Parents are difficult territory for women post-abortion. Not only parents that they see in the course of every day life, but their own as well. On one hand there's the intense imaginings of "What if my mother had had an abortion..." but secondarily there is a fear that any mother, and especially your own mother, will judge you for not bringing that child into the world.
Fathers can be just as bad and even more judgemental since they are more removed from this horrible experience. After my abortion I was afraid to tell my father. He loves his grandchildren so much, he would have loved my child so much. I still can not tell him, I can not willingly give him that hurt. Equally I couldn't tell my sister for many months - the proud parent of a four month old baby (at the time of the abortion). She was still so lost in "new parent adoration" that I couldn't imagine her understanding. I could only see her clutch her baby tighter and look at me in shock and pity. I'm still not completely sure that what she doesn't feel for me is pity.
Many women find just going into a store can be a traumatic, memory triggering experience. They're so sensitive after their abortion that the sight of diapers or the baby things aisle brings them to tears and meltdown. I suppose I am made of harder stuff. I sometimes cry with my nephew or looking at my own baby pictures, but it takes more than a display of strollers or a stranger with their child.
I once supposed I was made of such hard stuff that the abortion would not affect me. I cried over a lot of things, but I thought I could survive this. I wrote a poem beforehand, an apology for what my medications were no doubt doing to that cluster of cells, only eight weeks old.
I had considered abortion an option in high school if I were to become pregnant, but I was a safe girl and didn't face that choice. I was a safe woman when this child was conceived, but it happened anyway. Knowing that I was part of the 1% failure rate didn't help. Knowing that I tried to prevent this didn't help. Knowing that my health already teetered on the edge of failure and that it could not sustain another life didn't help. Knowing that my medication may have already ruined any chance it had to live didn't help.
No matter how pro-choice you are, it doesn't make it any easier. No one's politics makes this heartache go away or lessen. The only thing we can cling to is our list of reasons. The only thing we can embrace is the idea that they were our reasons, no one else's, and as such are valid, no matter what anyone else thinks. That's what I tell other women, but in truth I tell myself that my life will always be stunted, will always be standing still while everyone else get jobs they love, get married, and have babies.
I've seen first hand just how hard it is to be a parent, even in the most prepared situations. And I've seen first hand just how hard it is to not be allowed to be a parent, to not be allowed to face that struggle smiling at the good fortune to love a child and be loved in return.
"I once supposed I was made of such hard stuff that the abortion would not affect me."
ReplyDeleteI felt that way too. As a staunchly pro-choice young woman I even volunteered as a clinic escort in college and very clearly knew my own mind on the issue. I certainly don't believe a bundle of cells only a few weeks into pregnancy can be considered a baby. But I still suffer the trauma from what I have been through.
It makes me angry to hear fellow pro-choicers insist that expressing any negative feelings about abortion, even my own abortion, are somehow adding to the stigma of abortion. I believe that the silence, the denial that a woman's feelings about an abortion are legitimate, are far more stigmatizing and disempowering. It serves to alienate women and perpetuate the myth that pro-choicers are hard-hearted baby killers. We most certainly are not.
Sure, some women terminate a pregnancy and never look back. Good for them. But many of us are unable to do that, and attempts to somehow restrict the range of legitimate emotions about a pregnancy, no matter how it ended, are wrongheaded and maybe even misogynistic.