Empowered, liberated, independent. The spirit of feminism empowered me to exercise my right to choose. I thought it would be over by now, but more than ten years later, it isn’t.
I was 20, half-way through with college. “Promising” and “bright” are words they used to describe me. When I got pregnant, I hardly thought about any alternatives besides abortion.
I wasn’t going to let anything—or anyone—stand, crawl, or cry in the way of my dreams. And most of the people I knew wouldn’t have blamed me. After all, I wasn’t in a committed relationship, I didn’t have my degree, and I simply wasn’t ready to have a family. The thought of actually going through with the pregnancy so someone else could have my child seemed bizarre. The embarrassment alone, never mind the explanations? Not a chance. I wouldn’t let someone else have my baby. “My baby?” Yes, I knew it was a baby, even if I referred to it as “it.” Regardless, though, I had my dreams.
Little did I know that after the abortion, those dreams would be interrupted by regular nightmares. Phantom kicking sensations and visions of a baby’s silent cry. No surgeon could cut that out of my life. They didn’t tell me about that part.
I finished my degree and started the promising career I’d wanted. Eventually, though, I wanted something more. I met my one true love. When we first lived together and got married, I took birth control, but I skipped taking it sometimes, on purpose. Even though we had agreed to wait, I secretly wished that I’d get pregnant. But I didn’t. On our third anniversary, he brought it up: “I’m ready,” he said with a smile. I couldn’t have been happier if he’d offered me a second honeymoon to Jamaica! I threw away the rest of my pills and started wistfully clicking through nursery ideas and sneaking peeks at all things baby.
I tried to forget the fact that I had once held one, even though they called it a “fetus” and I tried to believe that it was only tissue. But I wondered if “it” was a girl or a boy. I never told my husband. I knew he loved me, and I was pretty sure he wouldn’t mind, but I still never told him. I suffered through the nightmarish dreams of silent cries, alone. But soon I’d hear a baby’s cries, for real, right? Then it would be okay.
After over a year of “trying,” we went to see a fertility specialist. That’s where I found out that often, women who have had abortions can never have babies. And I was one of them. Of course, I had to tell my husband about my choice, the one I was once so proud to be able to make. They didn’t tell me it would cost so much.
Now we’re hoping to adopt. Hoping some young girl will make a different choice than I made, over a decade ago. Hoping someone will tell her that the choice she thinks she wants to make will cost her, haunt her, dearly. I wish I’d made a different choice.
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