Single What? Female...

How getting pregnant has made me more Pro-Choice than ever...

Wow, it has been a long time since I have posted. Over a year! And hear I am, kicking things off with a bang, jumping right into the abortion debate.

I've been wanting to write about this for months, but my first trimester was spent in a near chronic state of nausea and exhaustion and I've been playing catch-up during the second trimester, though still vomiting on occasion.

So, as you can see, the man and I are having our child. How has this made me MORE Pro-Choice?

Because, we HAD the choice.

No one was forcing us to have the child, or NOT to have it for that matter. We found out the news, sat down and talked about it and decided to go forward.

Not everybody has this opportunity...

Let me tell you how all this went down for us.

When we got married, we talked about having kids, but, like a lot of couples, we knew we wanted to wait a couple of years first. Well, three years had gone by and we still were just trying to live our lives and not sure we were ready to have a child.

And then, last year, due to my getting a blood clot (and no, I have never smoked in my life, but I did a LOT of long distance travel in a short period of months and next thing you know...), I had to go off the pill. We talked about other types contraception (condoms) and what we wanted to do and then it came down to, "well, let's see what happens..." At the time, I was 38 soon to be 39 and I knew my pregnancy chances were slimmer, but then again, I have what my husband calls "child bearing hips", thus, if bone structure is an actual factor in fertility, perhaps I had a better shot than most women my age. I also am a product of a later-in-life pregnancy as my mother was 36 when I was born, and my mother was a later-in-life surprise to her mother. Still, we were guaranteed nothing and decided to just see how things played out. If we got pregnant, great! If not, fine!

I went off the pill in June of 2010. In May of 2011, I got a symptom I never had with my period. And I got it the day I was supposed to start my period. And I didn't start my period.

Now, as my period used to be highly irregular until I went on the pill, I was never very good about keeping track as to when it happened. It would just surprise me(!) After being on the pill, my period came around like clockwork; I knew it would come on the Tuesday or Wednesday of the last row of pills. The first few months after I went OFF the pill, it was clockwork...and then not as much. I still wasn't great at paying attention to exactly when it came until I finally decided in March to keep track. That was how I knew in May, something was up.

I still wanted to believe that perhaps my math was off, but something in my gut told me otherwise. And even my husband seemed to notice as he asked me two days after I was supposed to have begun my period "Honey, have you had your period yet?" GAH! Luckily, I had a physical coming up a couple of days later so we could settle this once and for all.

I can honestly say that I was actually praying that I was NOT pregnant the morning of that physical. I was completely freaking out. I was like "We can barely take care of our cats, let alone a child!!!" Were we ready for this? This is THE life changer!!! We have stuff to do, still! Stuff we have not done yet, as in procrastinated on!!! How can we fit a child into this?!?! My husband knew I was freaking out, knew I may have wanted to make a decision that, liberal as he is, he may not have liked, but he was ready to support me.

I went to the doctor, asked for the pregnancy test, peed on the stick and got the result. Yes, I was pregnant.

I remember feeling something powerful at that moment. I wish I could describe it as joyous or scary, but I can't. It was just...overwhelming. I knew I still wanted to talk to my husband about this. That I still wanted to take some time and think on it and how we wanted to move forward. I told this to the Nurse Practitioner and she gave me the number of the hospital's family planning office and also told me that she would give me the number of a good OB-GYN if I decided to keep it.

I called the family planning office later that morning to make an appointment to talk about my options...the appointment was for a week and a half later. In the meantime, I had also called my husband with the news and said we needed to sit down and talk about this.

It was then that I realized how good I had it.

I am in a healthy and happy relationship. I am 39 rather than 13. I have been having a life. We may not make a lot of money, but we can make this work. We have insurance. I have a husband who was ready to support me either way. I live in a state and go to a hospital where, if I felt I needed to terminate this pregnancy, I could do it safely and discreetly and get proper counseling before and after.

There are so many women and girls who are NOT in my situation. Women and girls who are dealing with every situation from the one-night stand where the condom broke to the teenage girl who's been told "If you loved me..." to the girls and women dealing with rape and incest. They have families who think sex education is sinful or unnecessary as you should just be able to abstain. They live in states where there's only one clinic left in the entire state...and it's six hours away. They don't have insurance, can't afford it or can't get a job with benefits. They don't have access to contraception. The list goes on...

I am lucky. I am in a good place. We still freak out on occasion, but we are excited about the undoubtedly hyper-active mutant we are going to bring into the world. Nobody is ever really ready for this, but we are as ready as we can be. And we knew we could make the choice.

KEEP PAYING ATTENTION!

Peace --Alex

posted by funkweee @ 8:42 AM