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I had an abortion several years ago. When I was a teenager, Plan B wasn't a thing, so even though I had heard of it before I got pregnant, it just wasn't in my memory and I somehow managed to forget all about it the one time I needed it.
I was dating someone who was planning on getting a vasectomy, but hadn't yet scheduled it (ironically, he did schedule it after I got pregnant but before we knew). I had been very reliably using the Mucous Method up until that point. One day, we started out having sex, and before there was penetration, I told him that I was too close to my ovulation cycle, so he would need to either wear a condom or pull out.
I guess he forgot.
So I got pregnant and I didn't remember that Plan B was a thing, and a month later I started having the worst morning sickness ever. As I missed my period, I took a pregnancy test, and my fears were confirmed.
Neither of us wanted to ever have kids. I had been thinking about this since I was a teenager. I had decided when I was 14 that if I ever got pregnant when I was not in a position to raise a child, I would abort. I revisited that decision many times over the years and always reached the same decision.
Now I had taken on the identity label "childfree-by-choice" and was dating a man who felt the same. So I looked at that decision one more time and, yep, still no change.
So I had an abortion. He helped pay for it and he took care of me while I recovered. Some things that they don't always tell you about abortion is that it may have a very long recovery period. I had to be put on light duty for weeks afterwards - no heavy lifting (and remember, I do manual labor, so that put a crimp in my income).
I told my employers that I had just had surgery, so please put me on operator gigs only. 2 days after my abortion, I could barely stand upright. But I had a camera gig, which they swore up and down that I would only have to operate, and not do any labor. After the hefty price tag for the "surgery", I needed the work.
When I got there, they put me on the hand-held camera. After I reminded them of my light duty restriction and asked to be put on the long lens, they said that I was the only one qualified to run a hand-held, plus it was corporate hand-held, which means I should be able to run it on sticks (on a mobile tripod) for the whole show, and not actually do for-real-hand-held. So I agreed to stay where I was.
And then the director insisted I go handheld.
I nearly passed out from the pain of lifting a 30 lb camera on my shoulder and physically running around the stage. I definitely had to run to the bathroom at least once to vomit from the pain. I was dizzy and light-headed and felt like my insides were trying to spill outside, and this went on for 3 days.
My abortion was not a decision that I made lightly. I spent many years considering the question to reach my conclusion. My abortion was also not something without consequences. It was a miserable experience and one that I hope never to have to go through again. But I don't regret it even a single bit and I am horrified (and I use that term deliberately, to the full extent of its definition and context) at the thought that I may not have the option in my future.
Of all the bad situations I've gotten myself into, of all the choices I've had to make where no option was really a "good" option and some of them were merely less-bad than the others, that's the one decision I have absolutely no regrets for, that I still, to this day, feel nothing but relief and gratitude for.
That man and I broke up not too much longer afterwards. Not because of the abortion, but because we were really just not compatible. It was a breakup in my top 3 Worst Breakups Of All Time. It is one of the few relationships I have actual regrets for getting into and I might actually choose to erase from history if I had a time machine and I could go back in time and stop myself from dating him.
Not only were we not compatible in the long run, but over the years I've kept a sort of passive eye on him, just to see how things have turned out for him, and boy have we diverged! I got more and more liberal and progressive and feminist and he got more and more ... let's just say he went in the other direction.
Each time something comes up to remind me of his existence, I am more grateful than the last time that we did not have to become co-parents. I am hard pressed to think of other exes who I would have hated having to make parenting decisions with as much as him.
Not to mention the fact that my income has remained the same over the years while my cost of living has increased. So I am, if it's at all possible, even poorer now than I was when we were dating (although he has plenty of money, so I suppose at least the kid would have been cared for).
I can't even express the full extent of my relief at not having had children, at never having been pregnant, and at having had that abortion all those years ago. I was at the time fully cognizant of just how privileged I was for the opportunity.
So that relief is in direct proportion to the amount of horror I feel now, contemplating the very likeliness of losing Roe vs. Wade.
All the terror and disgust and fear that I felt when I realized I was hosting a parasitic life that would tie me to that man for 2 decades is magnified and amplified by the number of souls from the future, crying out for their lost choice, the number of women dying in living rooms and hospital emergency rooms from illicit attempts to save themselves from the chains of their pregnancies.
For all the problems that are legitimate concerns of abortive procedures (not the least of which is lack of proper counseling to help people who are less resolute than I was), losing these procedures will only make things worse.
It's only by having affordable, accessible, and culturally acceptable medical treatment for people who do not want to conceive or who are unwilling or unable to carry to term that we can even hope to fix the problems with the system and create those processes that would solve the legitimate problems.
I had an abortion. I do not regret it even a minuscule, subconscious bit. My relief and gratitude for the option only increases as time passes. It was a terrible experience that I hope to never experience again, but I am so happy that I had the option when I needed it.
I do not have "mixed feelings". It was not a difficult decision for me to make (although I did put a lot of effort into making that decision and making sure it was the right one). I do not mourn some lost baby that could have been. I am not suffering from any long-term medical side-effects from the procedure. I am not afraid of "missing my chance". I am not saddened at never having had children and quickly approaching an age where I can't "fix" that decision.
While I would have preferred to have made better decisions that would have prevented me from needing an abortion in the first place (*hint hint* - better education and access to Plan B would have solved that problem), and the procedure itself was deeply uncomfortable, the choice that I made that day was probably the single best decision I have ever made in my life, given my circumstances.
And I can't even imagine the shitshow that my life would have turned into had that choice been taken from me.
