in the fertility community as an IUI (or intrauterine insemination). Unbelievably, we got pregnant from our first IUI. When I showed the positive pregnancy test to my husband, he cried and hugged me harder than I think he ever has. It was such a joyful moment.
Several weeks later, I received THE CALL from the nurse at my fertility doctor's office. The news was not good. I was having a miscarriage. Apparently, the "pregnancy hormone" in my blood was going down when it was supposed to be going up. I was forced to wait for the physical manifestation of the miscarriage as it had not happened yet, but it was a certainty based on my blood work.
To say we were devastated is an understatement. We were in so much pain, so incredibly shell-shocked. We could not believe that this life (and yes, we considered it a life at that point) that had been growing inside of me just couldn't make it. The miscarriage began a downward spiral of events and the most difficult time in our marriage. The "miscarriage" ended up being an "ectopic" pregnancy, which is what happens when the embryo implants in the fallopian tube instead of the uterus. Having an ectopic pregnancy can lead to the loss of a fallopian tube or even death. Given these possibilities, the doctor decided to prescribe me a cancer drug called methotrexate. That would, he assured, "completely terminate" the pregnancy. I have this awful memory of going to the doctor and getting the shot and knowing the pregnancy, imperfect and doomed as it was, was being terminated. To be completely trite, it felt like a part of us was dying too.
Since that tragic day, we have had five IUIs and one IVF (aka in vitro fertilization), and spent thousands of dollars in the hopes that we would conceive again. We have not achieved pregnancy since that first treatment. We don't know if we ever will again. Right now, we are in such pain about this that we can't bear to be around children. We find ourselves drawing away from our friends who are parents. Every time a girlfriend calls me to advise she is expecting, I wish her the best and express the most vociferous excitement I can possibly express. After I hang up, I break down. I am happy for all of my pregnant friends and friends with children, but I am so very sad for myself, and seeing them move on and become parents only reminds my husband and me that we are two years into this process with no child.
Why am I sharing this story? I'm not really sure, other than to provide a unique perspective on abortion rights. I saw that sign again today. And it got me thinking about abortion. While, in all honesty, my experience has made me question my feelings on the topic, the sign (and the manipulation behind it) brought me back to reality. No matter my private pain, I must do what I can to make sure that a woman's right to choose is protected. There are too many fanatics out there. There are too many people willing to take our rights away.
Today, I happily discovered that I am a liberal woman FIRST and an infertile woman second. I am even more committed to a woman's right to choose now than ever. I won't pretend and say that it doesn't pain me to think of a women terminating her pregnancy, because infertility has just affected me too much. Being pregnant, even for such a short amount of time, made me realize that even though I wholeheartedly agree that life does not begin at conception, for me (just me personally) it did. But for others, it does not, and I want to support any woman who needs to have an abortion. I can't imagine living in a country without reproductive rights.
I have suffered deep depression since we started experiencing infertility and each day I have to remind myself that this journey will end; that we will become parents one way or another. That might mean more IVFs, a surrogate, donor eggs, or adoption. One way or another we WILL become parents. But right now we are only in the middle of our journey, and the pain of not being able to have children permeates everything we do. We try to forget, but we never really do.
I will continue to support a woman's right to choose and her right to decide what she does with her own body.