The Weight: Abortion Day Part Two!

I live in an “urban enclave.”

I went to a public clinic.

I have no idea why I was surprised I was the only non-black lady in the room. There was a lot of big, pissed off looking moms and shivering girls. For some reason I expected to see nervous girls who looked like Barnard students. Every now and then hippie white women in their pro-choice t-shirts would walk through the waiting room, I assume they were volunteers, and all the black ladies would roll their eyes.

I had to wait over 5 hours. I had an appointment but I figured out at hour three, that from 9am to 11:30 they staggering out a four step proccess for 30 women.

• There was one older blonde white lady in the corner sobbing. Her boyfriend who kept his shades on just stared outside blankly. He didn’t stroke her or touch her. I wanted to run up to her and hold her. Ask her if she wanted to talk, explain to her that I am pretty funny and would try to make her laugh and hold her hand. But she was older and married and I felt out of place saying anything to some one who had made this decision for reasons possibly very different from my own

• There was another sobbing girl. Built like a Rugby player, thighs that could snap your neck. She was a lightskined black girl in a clingy summer dress. Her obese mother had a flat top and giant tattoo of her kids on her arm. The mom had her head cocked and refused to sit next to her daughter. I kept looking at her trying to send her signals with my eyes like “HELLO FRIEND FROM A RACIAL AND CLASS DIVIDE! LET US DISCUSS OUR VAGINAL WOES AND EMBRACE LIKE SISTERS DO!” But once again, like I do often in this predominately black and poor city, and I was scared we would have nothing to talk about. Or she would find me patronizing. I just kept trying to smile at her.

• There were about 5 men in the room and they all looked so small. The had no real idea what to do and would keep shuffling around the room.

• There was one 16 year old girl with big black mama and grandmama who were sitting in front of me. They were mighty pissed with her, she sat with her arms crossed, and as they were clicking their tongues as rolling their eyes a corner boy with denim slung right under the sag of his ass, a crisp Yankees hat on backwards, and shirt that hung like a night gown walked in. This kid wasn’t old enough to shave, he took a seat by his girlfriend and the mom started screaming at him. He just sat their, obstinate, and his gf looked embarrassed. I wanted to hide under a chair.

Wait 30 mins

Step 1: Paper work and C-notes. You pay up and fill shit out.

Wait 40 mins

Step 2: Check up, blood work, sonogram. Here’s where your fucking mind gets blown. If you a have a negative blood type they have to give you an extra shot for pain or else the sedation won’t work. That’s an extra 40 bucks. Fortunately, my blood is morphine ready. A pinprick, a temperature gage, then my pants are down a I have jelly on my tummy. I asked to see the picture of the womb squid. First of all, I will have you all know that womb looks like a perfect sphere. So CLEARLY I am above the classification of a mere mortal. And Tumor looked big, what disturbed me was its egg shaped “head.” (not my sonogram below, but same number of weeks)

This was not my Juno moment, where all of a sudden I bit my lower lip and recognized the “life” inside of me. If I could have I would have ripped the fucking thing our with my bear hands on the spot. It just freaked me out that it had a definitive shape. That maybe its size would make it harder to yank out. Or that my beautifully circular womb would get banged up in the process. I wanted to ask for a print out but I was flustered. The sonogram machine can figure out the date of conception based on the size and weight of the vaginal invader. I was a little less far along than I thought and was actually in the last days of pill eligbility.

I started to panic about the pain and nothing else. The tumor’s freakshow head had me convinced that I would be going through some if These Walls Could talk shit — bleeding, screaming, clotting. And figured out that of the 32 women in the waiting room only 6 were having the surgical abortion. I thought I had made a mistake. I pulled on my pants the tears started to roll.

here’s a picture of some cholas. i miss LA.

you will find me under the sodden pile of suck. hormone hurricane

you guys, today was the emotional breakdown to end all breakdowns. seriously, this was some 16 year-old-duster-huffing-robert smith-lips-stick smearing-try-meth-just do-to-get-back-at-your-parents motherfucking BREAK DOWN.

i didn’t even think about the abortion except for the fact that the anti-biotics make the stomach a bit crampy. its mostly been centered around the fact that I’m 23 and you know in this place of existential sterility: no advancement and no retreat (OoOooOo put that in your live journal and smoke it! this type of flowery words are brought on by the fact that I am balls deep in Tree of Smoke).

i recieved dozens of emails from women who had ok to not so ok feelings about having an abortion and most of them describe some type of colossal emotional wreckage on the third day after an abortion. And like clockwork, I kept crying at work.Picking fights with friends. Finding reasons to blame people for shit they probably deserve but eh. I can only imagine what this dramatic hormone shift does to people who actually feel conflicted about having an abortion.

