I’ve had an abortion. I’m having a baby.
It’s been a long long time since I’ve opened up with not only myself, but others. A long long time since I have been raw and honest. A long long time, I have spent, to work to a point of peace and acceptance with these chapters of my life.
The first chapter went a little like this:
I was 17, freshly graduated high school. I had plans to travel away to college to fulfill my dreams of being an artist. I had a boyfriend I was in a serious relationship with and loved very dearly. He was barely 19, and emotionally, barely 13. But we were young and in love, and naive. Very. Very. Naive.
It was that spring that we suddenly fell in love with the bee movie. We would string up this huge bed sheet and project the bee movie onto it in our own personal movie theatre. Aka (the garden shed in my parents backyard) but we watched that movie one too many times to actually pay attention, and that’s when we ended up with our very first baby.
Initially it was panic. Secondly it was panic. And thirdly...yup, fucking panic.
Despite my deep deep fear and shame and every other awful feeling you could think of, I loved that baby. God damn I loved her. She was my child, protected in my temple. Apart of my own flesh and spirit and soul.
But I was young and in love. Broke and naive. Unsupported and scared. My boyfriend wanted nothing to do with our baby. And I wanted nothing to do with the pain it was creating in the people I loved, and in myself.
I had goals and ambitions and a life I needed to explore. I have never had the easiest life, or been able to do what I choose to. This was my first opportunity.
These are the things I used to repeat to myself when I felt unsure of the decision that was made, to have an abortion. That I had a life too. That my voice and dreams had been snuffed out too many times. That my boyfriend had a life. That my boyfriend had dreams and goals and should be able to choose his path. and I, mine.
I wasn’t completely on board per say, because I did and still love my first baby. And it took so many years, and therapy, and poems, and hikes, and marijuana, and compassion to heal. And I don’t know if I ever will feel totally whole. But I can now tell you, that it was the right decision for my life. That I have made peace with it being made. That I have seen all of the opportunities and doors that it has opened for me. All the places I have gone. All the people I have touched and been touched by. How much more whole my life is now, because i had an abortion.
I know many will gag at such a seemingly selfish statement. But It was the decision I’m thankful I had the right to make. “No woman wants an abortion like she wants an ice cream cone or a new Porsche, she wants an abortion like an animal caught in a trap wants to gnaw off its own leg”
This has been the quote that has always deeply resonated with me. A baby, when you’re still a kid, who has already had a difficult time through life, feels like a death sentence. Ball and chain. Hook, Line. Sinker. While you’re already gasping for air. If I were to have had my baby, I would be in a wildly different place than I am now: happy and ready to have my baby.
Im 20 now, I’ve done the college thing. Not for me. I’ve traveled around Michigan. Not for me. And now I’ve skipped across the whole country and I’m working and living In freaking Yellowstone National Park. Not even kidding. I work on a volcano, my lunch rushes are in tune with fuckin old faithful geyser. There are BISON...BISON, eating grass outside my bedroom window. AND I’m in love. Again. Oh boy. But this time it’s different. He opens car doors for me. Refers to me as his baby. He wants to talk to me and know me. He protects me, and does the things I’ve had to beg for, without even knowing I need it. He’s the kindest person to touch me and ACTUALLY turns me on (sorry not sorry shitty ex bf) I see a life with this human being and I want a life with this human being. And then my boobs started hurting, and oh shit, I say to myself. and sure enough after taking a test in the Taco Bell bathroom three hours from my beautiful desolate home, I’m pregnant.
Initially it was panic, and then, excitement.
I love this baby the same as my first baby. Except this time, im capabale and in a place to provide it. A place I would’ve never been able to experience and feel the comfort of had I not had an abortion. My baby will have all the care she needs and the safety of a home and loving family, because I had an abortion. I chose a path for my life. One that has been incredibly difficult, but it is a path I now stand beside.
As a mother. As a woman. And as a sister to all.
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