I wrote this in 2002, soon after the last abortion I had before this one. I’ve been going through some of my old writing, trying to remember what the psychological aftermath is like, when I realized it was probably normal to have feelings about how I could have made a different choice if I wanted to, even though I knew what the “right” choice was. I like these paragraphs:

What they don’t tell you is that afterward, there is a lot of bleeding, with clots. They don’t tell you that your breasts will begin to produce milk and become painfully hard and leak, because your body thinks you’ve had a baby, only a bit too early. No one tells you that you’ll hunger for that baby, that you’ll scream at ghosts and beg to make your choice go away. You’ll grab your belly and claw at the bed sheets, wishing things could have been different. You lie to yourself, say you could have handled being a single mother with no support, that another child doesn’t take that much more effort, that you didn’t know it would be like this, that you would have just done something, anything, if only you could take it all back and not have this pain and not be sitting on a toilet at three in the morning, crying and sobbing as half-dollar-sized globs of blood descend from your empty uterus through a war-ravaged vagina to make a sickening plopping sound into the bottom of the toilet.

But they also don’t tell you the screaming will stop, regret will turn to relief, the bleeding will go away, your milk will dry up, you will (soon enough) be able to look at babies without crying, the pain becomes part of who you are and dissipates, one day you will wake up and you will realize that you did the only, the best thing you could do and, damnit!, you’re going to embrace that and be that “I’ve had an abortion and I lived through it and I’d do it again if I were in the same situation” kind of woman.

They don’t tell you that, one day, you will take the strong part of the core of your being — that part that made you want to be more than just a struggling, overworked single mom wondering how to pay the electric bill — and you will love and nurture that strength and thank the gods and goddesses that you had the chance to make that choice. They don’t tell you that one day you will have a child — or two — when you’re ready, and it will be as pure joy as you have felt pure pain, and you will know that life is good.

I’m still bleeding, but the clotting has subsided and the pain is much more manageable. This is good, since I didn’t intend to drop B. back at his dad’s house so I could spend six hours in the ER for procedures that would collectively and objectively take less than an hour.

***

Today, I’m meeting D. for coffee. Thursday night, in a fit of romantic delusion (probably influenced by watching that evening’s episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, in which Danny Tripp proposes to Jordon McDeere as she’s about to be wheeled off to have an emergency C-section), I drove to his house. Walking the fine line between romance and stalking, I made sure his car was in the ‘hood before calling. And call I did: twice, plus one text message for good measure. As it turned out, I felt dumb anyhow: he’d gone out with a friend (in the friend’s car), and so I drove home feeling dejected and halfway humiliated.

I suppose I thought if he SAW MY FACE that he couldn’t continue to run away. Instead, I freaked him out, though I suppose one side benefit was that it woke him up to how urgently I feel his lack of taking responsibility:

I am sorry I was not there when you stopped by. I have to admit I was a little shocked and maybe a bit uncomfortable last night that you made it a point to come over, but obviously you felt it was important for us to have some face-to-face time.

Gee, you think?

We’ll see how things go today. I don’t have extremely high hopes. I’m just planning on getting there early, sitting nonchalantly sipping espresso and reading a magazine when he arrives, and looking absolutely fabulous.

I took B. to the North Park Village Nature Center today for the City Wilds Festival — lots of eco-friendly educational resources and a wonderful nature walk experience. No cicadas in sight (thank goodness), but at the grocery store afterward I noticed I was rather crampy and began to feel, well, damp. Arriving home, I realized I’d started bleeding, something I’ve had none of since the abortion on Tuesday.

Since about 2pm, I’ve been passing clots and I’ve been in no small amount of pain. Talked with the doctor on call, who says that if it doesn’t stop by 9pm, I should phone him and we’ll decide whether I should go to the ER (probably yes). I’ve been dosing on ibuprofen and hoping it doesn’t come to that, though it doesn’t look good (it’s 6:18pm and nothing’s gotten better).

This is the first night in some time I’ve been able to relax at my place with B., and we’re having such a good time just being in each other’s presence that it would be unfortunate to have that cut short because my body has decided to rebel now, a full four days after its violation.

Then again, nothing about this experience has gone the way I’d have hoped.