I am way more fertile than a woman needs to be in this day and age. Wary of the effect of hormonal birth control, skeptical of my desire for permanent infertility, I've tried to deal with it -- where "deal with it" means kill it dead -- using condoms and a non-hormonal IUD, adding the terrifying copper poky bits only after a couple of inexplicable condom failures in the space of a year.
Lavender was the first such failure, so named because my only symptom of pregnancy was a newfound enthusiasm for that herb, even to the exclusion of all other foods. Despite the most intense craving I'd had with any pregnancy, a lack of menstruation, and a sudden tenderness in previously stoic places, I did not know I was pregnant with her until my doctor diagnosed miscarriage just before the end of the first trimester.
The next pregnancy came some months after Lavender had gone. After that previous experience, I was looking for symptoms. It took me a long time, after that early positive test, to come round to really wanting that little one, because she came at such a wrong time and to so entirely the wrong father. I was so scared of what she meant that I tossed out the positive test and did not tell a soul for another month. But in the end, I wanted her more than I'd ever wanted anyone. As my lover and my lover's lovers spun angry revolutions about my teeny fetus-child, frothing and deriding and demanding promises of abandonment or leveraging what social power they could muck up to encourage abortion, I burrowed my own self deeper into my womb and the promise of chubby fingers gripping mine. I emotionally abandoned everyone who was not a child of mine, psychologically surviving via fantasies of months homebound with my own little needing-me machine. When I said to the father that he needn't father, and he said thank you I think I will run far away and never see this child, I said with honesty if it's a choice I don't want you, this baby is worth so much more to me than you. I have rarely meant something more truly or felt it in more corners of my heart. Then, nearly five months on, the miscarriage came, and the world stopped. The day was dreary and the children were elsewhere and I curled up on my big chair while that same not-to-be-a-father lover tended to me with herbs and guilt. When he thought I was not looking I saw him shake with fear and grief and anger at himself because the loss told him he wanted that baby after all and because he would never get a chance to take the abandonment back and do the right thing. The next day, my sons came home from my ex's, and the little one, as he does, sensed something and came to tell me I was the best mama ever. I bawled, of course, but I got up out of bed and went to find the friends and lovers and see if they could make it up to me.
The IUD went in shortly afterwards. I passed out when they inserted it, and ovulation is now so painful it floors me, but that is better than losing any more babies.
But now I am pregnant again, with an impossible baby. I am tired, physically from growing a kid and emotionally from having no control over my fertility.
I am hating this period of disagreement between me and my partner during the early months of pregnancy. I am parted from the pro-choice movement by my sense of another person in there, while his once-removed-from-actual-femaleness feminism insists that it is a meaningless clump of cells. When we add up all the stats about my body's previous miscarriages, the presence of the IUD, and the necessary process of removing the IUD, there's almost zero chance I'll have a child to compensate me for this morning sickness. Here is possibly our only child together, these months before the impossible baby dies in my womb, and he will spend the whole time being too uptight about holding the pro-choice line to love our baby with me. I named this little one, swimming against the stream, Salmon, and when Salmon's father heard he pursed his lips and furrowed his brow, unbelieving at me as hard as he could, even though I heard him humming a this-baby-is-wanted song when he thought my anti-abortion politics weren't paying attention.
And because of that schizophrenic gravity of the universe that flings like experiences together -- a friend seeking comfort in me after aborting an accidental baby she totally wanted, an album that I played during a previous miscarriage resurfacing in a different project-- I can not escape into day-to-day life. Reminders are everywhere and they sink me into a petulant grumpiness that I despise in myself.
I want to live in a world where no one who wants their baby may be encouraged to be rid of it, where advising abortion is taboo because the alternative kindness of aiding in the bringing forth of chubby fingers is so obviously a great thing to do. I want to live in a culture that supports moms thoroughly so they can take care of their babies and be people too, not a culture that supports moms in getting rid of their babies because it is sympathetic to their need to remain people in their own right. I want to live in a world where women who choose abortions are comforted because everyone knows she has suffered an actual loss, not one in which we must choose between being shamed for murder or shamed for connecting with the soul of the embryo in us.
