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i'll tell you my story. maybe it will help.
ReplyDeletei have a genetic disease, acute intermittent porphyria. there are LOTS of effects [sun poisoning, allergic/intolerance of things, losing melanin, constant chronic pain, acute attacks that are hideous, etc] one of the BIGGEST things is that pregnancy? WILL KILL ME. as in, i have less than 1% chance of surving 5 months. [this assumes any FETUS survives that long - chances are even greater that the porphyria will kill it early]
i was 21. i had a boyfriend. i did NOT have a working NorPlant any longer, and was fighting with my doc to get a new one. in the meantime, was using spermacidal lubricant and condoms.
boyfriend KNEW pregnancy=death. he either didn't believe it or didn't care. without my knowledge, he emptied the spermicidal lubricant and replaced with a same-color plain lubricant - and began poking holes in the condoms.
at some point after he started doing thing [and i don't KNOW when he started] i got pregnant, but i didn't KNOW i was pregnant. the first "clue" [if one could call it that] was an EXTREME acute attack that came much faster and harder than normal. i went to the ER for HEME [which is the treatment for an acute attack of that magnitude] HEME is tetrogenic, so a pregnancy test was required.
i fainted when i was told.
i had a GREAT doctor. he told me the truth, holding nothing back. the attack was INCREDIBLY severe [triggered by the pregnancy. i'd been pregnant long enough for the hormones to trigger the attacj, essentiall]. he told me bluntly that he didn't think i'd survive 24 hours. as soon as he mentioned abortion, i was all but screaming "YES! NOW!!! i don't want to die!" he immediatally began prepping for one.
it was a Catholic hospital. i didn't know that [although i'd still have gone there, because i had NO CLUE i was pregnant. none]
an Admin came in and told him he had to wait until the "Ethics Committee" could meet. he asked when they would meet. she said 1pm Monday afternoon.
it was 10am Friday morning. the doctor was VERY angry - and told her that there was ZERO chance i would survive that long. the admin shrugged and said "the father's here, he doesn't want an abortion - he has rights, too".
the doctor told her to fuck off, get out, if i died, he'd MAKE SURE that SHE PERSONALLY, and my boyfriend, were held accountable for Negligent Homicide. he then turned his back on her, patted my hand, and called the abortion clinic.
which does NOT do abortions on Fridays, nor does it do "same day" abortions. but he talked to someone, and the doctor of that clinic, who was on his way to Kentucky for something or another, turned around and came back. the doctor then bundled me into an ambulance and took me to the clinic. he rode with me in the back, to monitor me, and continue giving me HEME, along with a blood product of some sort [platelets? it wasn't whole blood.] i don't quite know what the blood was about, but by this point i'd have drank motor oil if he said it would help. the sunlight HURT, the moving HURT, EVERYTHING HURT.
i remember there was a crowd of demonstrators. when they saw me pulled out on the gurney, they swarmed over [because the ambulance wasn't capable of getting into the parking lot of the clinic, they had to park across the street - so we weren't on the clinic's land, and so the protesters were allowed to approach us]
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ReplyDeletethey started screaming at the ambulance people, the doctor, and me. the demanded to know why i was there, and one woman was telling me over and over "you don't want to kill your baby! you don't! have it, and i'll adopt it!" the doctor said to her "she'll be dead long before any baby would be. get out of the way" this woman jumped on my gurney, incidentally pulling out the IV, and started slapping me across the face, screaming "WAKE UP!!! there's nothing wrong with you, this is just a scare tactic for him to make money!!!"
can i just, as a side note, call BULLSHIT on the idea that doctors make a lot of money from abortions? the CHEAPEST, EASIEST pregnancy delivery - JUST the delivery - cost AT LEAST 10 TIMES what an abortion does. and the cost rises so quickly, for every little effing thing, that even a v-birth with no complications can EASILY $60,000 or MORE. i know a family whose latest child's delivery cost them over $300,000! and that WASN'T a C-Section!!!
so the ambulance people pull her off me [and i have an oh-so-attractive set of bruises] then form up around me, keeping everyone else away. clinic staff run out, take me inside. the ER doc wanted to put me under right away, because i was in so much pain even the duladid wasn't touching it - but i was terrified i'd never wake up. it was done with local anesthetic, instead of putting me under.
kicker? i was "carrying" 2 dead fetuses. and they'd been dead for at least 2 days. so it wasn't an "abortion" at all, it was a D&C.
