5w4d

D. is back in town, and I’ll be seeing him presently. This feels strange, as I don’t quite know what to do or say. And the fact that I’m consistently nauseated makes me think that all I’ll be able to do when I see him is curl up on the couch and let him rub my back.

5w2d

The small spaces… I talk about them all the time: places where we feel empowered and fully in control of our own lives and decisions. And loved, completely and unconditionally loved. With all the chaos and unpredictability in the world and all the times when our best-laid plans go awry, it’s necessary to have small spaces, and last night I was reminded we can find them in the least likely of places. Sometimes reconnecting with an old friend is all that’s needed to feel comfort again, and sometimes sitting and talking with someone who knows just how to listen is all that is needed to feel safe to enter into the journey of making difficult choices. And to hear I’ll be proud of you no matter what from someone who’s also been the rope in a tug-of-war between someone else’s notions of right and wrong? Well, that was more than I’d asked for.

4w6d

This is going to sound silly, he says. And I know it’s my fault. But I want my old girlfriend back.

You and me, both, sweetie. I’ll keep looking.

4w5d (morning)

I am amazed at how much positive energy has been directed my way over the last 24 hours. If yesterday I felt alone, today I feel as though I’ve jumped off of a highwire expecting to crash but have instead found myself cradled in familiar surroundings, comforted by people who love me, protected fiercely by those who most realize my vulnerability. I am still scared. I am still reeling from the jump. I am anxious about whether I’ll survive jumps to come. For now, though, I am less damaged than I’d feared I’d have to be.

I am grateful to my friends: R., who has been drawing on her own experiences to show me there is hope; M2., for offering to go with me on June 5, and for telling me she’d support me no matter what; K., for checking in to make sure I was okay; and V., for listening when she was dealing with her own problems.

And I am grateful to D., whose break this weekend brought him to realize that he hasn’t been as supportive as he should be, for looking at me with tears in his eyes, for taking my hand in his, for listening to me, for asking what I needed from him to make it through to the other side.

Thank you all.

4w4d

I’m tired of feeling sorry for myself, tired of worrying how I’ll cope if D. can’t give me all the support I need.While my perspective on the world remains colored by sadness and loneliness, I’ve begun to take steps to make sure I’m okay. Working on my relationship with D. is obviously necessary, and there are lots of things that need to be addressed if we are to “make it” as a couple, but I’m tired of putting so much energy into the process. Let me get through to June 5, and then I’ll worry about us. Right now, it’s too much to cope with.

And so I told a couple more friends, hoping for support, which is coming in spades. Today, C. listened to me talk for forty-five minutes or more, offered lots of empathy, and allowed me the time to work through some things out loud, figure out for myself that it isn’t that I don’t want to have another baby necessarily; it’s that I can’t have one with D., or at least not right now. If I could move to Montana or otherwise steal away from D., hide this child from him, trick him into not knowing, I’d do it in an instant. But beyond not being able to live with myself if I did any of those things, I don’t think I’m ready to wed myself (literally or figuratively) to this man for 18 years or more, when there is already so much uncertainty about our relationship.

I’ve also contacted the Chicago Women’s Health Center, which offers both crisis counseling (pre-abortion) and a post-abortion support group. I’d called to sign up for this summer’s post-abortion group, knowing in advance that I’d need it, and I suspect the counselor on the phone could tell I needed a bit something before that point. I’ll be seeing her this week, and I’m glad services like that exist. Before my last abortion — which was just after 9/11, a point in time where everything was turned upside down — I went to four “options counseling” sessions at Planned Parenthood, which was extremely helpful. I’m hoping these sessions will offer the same sort of clarity.

The main thing is that I no longer feel I can’t make it through this without D. by my side. And not only can I survive on my own, but I will if I have to. I’m not scared of that anymore. I’m also planning on going away for a couple of days over the holiday weekend with my younger son, just to get away from the city and reconnect with nature and my inner goddess, so to speak. Just me and the boy, finding our way in the world.

4w1d

There is too much arguing and too much negative energy. I am tired, and not just because hormones and a growing blob of cells are sucking all of the life out of me. I have had a headache since Tuesday, since before three tests confirmed I am pregnant. I have had cramps since the tests came positive. I have been crying too much at too many things. Most of all, though, I am scared.

Tonight was the first time we’d touched each other since. We were both apprehensive, each thinking the other never wanted to touch us again. When D. kissed me, he said it felt like the first time, and I believe he might have been right. We had changed since the last time. We’d become the sort of people who had to make tough decisions amid anger and tears and across great distances, in spirit if not in fact. We’d been the exception to the statistical probability, the one- to two-percent failure rate “with perfect use” that doctors warned about. And also: we’d become the couple who, three months into dating and falling in love and dreaming of years in the future, made an appointment to have an abortion.

4w0d

I almost didn’t make it onto the bus today. And I had to make it onto the bus, the #11 Lincoln Avenue that would take me to the #8 Halsted, which would take me to my doctor’s office. After a morning of fitful chatting online with D., I almost couldn’t take the loneliness anymore. I huddled on my couch and cried until I had the sense to contact V., who I knew would talk me down from my hysterical ledge. I cleaned myself up, engaged in a sufficient amount of numbing repression, and began my journey. Along the way, I decided that if D. didn’t hug me within two minutes of seeing me, I would either spontaneously combust from inner sadness or break up with him.

I’m glad I was numb, walking to the bus stop through Lincoln Square, the proving grounds of our relationship: The theatre in which we saw our first movie together, the coffee house where we’d eaten waffles a half-dozen times, the indie record store where the clerk knows both our names. This is MY ‘hood, though, one he could just easily abandon as an old pair of socks or jeans that no longer fit. I couldn’t escape, and any way I turned, I saw his face, felt his arm around me, could even smell the scent of his neck as I leaned in for a deep embrace.

The bus ride was interminable. He’d be waiting for me at the end, standing outside of Jamba Juice, probably texting me because I was running a few minutes late, because of all the crying. Men on the bus ranted about governments and revolutions and the injustice of CTA bus drivers over- or undershooting bus stops all across the city, and the only thing I could think was “Baby. Pregnant. Fuck.” On the Halsted bus, out the window: fancy shops, upscale chain stores, gaunt women wearing $500 shoes carrying shopping bags, Latina nannies pushing Anglo babies in $1,000 strollers while talking on cell phones. It was all in stark contrast with my thoughts: I was a bruised and damaged woman, pregnant and alone, facing the prospect of an abortion, years after I swore I’d never go through that again. And the man who was at the end of that bus line, the man with whom I’d fallen in love despite myself, the man from whom I needed the most support… well, he was the last person on Earth able to do much of anything other than wait just under two minutes to give me a hug when I finally arrived.

3w6d

It all began as a passing thought last week in the shower, thinking that there was an awful lot of hair going down the drain, something that happens only when I’m pregnant. Or perhaps it began with noticing how often I had to pee. Or when I realized I was a day late (today) and took the test that would show two thin blue lines. Maybe it was the dream I had a few days ago, in which I was lactating and sprayed milk across the room while D. sat tacitly and nonchalantly watching the whole spectacle. But none of these things, really, mark the beginning. No, the start was when I told him on the phone and was met with near silence. And it had definitely begun when I told him I’d spent most of the afternoon huddled in a ball on my bathroom floor, crying, and all he did was tell me he needed time and space to think.