Clinic

This can not be happening. It just can’t. I kept telling myself this over and over. Trying to catch my breath, dizzy and sick with fear, I tell myself again “This can not be happening.”

It was happening. I knew it was happening, I was afraid of it happening. But I just rolled over and let it happen. Because that is what most of us do much of the time. I knew if I said no, he would find it somewhere else. I knew that I had missed a couple of pills due to pharmacy mix up. He kept telling me it would be fine, that “It’s been long enough, it will be fine.” I stared at the wall, waiting for it to be over. Two weeks later I knew. I was in 42 years old, how could this be? But it was.

I remember taking the test, seeing both lines appear and sobbing. Great hitching sobs that clawed at my throat. I made the call within minutes of the test. Gasping for breath as quietly as I could while the room around me spun. I was shaking so hard that holding the phone became difficult. The appointment was made for the first week of January. He sat slumped against the bathroom door, for most of the time. Looking up at me when the call was ended. There were tears streaming down our faces. Words were not spoken, there were no words. I dropped to the bed heavily and sat with my head in my hands, tears flowed as a deep sickness rose in me. Loss, swallowed me whole, and has kept pieces of me still.

Despite all the pain, all the gut wrenching decision making…Utah makes it even worse. We had to take a class, and then wait 48 hours and then confirm the appointment. We sat in the room with two other couples, and ten other women, young women. The other couples did not make eye contact with anyone in there and neither did I. Six eyes, all swollen and red stared at the floor. The procedure explained we had to choose the method. Again, another painful decision. I chose the surgical route, because I had no sick days left at work and the medication could take a few days to work. I could not go through that at work, I did not have the strength. I do not remember the next two days.

I was told to wear sweats as during the recovery I would be in shock and very cold. I was to go in first thing in the morning, I had to be at the clinic by eight. This was great for me, less time to think about it, less time to stress. It was snowing hard. Big wet flakes came down in droves covering the road and the parking lot. By the time I would come out the snow would be piled up to at least six inches, and pushed into great mounds of white. We parked the car, stared ahead and held hands.

I walked into the building and went to the basement floor. This is where the clinic was located, and it seemed appropriate. Bright lights and soft colors greeted me as I walked up to the receptionist. I told her my name and my appointment time. She gave me papers to fill out that would determine how much I would have to pay, on this, one of the worst days of my life. They decided on the amount and used my debit card. Dully I realized I would have no money left for the next two weeks. It registered somewhere in the very back of my troubled mind. I was told to head to the surgical waiting room where I would get one pain killer. One pain killer. One.

Finally I was called back. I started shaking then, so hard it became difficult to walk. Tears that were welling up all morning came down my cheeks, and would not stop for days. They still come almost weekly. They remind me of the terrible person I am in so many peoples eyes and often enough in my own. They remind me that I was too poor and too sick to bring another person in this world. They remind me that I did a horrible thing. The remind me that the choice I made will be with me forever.

Ultrasound was first. Apparently I was only a few weeks along. Good, I thought, at least there is that. I was grasping at any straws I could. The tech told me it would be quick and that she understood how hard this day was. She told me that she had gone through it as well. She was not glib or flippant in anyway. She was humble and empathetic and kind. She was obviously still affected by her own choice. This is what most people do not understand, that it stays with us, and that the decisions we had to make are gut wrenching, agonizing. I was then taken to the surgical suite. I was literally petrified. I was so scared and sad I longed for the pain pill to take the edge off. But it didn’t. The lump in my throat became larger, and my eyes burned with the pain of knowing. Knowing what would come next, what would come after, it was too much. I was instructed to strip from the waste down and cover myself with a paper “blanket.” I got up on the table feeling more vulnerable than I had ever felt before. Emotions kept flooding my body. I was so lost. I laid back and put my feet in the stirrups and stared up at the surgical light. I was given instructions but could not hear them. Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes. I looked at him and he held my hand as he silently wept next to me. He pressed his forehead against mine as the needle was pushed into my cervix to try and numb me. It did not work. I felt an enormous pain my belly, a stabbing pain that went on and on.

The nurse grabbed my hand and told me to breathe, but I was crying and could not stop. She kept telling me to look at her and breathe, she told me she knows how hard this is and how painful. She dabbed at my tears gently. The noise of the evacuation machine was so loud and the room was spinning and the pain I was in seemed endless. I deserved this pain, I knew then and I know now. It was chaos in my mind and body, the whole world fell down around me and there was only pain.

I do not remember how I got to the recovery room. I do remember kind and compassionate women holding my hand, getting me sprite and telling me the worst is over. There were women lined up in reclining chairs with heating pads and boxes of tissues. There was no dry eyes. I ached deeply, for so many reasons. I was told to go check the bleeding, which I did. Bright red stared back at me accusingly. I saw it and it saw me and I have been forever changed.

I do not remember the ride home, or the long walk up three flights of stairs to the apartment. I remember snow, cold, white and seemingly endless. I remember the bleakness of it, as it reflected what was in me. I was turned inside out emotionally and physically. I hate what I did, and sometimes hate myself for what I have done what I had to do. I know that my health could not have supported a pregnancy, and that even if it could, my finances could not. I thought about adoption of course, but again, I could not afford the care it would take to bring a baby to term in a sick body. Emotionally, there was no way. I had just seen my partner try to kill himself in front on me, found out about all the cheating, and his addictions were overwhelming. It was all I could do to keep a job. I was on the edge all the time about everything. I could not even breathe most days. I explain and justify everything, all the time. Because I see the worlds eyes upon me, and know what they think of me.

It is interesting that I post this story here and tell no one in my actual life. I no longer have real friends, and haven’t in many years. I have no family at all and so I have no one to talk to. I am sure I am not alone in any of this, but the story needs to get out. I feel it clawing away inside of me, bringing me to tears usually weekly. I am sure he is sick of hearing about it. He has told me he does not really think about it at all. How lucky for him. A gift the universe gives men is a very short memory.

As a women I am gifted with a very long memory, if only to record all that has gone on before.