We chose to terminate one of our pregnancies. I’ve written about it only once, and re-posted it on another blog, 1 in 10, dedicated to sharing stories of women who have terminated for medical reasons (TFMR).
On August 14, 2013 we ended our precious baby girl’s life. Since we said goodbye to our little girl it has been:
616 days,or
1 year, 8 months and 8 days, or
88 weeks, or
14,784 hours, or
887,040 minutes, or
53,222,400 seconds.
I do not spend a lot of time writing or talking about the way in which our third pregnancy ended for two reasons. First, simply, it’s hard on me to remember that day, yet not a day goes by that I don’t remember.
I long to hold our little girl in my womb for just one more day.
I would give anything to have had a healthy little girl who could have lived and thrived. I wish I were holding her in my arms today as a young girl who would be just over 1 year old now. I long to have her life end with a different outcome. I would love to have more then just a burning candle to remember her by.
I wish I had never walked into that abortion clinic.
But, we were in a unique position where the life of our desperately wanted child would not end in a “normal” miscarriage. Our little girl, she really was a fighter. But, prolonging the pregnancy and therefore her life was putting my life at risk. With each day she remained inside me, fighting for her tiny life, the risks to my life increased substantially. It was a no-win situation.
So, while it was our choice to terminate, I believe it was ultimately solely my choice as it was my body. No-one could have forced me to have the procedure, ultimately I chose to. I knew the risks, and I made a choice, with my husband’s input and support through the entire thing. Then and now, I unequivocally know it was the right choice for us.
I know our decision was best for our little one and for us. But that doesn’t make it any easier to remember that we ultimately ended her life. Our choice resulted in the end of her life. Sometimes I have to remind myself that we didn’t give up on her, rather we stopped her suffering from a slow and prolonged death.
The second reason I choose not to talk about our choice to terminate is because I am afraid of the backlash. Abortion is a hot topic with very entrenched personal views on it. People hold very strong believes and pass immense judgement. I am afraid to get caught up in that mess. I already live daily with judgement related to our choice to not try harder, to not try more medical procedures, for me not to work full time, to choose adoption, etc. I’m incredibly sick of unfounded judgement. And I am afraid to be open about our decision to terminate because I know the judgement will be so incredibly much more intense.
I am afraid that by talking about it I am going to be put in a position of having someone pass judgement. I am afraid of having to defend myself for what I believe was right, in a highly emotionally charged setting. I am afraid of facing the wrath of someone who does not see outside of their individual perspective, having never walked a moment in my shoes. I believe that someone who has thought hypothetically about abortion but has never actually been in the situation has no right to pass judgement, yet I’m confident that people may.
While I harbour absolute no shame for our decision, I am afraid of experiencing a public shaming. Knowing my luck this will be the one post that someone picks up on and decides to attack, but I have broad shoulders and I can hold my own, so I will take it as it comes.
Yet, as much as I am afraid, I also am starting to realize that I need to continue to own this part of my life. I need to be able to write about this to help process my emotions around the loss of our sweet little girl and the experience of going into an abortion clinic. It was honestly the single hardest day in my life, and something I have to live with for the rest of my life. I cannot and in fact refuse to live in a closet hiding from my reality as if I am somehow ashamed when I am not ashamed, just fearful of being the target of cruel judgement. I deserve to be honest with myself and to do so I must own this.
Further, it’s a rare situation to be in and therefore it is unbelievably lonely. Given this, I feel that I need to keep sharing to help others going through the same thing. I also need to write about it, because the abortion debate needs to hear from those of us who needed to have an abortion – if I did not live in a place that provides abortion as an option I may be dead today, abortion has a place as a medical necessity. I believe this is a fact that cannot be overlooked in the abortion debate.
I have no intentions of voluntarily becoming a martyr for the pro-choice cause, but I can tell you, I want to my story to be heard. I want people to understand why I chose to have an abortion. I also need to share because I am pro-choice, and am in fact more pro-choice then I was before actually having an abortion. I believe having actually gone into an abortion clinic, having met with the abortion counsellors and doctors, gives me a unique perspective. This perspective has resulted in further entrenching my pro-choice approach to life. I firmly believe almost no-one makes the choice to have an abortion lightly. While I may not way to be the poster child for abortion, I believe my experience must have a place in the debate. I believe that when the time is right for me, I need to be more open about our specific experience to help educate people about a less discussed need for abortions.