I want to live in a culture where we err on the side of life. When we can't know if a being is really human, shouldn't we value one mistake over the other? In the ethics of artificial intelligence, in the question of the death penalty, and when it comes to our little unborn ones, we have two possibilities from which to choose. If we grant the precious privileges of being considered a living human being to someone who does not care, we have done no harm. If we take the previous privileges of being considered a living human away from someone who does care, we have done enormous harm. It seems so clear to me that when we can't know if a robot or a fetus or a murderer is really worth granting human rights, we must err on the side of giving them. Err on the side of life. It does so much more harm to be unkind to souls than to be kind to the soulless.
This morning my littlest one climbed into bed with me. I stared into his hazel eyes, taking in the long lashes he hasn't grown into yet, the red lips and pink cheeks, the sweetness and smoothness of his newness, and all the love his little believing-machine heart could offer me. I thought about telling him about his little Salmon sibling dying inside me as we snuggled. He'd agree with me that this was a baby; he'd grieve with me as I lost him. But it's not good for children to be confidantes, so I told him instead about our plans for the week and let his excitement distract me. And again, he is telling me I am the best mama ever.
I don't believe him. I would feel like a better mama if I was a woman who knew how to fight for her right to be a mom and a person too. Don't make me choose. Yes, I am glad my doctor and I are free to act when pregnancy would make me ill, glad there are no more dangerous back-room abortions for those who don't feel souls stirring inside them; we should each be free to follow our conscience, I believe. But I don't feel glad that you, my pro-choice state, let me choose to not be a mom so I can be a person. I want you to quit demanding that I leave my kids with sitters when I go out in the world; make the world more kid-friendly and damn the kid-free. I want you to be stop allowing employers to ask if I have kids, stop allowing anyone to demand overtime on a daily basis, stop considering kids on the premises a liability risk. Letting me choose not to mama is a stupid, stupid consolation for you making mama-ing while being a person so darn hard and I am not fooled.
* * *
Post-script: I wrote this in May and have backdated it. I couldn't bring myself to post it when the emotions were so raw. Salmon is gone now and the post looks okay in the light of morning so here it is.
Lavender was the first such failure, so named because my only symptom of pregnancy was a newfound enthusiasm for that herb, even to the exclusion of all other foods. Despite the most intense craving I'd had with any pregnancy, a lack of menstruation, and a sudden tenderness in previously stoic places, I did not know I was pregnant with her until my doctor diagnosed miscarriage just before the end of the first trimester.
The next pregnancy came some months after Lavender had gone. After that previous experience, I was looking for symptoms. It took me a long time, after that early positive test, to come round to really wanting that little one, because she came at such a wrong time and to so entirely the wrong father. I was so scared of what she meant that I tossed out the positive test and did not tell a soul for another month. But in the end, I wanted her more than I'd ever wanted anyone. As my lover and my lover's lovers spun angry revolutions about my teeny fetus-child, frothing and deriding and demanding promises of abandonment or leveraging what social power they could muck up to encourage abortion, I burrowed my own self deeper into my womb and the promise of chubby fingers gripping mine. I emotionally abandoned everyone who was not a child of mine, psychologically surviving via fantasies of months homebound with my own little needing-me machine. When I said to the father that he needn't father, and he said thank you I think I will run far away and never see this child, I said with honesty if it's a choice I don't want you, this baby is worth so much more to me than you. I have rarely meant something more truly or felt it in more corners of my heart. Then, nearly five months on, the miscarriage came, and the world stopped. The day was dreary and the children were elsewhere and I curled up on my big chair while that same not-to-be-a-father lover tended to me with herbs and guilt. When he thought I was not looking I saw him shake with fear and grief and anger at himself because the loss told him he wanted that baby after all and because he would never get a chance to take the abandonment back and do the right thing. The next day, my sons came home from my ex's, and the little one, as he does, sensed something and came to tell me I was the best mama ever. I bawled, of course, but I got up out of bed and went to find the friends and lovers and see if they could make it up to me.
