My own abortion story

More and more of us are speaking out about when and why we chose the option that will soon be unavailable to women across the U.S. (with a few exceptions for those with the means to travel, or those who live in deep blue states).

I guess it’s time. I’ve hidden this for decades, kept it to myself, with only my husband and one or two very close friends knowing about it.

I had an abortion.

I was 25. Had just landed the dream job, and I was giddy with the joy of it. It was in broadcasting, on the air, in a major market, and I was becoming a local celebrity. Folks were starting to know my name and recognize me when I went out, and while it felt weird it was also becoming a great deal of fun.

He was a dentist, a sweetly odd man, very affectionate, who approached sex with a childlike wonder and heartfelt enthusiasm. For me, my life had become better than I’d ever imagined it could be. I had a man who loved me, a job that thrilled me, and was doing well enough financially to buy myself a cool new car.

Because my mother had taken DES when she was pregnant with me, I knew my female organs were a little screwed up. I had irregular periods, had never had a pregnancy scare even when I wasn’t using contraceptives, and had this foolish idea that I was sterile. Foolish, as I soon found out, because one should never assume, should one?

You know where this is going.

One day I realized it had been way too long since my last period. Even for me, with swings from 21 days to 30 or so, it had been too long. There were also these odd things happening, like my sense of smell becoming really acute and my breasts feeling bigger and tender. My subconscious knew what was going on, but my conscious mind said “no, that can’t be true.”

This was in the days where you had to get a pregnancy test from a doctor; there were no EPTs at the local CVS. He (of course it was a he) confirmed what I’d begun to realize, with a sinking feeling, was the case: I wasn’t sterile. I was pregnant.

To this day, I don’t know how my boyfriend felt about it. When I told him, he didn’t have much to say. When I asked him point-blank what he wanted to do, he said it was up to me, which may have been his way of being considerate and recognizing that it was my body this was happening to, but it left me thinking he didn’t want it and didn’t want to say that.

He took me to the clinic and sat waiting for me. All I remember about the experience, oddly, was how the waiting room looked and that it wasn’t as painful as I’d expected it to be. Afterward, I felt numb emotionally, for weeks.

We broke up. Mostly because I still had no idea whether he’d wanted our child, whether he would have married me and happily raised our family together, or whether he secretly wished I would end it and get out of his life. I still don’t know; he’s a successful dentist now, part of his community where we both lived then, and I’ve moved on to a different career and lived all over the U.S. in the meantime.

I think, often, about that human-to-come. Think it was a boy, though of course I don’t know and didn’t then. Imagine what my life would have been like if I’d married the dentist — nothing like what it has been. But I don’t regret what I did. That fledging dream job went on to be the beginning of a wonderful life in which I’ve been successful several times over, married twice (got it right the second time), and now teach college students…most of whom are female, and all of whom I am now worried about.

It’s come full circle, and I am terrified for the young women who will end up in the same situation without the option I had. Without a choice. Without any sense of independence. Whose bodies are no longer their own, but the state’s, and that state won’t take care of them.