From the Pregnancy Void
I am getting really, really spaced out. I sit on the big green plastic "birth ball" eating noodles and watching weird movies on my laptop. I think about writing. I take notes. I answer email. I nap. I have never been a "nap person" but right now, I like to nap. I fall asleep an hour earlier each night and wake up (well, I wake up every two hours but also….) slightly later than usual, each day. This baby is coming any time now, any time….. I can't believe it.
But I've also been thinking, apropos of the recent midterm elections, about the right to choose.
Because I have been pregnant before. And chosen to terminate. It was 1998, and my then-boyfriend, who I adored, smoked an inordinate amount of marijuana – or at least, enough to make me uncomfortable – and said he didn't believe in making a commitment to a relationship, but if there were a child, he'd stick around. I told him I couldn't do it that way, that I needed the base before bringing a child in. He'd recently moved out of his dad's place and into a house in Brooklyn where he grew pot in the closet that also acted as shelter to a family of very small mice. His hipster roommate Mary said the mice were "cute." Neither of them owned a bed. Both slept (separately, I think) in sleeping bags, on their respective floors. A part of wanted very much to have this man's baby. But the smarter part of me knew it was a set-up.
After I had the procedure, which is no easy thing to go through, I called him, long distance, in tears. And he said, "You sound needy." And I said, "I feel needy" And he said, "Don't look at me. I would have had it." And I understood that I was alone. The mourning process was unbelievable. I cried a lot and looked for answers. But I never doubted the termination itself. I believed, I still believe, I did the right thing.
It's so important that women have the power to choose. Abortion isn't easy – it's no picnic, as they say. And we do kill something, maybe not a "baby" – but certainly the beginnings of life, a potential. And yet, I think that owning that choice, making it consciously and responsibly, helps us grow up, helps us make different choices down the road. I promised myself that I would be a mother someday. And I'm delighted (and scared) to become one now.
Mostly, I'm grateful to see it unfold this way. And to have a child with this wonderful man, Gordon. At just the right time in both of our lives….
But I've also been thinking, apropos of the recent midterm elections, about the right to choose.
Because I have been pregnant before. And chosen to terminate. It was 1998, and my then-boyfriend, who I adored, smoked an inordinate amount of marijuana – or at least, enough to make me uncomfortable – and said he didn't believe in making a commitment to a relationship, but if there were a child, he'd stick around. I told him I couldn't do it that way, that I needed the base before bringing a child in. He'd recently moved out of his dad's place and into a house in Brooklyn where he grew pot in the closet that also acted as shelter to a family of very small mice. His hipster roommate Mary said the mice were "cute." Neither of them owned a bed. Both slept (separately, I think) in sleeping bags, on their respective floors. A part of wanted very much to have this man's baby. But the smarter part of me knew it was a set-up.
After I had the procedure, which is no easy thing to go through, I called him, long distance, in tears. And he said, "You sound needy." And I said, "I feel needy" And he said, "Don't look at me. I would have had it." And I understood that I was alone. The mourning process was unbelievable. I cried a lot and looked for answers. But I never doubted the termination itself. I believed, I still believe, I did the right thing.
It's so important that women have the power to choose. Abortion isn't easy – it's no picnic, as they say. And we do kill something, maybe not a "baby" – but certainly the beginnings of life, a potential. And yet, I think that owning that choice, making it consciously and responsibly, helps us grow up, helps us make different choices down the road. I promised myself that I would be a mother someday. And I'm delighted (and scared) to become one now.
Mostly, I'm grateful to see it unfold this way. And to have a child with this wonderful man, Gordon. At just the right time in both of our lives….
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