When I was younger, I was 100% anti-abortion, no abortions for rape, no abortions for the health of the mother, not even for the life of the mother…I was taught that if you were to have the dreaded D&C, you would be at risk of getting cancer, you would never be able to have children…at the time, I was horrified by the thought of abortion…never never never…then I got pregnant…
My first pregnancy was flawless, no morning sickness, no problems, and nine months later, there was a perfect healthy baby…
I went into the second pregnancy thinking the same would occur…9 weeks in, I got the dreaded – “I’m sorry, the baby has no heartbeat”…I did not want the baby in me, and didn’t want to wait to have it come out naturally…having a D&C at the hospital would cost me around $5000 (I have a rather high deductible), having the same at an abortion clinic costs $500…thankfully, there is one close by – I was having an “abortion”…in my small local circle of friends, I know of two other women who had to have D&Cs done – one for a blighted ovum (baby never developed), the other because of a natural miscarriage that was never ending – BOTH of them had them done at the abortion clinic because having it done at the hospital was just too expensive…I NEVER knew that these two women had these done until I had mine…because losing babies – no matter what the reasons- is such a whispered about but never spoken secret…
About 6 months later, I got pregnant with my daughter…the first trimester, I was apathetic, however, after having her, my sadness over the miscarriage disappeared – because she was real, the miscarried baby never really was (at least that’s what changed once she was here for me)…
Fast forward 2 years to today…from the 4th of July until today, I was pregnant again…again, I didn’t get attached – at all, I knew that a lot could go wrong, I knew that it wasn’t really a baby until much further along… and this afternoon, I heard “I’m sorry, the baby has no heartbeat” – AGAIN! So, here I sit…this time, instead of a D&C, I’m doing Misoprostol (a pill you insert vaginally which opens up the cervix and allows the baby to come out) because I’m not as far along and the baby is smaller…its not fun, I have some Percocet to take the edge off, but, its not a good time…and so, here I am, having another “abortion”…
In the last four and a half years I have been pregnant four times, I’ve learned many things that I wish that all men got to see and experience before…
1. Pregnancy isn’t easy for everyone. One friend of mine cant work during the first trimester because she gets a condition called “ hyperemesis gravidarum” which means basically that she is so sick that she cant function, and has to go to the hospital and be attached to IVs for much of the 6-12 week part of the first trimester…what would she do in this situation if the pregnancy wasn’t wanted, and/or she had to work?
2. Pregnancy can be dangerous and birth control can fail…another friend of mine just got pregnant with her third…she is married and was on birth control at the time...she doesn’t know if she will be able to keep it because her second is only 9 months old, during the repeat c-section, she bled out a lot, and the DR advised her not to get pregnant again because it could endanger her life…what should she do in this situation? She has two sons that need her…
3. Miscarriage is never spoken about, ever – my own mother does not know about me losing this one…1/3 of pregnancies end in miscarriage…for me, I’m at 50%! I know women who have had 7-8 miscarriages…those first few weeks are precarious…anything can happen…like me, the baby can simply stop growing (both times, I had no indication except the stillness on an Ultrasound screen), for others, there can be no baby, for others, there can be a perfectly healthy beating heart, but the baby sits in the tube (ectopic pregnancy) and so if it grows, the tube will burst (which can kill the mother and obviously the baby would never survive anyway)…there can be a molar pregnancy (where the cells of the pregnancy grow and grow and grow, but the baby cant and if not aborted it can lead to cancer)…I’ve known someone who had twins, with one being a molar and one not, the molar wasn’t viable, the other was taken over by the molar and literally couldn’t survive no matter what she did…a LOT of miscarriages are taken care of at abortion clinics…
4. Bad things can happen in pregnancy. A friend of mine is 100% against abortion – 100%...ironically enough, she has had a partial birth abortion… she had incompetent cervix which was discovered at 21 weeks and was upside down fighting to keep the baby in when she became septic and it had to come out immediately…another girl had a baby whose lungs were not developing right, and the baby was completely healthy inside (because inside, it doesn’t have to breathe), she had an abortion because she couldn’t bare to stay pregnant knowing that the baby wouldn’t survive (this was done after multiple specialists confirmed it – at 28 weeks)…another found out that she had Siamese twins, that would not be viable on the outside, she didn’t find this out until 13 weeks along…
Obviously, I’m on some pretty strong pain medication and have way too much time to just think right now…I guess what I’m saying is that for me, the issue of abortion used to be completely black and white…but because I’m a woman – who has become pregnant, I very quickly realized that it is much more complicated than that…and when men – who have never been pregnant and will never be pregnant (and many of which obviously know nothing about pregnancy) make up the rules…they literally are putting womens’ lives on the line…
The Democratic position of “safe, legal, and rare” is the only educated position on the subject…
Wed Jul 31, 2013 at 11:27 PM PT: Am honored to have made the Rec list - I've never done that before...thank you...
5:28 PM PT: Got on here, and wanted to add a few things…
First, thanks again for the rec…it means a lot that so many people care – if that even makes sense…
Second, I don’t think the Misoprostol worked fully…have to go in for another ultrasound on Monday to make sure, but it doesn’t feel right – so I’m a bit bummed about that…
Third, a few men on here were upset that I was grouping my previous way of thinking with how all men think about abortion…that isn’t what I was saying…if you grew up thinking for yourself and confident in the rights a woman had to decide what to do when it came to pregnancy – good for you…I’m not talking about you at all…I am referring to many of the (mostly male) lawmakers who seem to be making up very restrictive abortion policies…I grew up in the Southern Baptist culture, over the years, I strayed away because I began to think for myself and realized that what they said and what they did were often times the exact opposite of each other…however, the MOST ingrained doctrine in my mind was abortion, because in the world I grew up in, a surprise/unwanted pregnancy only happened to people who were sleeping around, pregnancy itself was easy, pregnancy always resulted in a healthy baby, money was never an issue…even when all my other views had changed, that one thing, I held on to – for a long time…but, experiencing pregnancy, experiencing loss, experiencing what IS referred to in the medical community as an abortion - twice - changed my way of thinking…
The main point being that IF I was a male – growing up in the same culture that I grew up in, I wouldn’t have the experiences that I did…I might still believe that pregnancy is easy, painless, risk free, and always results in a healthy baby… and that is why my view on the issue has changed so much…in my mind, the only way to handle abortion is to let the woman decide what to do…
I think when some women have the experiences that I did (or even worse), they may tend to become more against abortion – because truly, in those first few months of pregnancy – that developing embryo is so fragile…I also think a lot of them don’t realize how hypocritical it is (again...my most anti-abortion friend had a partial birth abortion at 21 weeks because of incompetent cervix - when they took the baby out, the baby still had a heartbeat - but at 21 weeks, the baby cant survive...this same friend was the first to post about how wonderful the TX law was because these horrible women who would decide at 8 months along to abort their perfect babies shouldnt be able to - completely missing that they werent restricting those mythical women - they were restricting women like HER)…
What I have learned is that at a certain point, it isn’t about what YOU would do in a situation, how YOU would handle a situation…it is realizing that different people are going to handle a situation in their own body differently – and though you might not agree with what they do…it is their right to make that decision, because it is not a “I’m right and your wrong” issue, its so much more complex than that…pregnancy is so much more complex than that...which again, was something that I did not realize until I got pregnant…