“And do not kill your children for fear of poverty. We provide for them and for you. Indeed, their killing is ever a great sin.” Quran, 17:31

It would seem like this a Roe v Wade inspired post. But I’ve been wrestling with abortion since I had one 25 years ago. Yes, 25 years ago and I’m “still” dealing with it. You’d be surprised at how common that is. One Facebook group that I’m a part of has people all the time posting about abortions they had 40 years ago. It makes sense. If it’s a real thing then time has no impact. Time isn’t real. The act is real and the act stays with you. Even calling it an ‘act’ is misleading. Deed is better because it ties in misdeeds and immorality. A sense of right and wrong. And still, language is failing me. It’s not a ‘sense’ of anything. All these words that hide or misconstrue actual meeting. There is right and there is wrong. And this is wrong.

I was young when I got pregnant. I was 19. I cringe writing that because it had been ingrained in me to not be a statistic. This was a thing in the 90’s when I was coming of age. Single black mothers, teenage moms, and on and on. My stepfather told me to ‘just use a condom‘ when he felt like he couldn’t control my relationship with my high school boyfriend. His lack of control, or rather giving up of control is a whole other story for a whole other post. In college, when I feared I had an ulcer from the stress of my senior year my mother responded “I know what it better not be.” My favorite cousin was ridiculed for choosing have her child when she was in college. She had had an abortion in high school but they didn’t discuss that. Her mother was incensed and hurt, my mother echoed her sentiments. Having a child was not acceptable. How dare she not exercise her right to ‘choose’ something other than life. There I go again. Something. How dare she not choose to kill her unborn child. Again.

No, they didn’t see it this way. We tell ourselves all sorts of things to do the unthinkable. I know I did. It was just a lump of cells. There was no life there yet. No spirit. No parts of God just yet. The lump wasn’t viable. The lump was not a baby. Not anywhere close.

I was stupid for getting pregnant after all that I knew. But I was in a self-destructive phase and in some ways wanted to go through the whole experience. More accurately, I didn’t care. I didn’t give it serious consideration. I knew abortion was on the table, never really thought about what it meant, but felt comfortable enough being risky because I had an out. Be careful of those outs.

My college boyfriend was clueless. Or so I wanted to believe. He went on to become my husband and then my gay ex. The gay had been there all along, just another thing I could pretend away, not deeply consider, or make what I wanted it to be. So this boy who seemed to be having sex to have sex with a woman went along with a lot. This part is hard to write about. It might be more disjointed than I intend. And if that’s the end result I’ll edit later but for now, I’ll keep pushing. My Dad was out of town for a few months and I would stay at his house off and on. A really nice house in a nice part of town. I took my boyfriend there and we had sex. Funny that I place getting pregnant on this specific instance. But during sex the condom broke. I told him he could keep going. It was ok. In my mind, I was about a week after my period so I wasn’t fertile. I was wrong. Supremely wrong in my understanding of my own biology. My periods were long and fertility is highest about 14 days after your period STARTS. So I was right about at the moment in time. This was the first time we ever had any form of unprotected sex. And I cannot say why he didn’t pull out and why I didn’t insist (outside of the fact that I communicated very little during sex and that really wasn’t a dynamic between us). I actually hate thinking about sex with him. I push it to parts of my mind that are hard to reach. This is no different.

Backstory – I was not at all over my high school boyfriend. Had recently really and fully ended any type of relationship with him, even friendship. Well, he ended it with me. I sent him a “Dear John” letter hoping to give myself some space. He was in jail for what I thought were stupid reasons. And he was relying on me like we were together. Calling all the time. Having me do things for him. He was back to acting like he owned me. He responded to my letter by demanding his things back and not contacting me after that. So being honest – I was reeling over my plan to get my space and control back backfiring and him dumping me. So here I am, with the new guy, trying to pretend that I’m in love and trying to erase my history with my ex. Good move.

My period did not start. I was working at Applebees. Feeling crampy. I kept going to the bathroom to check and nothing was there. No tint of pink discharge. No nothing. I knew I was pregnant. I knew why I was pregnant. But I hoped I wasn’t because like all things, I didn’t expect it to really happen. I get off on the ‘fuck it’ mentality when it serves me emotionally but I never seem to be prepared for the actual fallout when it comes.

I can write about the process of going from not really knowing to being at the abortion clinic. I’ll do that at some point but for now let’s fast forward.

I’ve decided. My gay ex doesn’t give a shit. I’ve been the sickest I’ve ever been so my decision, which I made before the extreme morning sickness hit, is highlighted each minute of the day. There is no forgetting that I’m pregnant. No forgetting what I’ve decided to do.

At the clinic, I go in and go to the exam room. They perform an ultrasound and show me the small lump. The mass of cells that is my child. They hear the heartbeat. We hear the heartbeat. I hear her heartbeat. ‘Yes, you’re still pregnant. It’s right there,” the examiner says. This wasn’t asked but it hung in the air – do you still want to do this?

Yes. I don’t know if this really happened but I remember turning over, away from the screen. Not in tears or anguish. I wanted to not see it. I still want to not see.

I had them put me to sleep and when I woke up my baby was gone. My baby was dead. Yeah, people don’t like when I talk that way. But what if I felt that way? What if I rode through the last 25 years seeping into a form of insanity because I saw my baby right there, alive, and I didn’t stop. I didn’t save her from me. Save her from her mother. I went through with my plan to end her life. Not because I had all these plans that she was ruining. But because I was a piece of shit.

People can say what they want about Roe v Wade. They can talk about the horrors of not having ‘access’ to abortions. But no one wants to talk about the horrors of abortion. What it really. means to carry the load.

I am a struggling Muslim. A struggling believer. That’s another post as well. But the verse at 17:31 says it all. It explains why I have run from my deeds for all these years. It explains why I felt bad despite the culture of acceptance around abortion. I told no one for 15 years. Not a single person outside of my gay ex. And I refused to talk about it with even him. It was my sin. My burden. But carrying it alone didn’t serve me. Or help anyone else. I can’t undo my sins but I can be a warning for others. A testimony.

And I have to stop running, too.