Two months ago, at the time I am starting to write this, I had unprotected sex. I am normally very sexually responsible, but I had an evening of oversight. I wasn’t concerned about contracting any diseases, I am in a long-term relationship and we both have been tested. Pregnancy did cross my mind, but obviously it didn’t strike me as anything to worry enough about. There were condoms in the room, it wasn’t a question of convenience. It was a simple choice I made. And now I am paying for it.
I hate birth control. I have refused the pill for many reasons, most of which revolve around my general distaste for having my body ruled by drugs, and my questions about long-term use. I would rather wait and see what happens to people who spent time on the pill when they were my age once they are ninety before I try it on myself. Condoms are annoying. It’s not having to buy them or the stopping to use one that bothers me. It’s the using them. As for other methods, I have my reasons.
I know I have to be very fertile. No one on either side of my family has less than two children. My parents both have enough siblings it takes two hands to count them all. My mother got pregnant with my while on the pill. There really isn’t an excuse for what I didn’t do that night.
So, here I sit, pregnant. I am not feeling really shy or ashamed or anything, I made a choice, here are the results. I have also made another choice which I am not shy or ashamed about. I am going to have an abortion. As soon as possible.
Here’s the story on what’s happened since. Two weeks after the unprotected (and great, I might add) sex, I woke up with cramps. Right on schedule. No period came. This went on for two weeks before I began to seriously evaluate the situation. I had cramps every day that felt like tomorrow I would bleed. I felt like I had PMS. My period did not come.
So, I sat down to consider possible reasons why I would not menstruate. Well, I had dramatically changed my entire life since my last period. I added stress, and removed some nutrition. I changed my sleeping habits from 10+ hours every single night to less than 6. I began spending time with lots of new women. My car is emitting fumes which could stop anything normal and healthy. The new millenium had started. There were plenty of perfectly good reasons why I wasn’t having my period, yet. It just needed time to adjust to my life.
I gave it a week. No period. I began to seriously worry. This is now five weeks after the unprotected sex. Now I decide to actually consider pregnancy as a possibility. I still had cramps every day. My body went back to normal size finally (I had been PMS bloated for three weeks). Things started to change.
Everything I ate after 8 PM made me vomit. I was completely exhausted and started going to bed around nine PM when normally I am up until two. My libido vanished. These all could be easily attributed to a sinus infection combined with a new job. Maybe that’s what causing them.
At one point I told my boyfriend that “there’s a very real chance I may be pregnant”. That was about this time. He just sort of agreed and didn’t bring it up again. So, neither did I.
I let two more weeks pass while taking hot, hot baths and talking to my uterus about letting go of whatever it was holding in there. No dice.
So, Saturday, I finally cornered my boyfriend and myself. We went to Kroger and bought the cheapest pregnancy test they had. If I was pregnant, I was pregnant enough that any old test ought to be able to figure it out. I went home, I drank a bunch of water. I peed while he timed to make sure it was at least five seconds.
He went to the couch, I kinda stared over the thing in the bathroom. It was almost instantly that the lines appeared. I waited the three minutes (he was still the designated timekeeper), and then came back in the room and announced we are pregnant. I then walked right by him to the phone book to look up planned parenthood, wondering if I would be able to get an abortion here or if I would have to drive 100 miles to the nearest clinic I know of that performs them. It was a Saturday night, but I thought surely the hours would be on the answering machine. They aren’t.
Then I noticed my boyfriend crying. We had talked about this already in a “what-if” way. We had agreed on abortion with no discussion. He explained that when I said I was pregnant he was happy about it. He had already decided he loved this baby. He admitted he knew it was going to have to go away, pronto, but he was emotionally involved with this zygote thing growing inside of me making me smoke less and sleep more (possibly). I had not counted on this.
I was as nice and sympathetic as I could be, talking about how maybe someday we really would have kids, but not while we can barely afford to feed and house ourselves, and now we know we can certainly conceive. He didn’t seem much consoled. He agrees that we are not giving birth to any babies around here, but he is still sad.
It’s been four days now and I am finally jotting this all down. He seems to be feeling better about the whole situation. I am not, I know I am 8 weeks post conception here and I have to get this thing out, NOW.
Which brings me to my current beef with planned parenthood in this town. I am thrilled that we have one, and I don’t mean to sound like I am taking my reproductive rights for granted (although I do dream of how someday women will be able to). I love Margaret Sanger for founding that organization. My problem is that they are too hard to get in touch with.
I have called at 8 am and at 5:30 PM. Immediately before and after work. I know there is typically a one week waiting period to get a preliminary appointment, and I don’t even know if they can supply me with what I need. I procrastinated long enough. I am trying to take action. What this means to me is that I am going to have to call from the payphone at work (I have a phone at my desk but I do not want the people I share an office-room with to overhear this particular personal conversation on work’s dime) on my lunch break. It also means that I am definitely going to have to miss work for both appointments. Or maybe here I can get it all done in one. I am not sure what the state laws are regarding waiting periods for abortions.
Other information to share with you in this preliminary report… I did some research online and have learned that the whole process takes ten minutes (for a D&C which what I presume will happen to me), and, while you should take the rest of the day to relax, you can resume normal activity the next day. However, you might bleed for up to four weeks and cannot have sex for like four weeks after that. I’m hoping for a Friday appointment. I don’t want to miss any more work than is necessary.
Last night my boyfriend announced that he didn’t think he wanted to have sex until we were ready to actually make children. I responded by saying I intended to suck it up and get on the pill as soon as this was over, and couldn’t we re-evaluate this after the about two months of medically imposed abstinence? He’s not so sure. I guess we’ll see.
The other primary issue is the money. Basically that I don’t have any. I mean, I have enough money I could afford this, but I am counting on it to pay my rent next week. My boyfriend is between jobs right now and cannot even pay his half of the rent (hence my extreme poverty), but he is looking for a job. So, I am trying to save my pennies against the clock.
If I sound like I am not emotionally involved, it’s because I am not. I don’t care about this thing that I have invited to mooch off of me. I am concerned that my boyfriend isn’t going to be able to handle this. I am not second guessing myself, I have always been avidly pro-choice, and I know this is what is best all around. I am scared to death that something is going to stand in the way of my personal choice and being able to act upon it (like time or money or protesters or geography).
I am writing about this for WAM because I want to share my experience. I don’t know if I will change anyone’s opinion on the matter, but I hope I can at least interest you.
3/14/2001
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