Chapter 6 - No Place to Run

I finally went back to see Dr. Pelletier to tell her my final decision and I was booked into the hospital for November 28th and the procedure was to happen on the 29th. More waiting and thinking.

I have always been someone to have plans (both Plan A and Plan B), but everything was out of my control. I couldn’t think beyond the 29th…I just had to keep thinking in the moment…one foot in front of the other. I wanted it to be over and yet I didn’t want it over. I had no idea what was going to happen to me in the hospital, what it was going to feel like, or how I would feel after. I was so scared and so lost and so alone.

I was to have the abortion at a local hospital and because I was a resident of another province I had to pay. Well I wasn’t rich at the time and didn’t have the money, so I had to ask my sister for a loan. Not something for which you want to ever borrow money.

A few months ago I had the occasion to go back to that hospital. My Mom was in town and needed to have minor eye surgery there - nothing like walking down that Memory Lane. It has changed quite a bit but really not at all for me. The halls are the same, the smells are the same…the memories are the same. It’s funny how smells last the longest in the annals of our brains. I have spent too many hours in hospitals in the last years, and it is always the background noises and smells that haul me back in time.

I took a cab to the hospital and signed myself in – no turning back now. They directed me to my ward and lo and behold…they put the women who are having abortions in the maternity ward: so thoughtful and kind of them. There are two women in the early stages of labour in my room – interesting paradox I thought. No wonder my heart breaks…no wonder I can’t sort this all out. I was treated like someone with the plague…lower than snake sperm! But what choice did I have…I felt like a caged animal with no place to run, and god how I wanted to run. But, to where, for what and with whom? Nowhere, nothing and no one!!! Yes, that summed up my life.

They say a woman has the right to choose and I firmly believe that with all my heart. But anyone who thinks that this is a choice that a woman makes lightly is living in a fantasy land. It's not even really a choice, but the non-existence of any alternate road. This is the last thing a woman would choose, trust me, I know what I am talking about.

But it was my choice. I signed the papers, I showed up, I didn't run. It was me, and not Rett, because he had already made his choice...to run and to hide.

Then there was the kindly nurse who felt it was her duty to explain to me what a therapeutic D & C abortion actually was…”they are going to insert rods into your cervix until it is open enough, then they are going to scrape the baby out, but they may have to dismember it first…” she said this as if she were reading the headlines from the morning paper. All I could do was cover my eyes and sob – aahhh, her work was done here. Yeah, I would have appreciated Rett's presence at any point on this journey but no more than that moment. It’s a wonder I survived all of this in as good a shape as I have. But alas as Rett would say …a bit wounded.

It is too difficult for me to write the details of the actual procedure. If you would like to know, you can always access a website and read about it yourselves. But be warned, it is not easy to find a website that isn't somehow linked to Pro-life organizations. While I was on this journey I tried to find a support group for women who have gone through the same experience as I, and I couldn't find one. Each link deceptively led me into pro-life territory and it would not be a good place for me to go.

They finally wheeled me into recovery after it was done, and I really think I was in shock. I had prayed that they would put me to sleep and I would never re-awaken, but my prayers weren’t answered then either. They had given me a valium to keep me calm, but apparently I have a high tolerance or resistance to these medications, so they may as well have put a rice crispy in my ear for all it did – and deep breathing does not work for this type of pain. I remember crying uncontrollably in the recovery room and no one even asked if I was okay. No one cared. I was just another one of those irresponsible women who had taken the ‘easy’ way out.

There was no kindness and there was no respect.

It was the most painful and horrific thing I have ever been through or have ever seen and trust me, I have seen a lot. I said not one word, nor did I ask for any help…I don’t think I actually spoke a word after I signed the papers when I arrived, until I got home, except for stopping at the nurse's station to see if I had received any calls. Even then, I still held out hope that Rett would somehow care to find out if I were alive or dead. Apparently he did not.

Once back in your ward they allow you to dress and go home. They gave me two prescriptions to have filled and they told me if I didn’t take them I would likely bleed to death – hummm I thought, but no…I am a coward.

I went to bed once I got home because I was mentally and physically exhausted, and I slept or I passed out. When I awakened in the morning, I couldn't move - I don't mean I was a little sore and it hurt a bit - I mean I could not move. I was of course alone, and I thought, this is it...I am going to die right here, and frankly, that didn't bother me. After about an hour I was able to maneuver myself (without moving my back) out of bed. I crawled on my hands and knees to the phone and called the hospital to see what was wrong with me. It was only then that they informed me that this can sometimes be an after-affect of an abortion. Like I said - you are the lowest of the low on a patient list.

I called Rett the day after I got home, to let him know that it was done and I was alive, and that’s when he lied to me again, and told me that he knew, because he had called the hospital to check. I knew that was a lie, because as I said earlier – I had asked. But I said nothing this time, because, by now I thought that was all that I deserved - lies.

I know “what is done is done”. I am painfully aware that there is no going back. I also know I need to let it go, and I have to a certain degree or I wouldn’t be here typing this right now, I would have ended my life years ago.

But I am a survivor. And it does get easier as time goes on, but it doesn’t go away ever. I know no one will likely ever fully understand this as I do. Maybe it would be easier if I had children, but I will never know. All I know is how I feel, and how I have had to hide it for my entire adult life - my little dark dirty secret – and again, that has been my choice.

You have no idea how many babies I have held in my life, and how many times I have been asked why I don’t have children of my own, or how many times I have been told what a great mother I would be. Each time it would hurt, and each time I would have to respond with a smile on my face - more lies and deceit.