I was feeling changes in my body for a few weeks. My breasts were tender and sore to touch, and I was getting the feeling that my period was about to arrive for days at a time, and it never did. I had a bad inkling, and I sort of knew, but I pushed it away thinking it couldn’t be possible. I had been slack countless times in my teenage years and had been lucky every time. Since those years of reckless negligence of responsibility in regards to contraception, I had undergone chemotherapy and the doctors gave me little chance of being fertile. I was taking the pill but had gotten sloppy with it. Little chance meaning there was still a chance. I guess I should be happy that I beat the odds stacked against me. I hadn’t yet learnt the hard way, so that lesson was doomed to come.
Unfortunately I waited to go get tested till after an emotionally charged argument with my boyfriend. It was ugly and our relationship had been in ruins for 2 days. This was the worst news I could possibly hear as it left me feeling completely alone. I was traveling through New Zealand with him, I had no family or friends close by, only him, and he wasn’t really there.
I went and sat with him while I waited for a blood test. He asked me the results and I told him it was positive. He made a sarcastic remark and I burst into tears, the same as I had reacted when the nurse gave me the news. He put his arm around me as he kept reading his magazine; it felt horrible. I would like to think that his reaction would have been different if the circumstances were more normal, but I can only really imagine this experience as being terribly lonely and no one can really understand and know what you need unless they have been in your shoes.
I was instantly certain that abortion was the only answer due to the state of our relationship and nurse made arrangements for all the preparation appointments I would need. If the circumstances were different I'm not sure if I would have been so certain. I'm not sure if we would have had to have that conversation about whether were ready for this, or if it was an option. I couldn't wait for things to get better with him, if they were ever going to, to have that discussion. I’m sort of glad that we didn’t have to have that awkward conversation, because the decision was one that had to be made quickly. I am a Libran, decisions are usually a painful process but it was obvious there and then what had to be done and I could decide it on my own with clarity.
We went to a party that afternoon. The whole way there I was upset at my fortune and angry at the company I was in. He showed no sympathy. When we got to the party I felt a little better. I drank some beer; chatted a little. He even put his hand on my leg which I thought meant things had miraculously fixed themselves. It amazing what a simple touch can do. That same simple touch can feel like just that on any other day, but then it felt full of hope and care, and I felt that my worries had disappeared for that brief moment.
He went inside and used his computer. He came back and told me I had broken it the other day when I had it in my bag and that I would have to pay for it. My problems were not his concern since now he had a major problem of his own. I didn’t know what happened to it and I tried what I could to fix it We went two steps backward that moment and my new found positivity was shattered. It amazing how dramatically things can change in an instant and I assume all this was heightened by my fragile emotional state. A roller coaster doesn’t compare to my ups and downs. I felt more alone than I had before, and in the presence of his friends. Its funny how having more people around can accentuate your loneliness. I took some sleeping pills and went to sleep for 12 hours. I some how thought I would wake up and everything would have fixed itself.
Ofcourse that didn’t happen. He took me to an ultrasound appointment that morning, without a word. I went in, found out I was 9 weeks pregnant and would have to get the abortion before 12 weeks. We went back to his friends place, still without a word. Later that day, after a pleading email to him, we got the chance to talk. He outlined what I already knew, that he felt no responsibility and I would have to deal with the situation that I had created alone.
I worked that night until 2 am in a bar with at a summer festival. My lower back ached and all I could think about was going back to the van, where we were sleeping, and putting my arms around him. It got me though the night believing that if I got in the van, forgetting all the negatives of the past few days and just held him it would resolve everything. I was completely wrong, again. I got in and put my arm around him just to have him tell me not to. He said he was through caring for me, that it was over. Another few steps backward and back to the sleeping pills to dream it all away.
There were parts of me during the next sleep filled days that thought good riddance. That I was better off without a heartless man who made me feel so horrible. But there was another part of me that loved this man and wondered how he could act this way, if what I had done to him could warrant this kind of behaviour. I didn’t reach a conclusion. I still haven’t. But our dynamics are better. We are stuck with each other as travel partners at the moment and we are being civil to one another. I don’t know if it means our relationship will continue, but as the abortion date draws near, I am feeling less alone and less futile. I still crave for those little signs of affection that mean so much to me now, but they are few and far between.
Tomorrow is my next
appointment with the clinic and hopefully the test results from the blood test will be clear so I can give the go ahead signal. Maybe I can get the assessment out of the way and then make a date for the actual procedure. I'm hoping for Monday next week. It scares the hell out of me that I will be awake while it happens. It disturbs me that the foetus they suck out in tiny pieces will go into a bucket beside my bed that I will see if I turn my head a little to the left. Knowing me, I will impulsively look. What else do you do if someone say don’t look? If someone is about to get killed in a horror flick, I usually cover my eyes with my hands, but open my fingers so I can see. Those actions are all involuntary, apart of my curious nature that I can’t help. Hopefully I will be too sedated to think about it. Even the thought of seeing the equipment scares me the shit out of me. I have been inundating myself with blogs of other women’s experiences, trying to get both the horror stories and the positive ones, so I can go in there over informed and hopefully come out of it a little relieved that it was be no where near as bad as I was anticipating. Im not sure if that's a healthy process, but I have faith it will work for me.
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