In many ways, after my one and only post on our abortion experience, I locked away the experience for fear of a backlash. I pushed it down. I hid from it. I carried it with me, but I refused to speak about it outside of the safety of Mr. MPB. I don’t want to live this way. I want to be true to our little girl and our story. In fact, I need to be.
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I want to run away.
I am disappointed that we’ve decided not to do our Northern Canada / Alaska road trip, and then we decided not to do the more affordable Iceland trip. I know why we made this decision, I know the money needs to go towards the cost of adoption, but I am still disappointed by the decision. And like normal for me, I want to figure out why I’m so disappointed by this.
I’m angry that I left the 2.5 year pregnancy bubble behind, just to enter a new one, now being referred to as adoption. Yes, adoption has many positives, like I can drink alcohol whenever I want and in whatever quantity I want (which sadly tends to be 2 drinks at most, I’m a lightweight now). I can and do enjoy sushi guilt free. I am excising regularly now and loving it.
But, I am not in a bubble controlled purely by finances because international adoption is so bloody expensive. I feel like I’m trapped in a new box, and that life is being put on hold in a new, but all too familiar way.
I’m so very annoyed by it. And it turns out I really hate the boxes I’ve been living in for the last few years. I hate feeling trapped inside a box, I find it suffocating.
It turns out, upon reflection I’ve discovered I love to run away. My passion for travel is deeper than just wanting to take in a new culture – yes, I love exploring and seeing the world, but there is more to it than that. It is also about wanting to escape my reality, when it sucks.
We intentionally ran away after our third loss – we hopped on a plane as quickly as we were responsibly able to and went to Peru. I threw myself into planning our trip from the very moment I was physically and mentally able – it was a wonderful distraction. We were intentionally busy every single day of our trip to ensure that we would be able to put our worries and heartache on the back burner for two weeks. In fact, we didn’t bring any technology with us and made a point not to check our email or anything. We also told people in our lives not to contact us unless someone needed our kidneys for an immediate lifesaving surgery – if we couldn’t change the outcome of something, we wanted to be left alone and not have any additional worries on our minds for 2 weeks. We needed a break, like really needed a break. It worked, for all of two weeks. When we got home, all our worries were still very much real, they had not gone away.
I am now realizing that this running away approach is a long standing approach of mine. When I was able to move out of my parent’s house, I went straight to New Zealand. I literally went half way across the world to get away. Most teenagers would have simply moved out and gone to college, but not I, I needed to put the Pacific Ocean between us. I needed space to live my way. I needed to not be the girl whose mom and sister died a few years ago. I need to not be the girl who felt abandoned by her father. I needed to go far enough away that I couldn’t be hurt anymore by the people I love. It turns out, when I cam home I was still that girl. I am still and will always be the girl whose mom and sister died, who feels forgotten and still gets hurt by those I love from time to time. I realize now that distance doesn’t change reality. As it turns out, I am still that girl and always will be because these experience, good and bad, make me the person I am.
I now realize that traveling for me is in part running away. And this running away is only a temporary reprieve from whatever the stress and anxiety of the moment is. I realize that each time I run away, I come back to what is because the stress doesn’t magically evaporate
Yet, even with this realization, I still want to go away.
Simply, I do not want to live in a predetermined box that is not a box of my choosing. I do not want to put life on hold for an adoption that is likely at least a year away, if not even longer.
Instead, I still I want to reap the physical and mental health benefits of taking a vacation. I want a break from the stress and pure agony that the adoption process is in this very moment. I want to temporarily leave my worries behind. I want to connect with Mr. MPB in the way that we always do when we are traveling – it’s truly just the two of us when we are exploring. I want to embrace my freedom and my lack of responsibility while I have it, because seriously this is about the only perk of the adoption process. I want to live for the moment. I want to enjoy life. I just want to have fun, is that really too much to ask?
Since I know we cannot do any extravagant vacations this year now matter how much I want to, I’ve decided to push my nagging desire to go somewhere more extravagant to the side and focus on enjoying our summer at home and exploring our own part of the world. I plan to force Mr. MPB to take a few long weekends to go camping, hiking and fishing in the Rocky Mountains – really, we live in a pretty awesome part of the world so we might as well enjoy it. I plan to make the most of what we can do and ensure that we have some fun this summer.
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My Perfect Breakdown 