The IUD went in shortly afterwards. I passed out when they inserted it, and ovulation is now so painful it floors me, but that is better than losing any more babies.
But now I am pregnant again, with an impossible baby. I am tired, physically from growing a kid and emotionally from having no control over my fertility.
I am hating this period of disagreement between me and my partner during the early months of pregnancy. I am parted from the pro-choice movement by my sense of another person in there, while his once-removed-from-actual-femaleness feminism insists that it is a meaningless clump of cells. When we add up all the stats about my body's previous miscarriages, the presence of the IUD, and the necessary process of removing the IUD, there's almost zero chance I'll have a child to compensate me for this morning sickness. Here is possibly our only child together, these months before the impossible baby dies in my womb, and he will spend the whole time being too uptight about holding the pro-choice line to love our baby with me. I named this little one, swimming against the stream, Salmon, and when Salmon's father heard he pursed his lips and furrowed his brow, unbelieving at me as hard as he could, even though I heard him humming a this-baby-is-wanted song when he thought my anti-abortion politics weren't paying attention.
And because of that schizophrenic gravity of the universe that flings like experiences together -- a friend seeking comfort in me after aborting an accidental baby she totally wanted, an album that I played during a previous miscarriage resurfacing in a different project-- I can not escape into day-to-day life. Reminders are everywhere and they sink me into a petulant grumpiness that I despise in myself.
I want to live in a world where no one who wants their baby may be encouraged to be rid of it, where advising abortion is taboo because the alternative kindness of aiding in the bringing forth of chubby fingers is so obviously a great thing to do. I want to live in a culture that supports moms thoroughly so they can take care of their babies and be people too, not a culture that supports moms in getting rid of their babies because it is sympathetic to their need to remain people in their own right. I want to live in a world where women who choose abortions are comforted because everyone knows she has suffered an actual loss, not one in which we must choose between being shamed for murder or shamed for connecting with the soul of the embryo in us.
I want to live in a culture where we err on the side of life. When we can't know if a being is really human, shouldn't we value one mistake over the other? In the ethics of artificial intelligence, in the question of the death penalty, and when it comes to our little unborn ones, we have two possibilities from which to choose. If we grant the precious privileges of being considered a living human being to someone who does not care, we have done no harm. If we take the previous privileges of being considered a living human away from someone who does care, we have done enormous harm. It seems so clear to me that when we can't know if a robot or a fetus or a murderer is really worth granting human rights, we must err on the side of giving them. Err on the side of life. It does so much more harm to be unkind to souls than to be kind to the soulless.
This morning my littlest one climbed into bed with me. I stared into his hazel eyes, taking in the long lashes he hasn't grown into yet, the red lips and pink cheeks, the sweetness and smoothness of his newness, and all the love his little believing-machine heart could offer me. I thought about telling him about his little Salmon sibling dying inside me as we snuggled. He'd agree with me that this was a baby; he'd grieve with me as I lost him. But it's not good for children to be confidantes, so I told him instead about our plans for the week and let his excitement distract me. And again, he is telling me I am the best mama ever.
I don't believe him. I would feel like a better mama if I was a woman who knew how to fight for her right to be a mom and a person too. Don't make me choose. Yes, I am glad my doctor and I are free to act when pregnancy would make me ill, glad there are no more dangerous back-room abortions for those who don't feel souls stirring inside them; we should each be free to follow our conscience, I believe. But I don't feel glad that you, my pro-choice state, let me choose to not be a mom so I can be a person. I want you to quit demanding that I leave my kids with sitters when I go out in the world; make the world more kid-friendly and damn the kid-free. I want you to be stop allowing employers to ask if I have kids, stop allowing anyone to demand overtime on a daily basis, stop considering kids on the premises a liability risk. Letting me choose not to mama is a stupid, stupid consolation for you making mama-ing while being a person so darn hard and I am not fooled.
* * *
Post-script: I wrote this in May and have backdated it. I couldn't bring myself to post it when the emotions were so raw. Salmon is gone now and the post looks okay in the light of morning so here it is.