No wonder this is the day that all those women found jesus. i only found my pillow, some elliot smith, and a bottle of wine. the good news: i can FUCKING FINALLY ENJOY BOOZE AGAIN!

I will detail the rest of my exciting abortion once the groundswell of emotion has died.
stay posted. its a doozey.

exceeding energy followed by crushing depression today

what the fuck is this? i keep getting all weepy and scrappy with people?

hormone crash?

Emotional changes. As the pregnancy hormones gradually leave your body, you may experience some mood changes such as mild depression, sadness or irritability over the next two weeks. Severe or long-lasting emotional effects are rare, especially for women who feel certain of their decision and have the support of significant others in their lives.

stabby.

Let's get some cocktails and De-brief, Shall we? Part one of many about Abortion Day, 2008

Let’s go chunk by chunk.

The night before, which I imagined would consist of a gin swilling me feverishly writing, answering emails, declaring my relief and conviction etc, etc.

Instead, when my anxiety hits its peak I tend to shut down and sleep. Afraid to answer the phone or click open an email because I’m afraid the flood gates will open and I will just get suffocated by a tempest of icky feelings.

So I spent the night chillin with moms. Napping and nauseated. Taking turns on going on 45 minute monologues about everything. She fell asleep early. And I took an ambien and a sip of wine and watched Mad Men and cried cause I was just nervous about pain and complications. Woke up holding mom’s hand. Tenderrrr isss the nigggghhhhttt lalalal (Blur, people. Awww I miss Blur!)

That morning, woke up with 15 mins before I had to be there, brushed my teeth, really not thinking about what was next cause I knew it wouldn’t be a handful of hours. First mistake.

Second mistake: not preparing for anti-abortion protesters.

Why did I not think of this? By all legal evidence the culture war about abortion is over. Roe v wade, Medicaid funded, second trimester having abortion is on the books. And that’s what’s so frieghtening about these people. According to them, the law is wrong. That civil right is wrong. Imagine people outside of a voting both telling you your very right to excerise your choice and cast a ballot IS WRONG. It’s jaw dropping.

And their presence was felt all the way into the recovery room. The mandatory counseling session, the literature in the clinic, the scowl on the mothers at their young pregnant daughters in the waiting room were all a direct result of the actions of the culture warriors.

I was seething that my body was subject to this debate. That some punk 17 year old who has never had the nerve to stick his trembling shaft into the slit of a woman, who has doesn’t have the right to legally drink, who has never had a period, who will never know what the fuck it feels like to have his nuts up for debate, has the fucking unflinching audacity to shame ME?

But I was too weak and flummoxed to say anything. I walked up to the cheerful bull-dyke in her bright tangerine CLINIC ESCOURT vest. She linked her arm in mine, a line of 19 people shoved a rosary, 2 pamphlets, a Jesus trading card into in my hands. My mom was a step or two behind and a crusty, wrinkly old man with a sagging gut and ball cap screamed at her. He insisted I would be “hurt” and “never be the same”. He warned my mother that if she loved me, she wouldn’t allow me to do this to my body. My moms eyes locked with mine, shell-shocked we rushed behind the bullet proof doors.

A carbuncular high school girl kept my pace and told me “her group” had the funds to support my baby. I wanted to tell her that I hoped it was twins so I could doubly break her blessed heart.

I walked into a half full, all black (as in Bunk from The Wire) waiting room clutching my copy of the Atlantic and my overpriced sunglasses.

The next 5 hours entailed more protester confrontation, a lesson in population control, and a slow burning class war.

More tomorrow. Here’s a pretty picture. This chick is just all “bitch, please. I cannot even DEAL with this shit right now!” Or in other words, i adore her “languid grace”

Jean-Auguste-Dominique-Ingres

Odalisque and Slave