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but in 1990 I had to come up with $300 cash. This was a whole paycheck for me at the time. I had to sell some of my grandmother's jewelry at a pawn shop to scrape up the money -- I could not tell anyone about this. I was a good girl. I was in my late 20s, college educated, lived on my own with roommates, and I had a respectable but miserably low-paying job. I had health insurance, but unlike those of some of my girlfriends who were in better jobs, my policy did not cover what is sometimes euphemistically called a "therapeutic D&E."
I had done everything right -- I was on the Pill and never missed a day. I even took all the sugar pills just to stay on track. But I was put on an antibiotic for a severe sinus infection, and there are pharmaceutical drugs that will render the Pill inert, and Amoxycillin is one of them. I was in a committed, monogamous relationship -- at least it was on my side -- and the "father" left me to fend for myself. We had a long distance relationship and he couldn't be bothered to help me out financially, much less come and see me and help me through one of the most agonizing experiences I believe any woman can endure.
In the few short weeks before I found out I was pregnant, my mental and emotional health underwent a seismic shift; I was hospitalized for 2 weeks with clinical depression, following suicide ideation. Adding to the trauma of hospitalization and fear that I might never be right again was the fear I would lose my job. After my release, my supervisor began to treat me as if I were dangerous and strange... she gradually began taking away some of my responsibilities and eased me out of projects I had developed and was managing quite well, despite everything. (Some months later, she found a way to force me into resigning, knowing that my pride would not allow me to stay after she had promoted an employee over me who I had trained and taught everything she knew.)
It was right after I returned to work that I discovered I was four weeks pregnant. Devastating does not begin to describe my shock and disbelief, which were unbearable. How could this could possibly have happened? If I carried to term, I knew that 36 weeks later I would be in no better position to care for a baby. This child would be born to a single mother who could barely make ends meet herself, much less provide adequately for a baby's needs. I briefly considered carrying to term and giving the baby up for adoption. Logistical and practical considerations aside, I was afraid that my baby might be born with the same mental and emotional disorders I had just discovered that I had. To keep or not to keep was not a "choice."
The clinic I went to was safe and reputable, but they did not perform "discretionary" abortions before 6 weeks. So I had to wait. The dreaded day finally arrived. It was a bitterly cold, wintry Saturday morning. Upon checking in and handing over a wad of crumpled $20 bills, I discovered that I was the only patient in the waiting room that day older than 17, and that for one of the girls, who was 16, this was her second trip for a D&E in 14 months. In the two weeks prior to my ending up on a gurney in a line of women "in trouble" waiting to be led in to the OR, I felt lost somewhere so deep I didn't know if I could ever find my way back up again and out into the sunshine. I was tormented with shame, guilt and anger -- anger at my ENT specialist who didn't think or know to tell me that while I was on Amoxicillin I should use a backup method of birth control.
The agony of the wait was horrible, and so was the "procedure," which insured a steady supply of nightmares for years afterward. I was given nothing but laughing gas; the pain was so horrid they practically had to scrape me off the ceiling. They sent me home with a couple of Tylenol 3's and told me to rest up, advising that a hot water bottle would help ease the cramps, and that I should feel fine by the time I had to be at work on Monday. Depends on what your definition of "fine" is.
Anyone who thinks that a woman just drops in to an abortion clinic on her lunch hour to have things "taken care of" is crazy. Michelle Bachman is insane to think that 13-year-old girls will be spirited away to abortion clinics during recess and sent home on the school bus with their parents none the wiser. Some of the girls in that clinic that day might have been using abortion as birth control. But I wasn't. I was there because of a tragic oversight on the part of my allergy doctor.
I have to pass a Planned Parenthood clinic when I go to visit my father. On Sunday afternoons, there are three or four wizened old men standing out front holding up anti-abortion placards. They have been doing this for years and are strangely silent, letting their homemade, often misspelled signs speak for them. On January 22 of each year, the blackest day on the calendar for the Pro Lifers, they are joined by others; men, women and children, almost all of whom are surely ignorant of the fact that PP does not carry out abortions. The same old men, one of whom wears a sandwich board with a full-color picture of an aborted fetus, parade up and down every Sunday, rain or shine. During the week I suppose they write fan letters to Scott Roeder. Even if they knew the facts of my story and those of other women like me who drive past them, I'm sure they would consider that there is no corner in hell hot enough to make us renounce our sins. These old men's brows are furrowed, but the lines on their faces have not been etched by grappling with the wrenching moral, ethical and spiritual dilemmas fomented by an unplanned pregnancy. Stubborn ignorance of facts, inability to empathize and refusal to respect other people's legal rights and decisions can make you look old before your time, too.
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