but it saved my life. i would have died. even if there had been "live" fetuses in my uterus, they were dead - i would have died VERY soon, taking us ALL down. what the FUCK is the point of that? how are two deaths better than one? can ANYONE explain that rationally? I DIDN'T WANT TO DIE. especially not for some Quixotic "quest for life".
i was pro-choice, and had been pretty much since i was old enough to know what pregnancy, and abortion, are. my disease isn't why i'm pro-choice - i was pro-choice before i was told [when i was 18! 3 years after i started having sex - great job on someone's part. /sarcasm] that pregnancy will kill me.
i've searched for steralization since that day. i didn't get it until last month - i was always told "you'll change your mind later" as if i could change my mind about pregnancy killing me. or i was told i was too young, they have a policy against doing before X year, or X babies, or "without your husband's permission" [seriously? MEN don't need their WIFE'S permission to get a vasectomy!]
so *I* am safe [probably]. but how many aren't?
I took a 24 hour break to digest your story and read it again. I'm still as horrified now as I was yesterday. I am deeply sorry you had to go through that and I feel so much of your pain as I just went through my own ordeal not that long ago. I too am a woman who experienced an almost fatal pregnancy and have been told that the next one will finish the job.
ReplyDeleteA lot of people here think these stories are so rare as to be almost impossible. Some people have said that women just use rape or illness as an excuse to abort. What people really believe is anyone's guess. I suppose we'll find out Tuesday.
What I do know for sure is that women are worth so much more than their ability to bear children. You and I are testaments to that fact, my friend.
i wasn't trying to horrify you [i should have put a trigger warning on that. although i'm not sure how i'd have labeled it...?] i was trying to give you some ammo, as it were.
ReplyDeleteit sucks, SO MUCH, to run into doctors with that attitude. my search for steralization attests that it's IDIOTIC.
i'm sorry that you've lived thru a similar thing. it was... i mean, i've NEVER wanted kids, i wasn't freaking out over losing a wanted child - my problem was how i went from "PATIENT" to "PREGNANT" and the REST of me no longer mattered to the hospital. i hope yours wasn't dehumanizing like that - that's the absolute WORST feeling i've ever felt - and, aside from the ER doc and the people at the clinic, EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON. i met that day? cared more about the "baby" than living, breathing, working, smart ME. the doctor had to order the paramedic who rode in back to NOT TALK TO ME because she was pro-life. [this was before the bill that allows medical people to not do their jobs if there's ANY potential connection to abortion, thankfully]
we ARE worth more. we ALL are - you're definately proving it with all this work you and Nathan are doing! i'm hoping against hope that people are SMART on tuesday, and that my $10 HELPS!
I think there is something wrong with anybody who could read that and not be horrified. I think horror is the proper response when being faced with the reality that some people, even medical "professionals", care more about an embryo than they do a woman.
ReplyDeleteI was fortunate in that our child died relatively quickly and that the staff at my hospital were all top-notch. They devoted all their efforts to my physical and emotional well-being. If I had gone through what you did, I don't know how I would have survived.
I can't help but wonder how many women are going to die before people get their heads out of their butts and stop doing this. I have a feeling that's what it's really going to take - people facing real consequences of their stupidity.
i understand what you mean - what *I* meant was that i didn't mean to make you think about "bad things" [i don't really have a better way to think of it] - i didn't know you'd gone thru something similar, didn't mean to bring up thoughts about it. essentially, i think what i should have said is "i should have put a trigger warning on that". sorry :(
ReplyDeletebut i do agree - it *IS* horrifying [and i spent most of that time drugged to the gills - if i hadn't had a doctor who was more concerned with ME than with an idea, i'd be dead. i wasn't even able to advocate for myself, i was so drugged...] i'm *VERY* happy that you had good people working with you, and that you're [relatively] unscathed.
as for how many women are going to die... too many is the only real answer, there. whenever people put baseless ideology over PEOPLE, that's the answer. it's wrong, and it's DEFINATELY not "What Jesus Would Do".
and i HOPE that it won't take an epidemic of women dying [or going to jail over a medical issue they had NO control over] for people to wake up - but i fear it will, too. that is truly the most horrific thing - for most of these people, even abortion itself isn't "real", those embryos and/or fetuses aren't "real" - just the ideology, the ability to feel "holier" than the rest of us. because for most of them, it *ISN'T* stupidity - it's arrogance. the hubris that allows them to believe absolutely that THEY know better than anyone, especially the person(s) involved in each personal, PRIVATE case!
i'm not Christian [i'm pagan] but i AM praying that tomorrow, reality wins out over arrogance and religious ideology that has NO place in our government.