#StockUpOnPlanBNow #SaveEnoughForYouAndForOthersWhoCouldNotAffordToStockUp
I was dating someone who was planning on getting a vasectomy, but hadn't yet scheduled it (ironically, he did schedule it after I got pregnant but before we knew). I had been very reliably using the Mucous Method up until that point. One day, we started out having sex, and before there was penetration, I told him that I was too close to my ovulation cycle, so he would need to either wear a condom or pull out.
I guess he forgot.
So I got pregnant and I didn't remember that Plan B was a thing, and a month later I started having the worst morning sickness ever. As I missed my period, I took a pregnancy test, and my fears were confirmed.
Neither of us wanted to ever have kids. I had been thinking about this since I was a teenager. I had decided when I was 14 that if I ever got pregnant when I was not in a position to raise a child, I would abort. I revisited that decision many times over the years and always reached the same decision.
Now I had taken on the identity label "childfree-by-choice" and was dating a man who felt the same. So I looked at that decision one more time and, yep, still no change.
So I had an abortion. He helped pay for it and he took care of me while I recovered. Some things that they don't always tell you about abortion is that it may have a very long recovery period. I had to be put on light duty for weeks afterwards - no heavy lifting (and remember, I do manual labor, so that put a crimp in my income).
I told my employers that I had just had surgery, so please put me on operator gigs only. 2 days after my abortion, I could barely stand upright. But I had a camera gig, which they swore up and down that I would only have to operate, and not do any labor. After the hefty price tag for the "surgery", I needed the work.
When I got there, they put me on the hand-held camera. After I reminded them of my light duty restriction and asked to be put on the long lens, they said that I was the only one qualified to run a hand-held, plus it was corporate hand-held, which means I should be able to run it on sticks (on a mobile tripod) for the whole show, and not actually do for-real-hand-held. So I agreed to stay where I was.
And then the director insisted I go handheld.
I nearly passed out from the pain of lifting a 30 lb camera on my shoulder and physically running around the stage. I definitely had to run to the bathroom at least once to vomit from the pain. I was dizzy and light-headed and felt like my insides were trying to spill outside, and this went on for 3 days.
My abortion was not a decision that I made lightly. I spent many years considering the question to reach my conclusion. My abortion was also not something without consequences. It was a miserable experience and one that I hope never to have to go through again. But I don't regret it even a single bit and I am horrified (and I use that term deliberately, to the full extent of its definition and context) at the thought that I may not have the option in my future.
Of all the bad situations I've gotten myself into, of all the choices I've had to make where no option was really a "good" option and some of them were merely less-bad than the others, that's the one decision I have absolutely no regrets for, that I still, to this day, feel nothing but relief and gratitude for.
That man and I broke up not too much longer afterwards. Not because of the abortion, but because we were really just not compatible. It was a breakup in my top 3 Worst Breakups Of All Time. It is one of the few relationships I have actual regrets for getting into and I might actually choose to erase from history if I had a time machine and I could go back in time and stop myself from dating him.
Not only were we not compatible in the long run, but over the years I've kept a sort of passive eye on him, just to see how things have turned out for him, and boy have we diverged! I got more and more liberal and progressive and feminist and he got more and more ... let's just say he went in the other direction.
Each time something comes up to remind me of his existence, I am more grateful than the last time that we did not have to become co-parents. I am hard pressed to think of other exes who I would have hated having to make parenting decisions with as much as him.
Not to mention the fact that my income has remained the same over the years while my cost of living has increased. So I am, if it's at all possible, even poorer now than I was when we were dating (although he has plenty of money, so I suppose at least the kid would have been cared for).
I can't even express the full extent of my relief at not having had children, at never having been pregnant, and at having had that abortion all those years ago. I was at the time fully cognizant of just how privileged I was for the opportunity.
So that relief is in direct proportion to the amount of horror I feel now, contemplating the very likeliness of losing Roe vs. Wade.
All the terror and disgust and fear that I felt when I realized I was hosting a parasitic life that would tie me to that man for 2 decades is magnified and amplified by the number of souls from the future, crying out for their lost choice, the number of women dying in living rooms and hospital emergency rooms from illicit attempts to save themselves from the chains of their pregnancies.
For all the problems that are legitimate concerns of abortive procedures (not the least of which is lack of proper counseling to help people who are less resolute than I was), losing these procedures will only make things worse.
It's only by having affordable, accessible, and culturally acceptable medical treatment for people who do not want to conceive or who are unwilling or unable to carry to term that we can even hope to fix the problems with the system and create those processes that would solve the legitimate problems.
I had an abortion. I do not regret it even a minuscule, subconscious bit. My relief and gratitude for the option only increases as time passes. It was a terrible experience that I hope to never experience again, but I am so happy that I had the option when I needed it.
I do not have "mixed feelings". It was not a difficult decision for me to make (although I did put a lot of effort into making that decision and making sure it was the right one). I do not mourn some lost baby that could have been. I am not suffering from any long-term medical side-effects from the procedure. I am not afraid of "missing my chance". I am not saddened at never having had children and quickly approaching an age where I can't "fix" that decision.
While I would have preferred to have made better decisions that would have prevented me from needing an abortion in the first place (*hint hint* - better education and access to Plan B would have solved that problem), and the procedure itself was deeply uncomfortable, the choice that I made that day was probably the single best decision I have ever made in my life, given my circumstances.
And I can't even imagine the shitshow that my life would have turned into had that choice been taken from me.
#StockUpOnPlanBNow #SaveEnoughForYouAndForOthersWhoCouldNotAffordToStockUp
