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.