Abortion Was My Act Of Self-Love
CW: Substance Use, Suicidal Thoughts
I’m one of the few people who have had an abortion at 25 weeks. “how did that happen?” you ask. “How did you not know?” you wonder. Well, let me tell you.
It started with lesbian sex. Well, not the conception, but the me finding out part. My hookup and I were having a grand time until she stopped and said, “oh, I think you started your period.” She wasn’t cornered or grossed out; it was just a statement. But it sent me into a damn near panic because I hadn’t had a period in 7 years, so what the fuck?
I ended up going home and taking a pregnancy test to rule out the obvious so I could google my obviously gruesome diagnosis in peace. But damn, that thing was positive. I think I would have preferred fibroids or PCOS.
After the panic attack, I was able to connect with the Kensington clinic. They asked how many weeks I was, and I said 6 weeks, as that was my last encounter with a penis. I was religious about taking my birth control pills, but that encounter was an old friend, and we decided to forgo the condom.
Because I didn’t menstruate from my birth control pills (which you can take continuously; the period week is a church conspiracy, btw), I did have to do an ultrasound. The nurse called me into a room to discuss the ultrasound and asked me if adoption was something I would consider.
“Oh, fuck” I thought, is this one of those anti-choice clinics? She then explained that my ultrasound showed 24 weeks gestation and that this clinic MIGHT be able to refer me out.
I remember hysterically laughing/crying, trying to tell the nicest, most concerned woman that it was absolutely not an option because I had spent the last year doing sex work, daily drinking, and various substance use (it was a point of pride for me that I never had to buy my own drugs.) I was fully convinced my body was an inhospitable wasteland.
She said she was going to try to refer me, and sent me home.
Let me tell you, going home was the worst thing I’ve ever experienced.
A few days later, I got a call from Peter Loughheed. They said their doctor wouldn’t take my case. In that moment, I went through all the ways I could kill myself (and to be honest, I had given it A LOT of thought already). The receptionist then said they were going to fly a doctor in from Vancouver. I had an appointment in a few days.
I went back to Calgary a second time. Much more emotional now.
The worst part of the procedure was the cervical dilation. Basically, a bunch of “sticks” that expand through water and are inserted into the cervix to expand over a period of time. It’s as pleasant as you would expect. After now having two IUDs, I would say that pain was the worst, and for my 19-year-old brain and body, it was almost unbearable. Bless the nurse with a hand of steel who helped me breathe through that.
The abortion itself was nothing special. I’m glad I was knocked out for it. I never met the doctor who flew from Vancouver to literally save my life. Sometimes I wonder what the thing they pulled out of me looked like, what with all the substance use and the fact that I was 110 lbs and had no belly. I definitely spent a lot of time googling phantom births as some weird way to justify that my case wasn’t that unprecedented.
One thing that was hella lacking in the aftercare was anyone telling me about the postpartum and the lactation. I was so, so emotional with no support system. And being a non-binary person (though I didn’t have the language to describe that yet), my breasts swelling up 3 cups and leaking was incredibly distressing. I remember sobbing in the shower trying to express the fluid to not get an infection.
And through all it, I carried immense guilt about getting pregnant in the first place. I considered safer sex and sexual freedom to be my special interest, and straight up part of my job. I was on top of my birth control and testing and vetting clients. How did I fuck up so hard? I later found out that the month I conceived was the month my brand of pills were recalled for not having the right amount of hormones. It wasn’t my fault. I did actually do everything right. But because I was one of those rare cases that didn’t have any symptoms, I almost had my life completely ruined.
That abortion was one of the hardest, but also kindest thing I have done for myself.
I regret absolutely nothing and am proud of my story. Sometimes I don’t talk about the details because I’ve had people comment how traumatic my story sounds, and while there are traumatic elements, I don’t feel my abortion itself was inherently traumatic. So thank you for allowing this space for me to fully pour my heart out into words. I hope my story can help someone feel better or feel seen with their own, even though my story is definitely not a typical case.
- KC
