Over the next day I learned a lot of things I'd never known before. How when you cry very hard while lying on your side you can actually feel the tear make its way from one eye across the bridge of your nose into the other eye, pushing a new tear out of that one. How much hope you can pack into two inches. How 76 millimeters — it's tiny, such a small measurement — can blow your heart open.
When I told friends what had happened, they cried with me. One sent me a link to a website where women wrote of similar bad ultrasounds and horrible options. While some of these women chose to carry to term, gestating and delivering babies born to die, or born already dead, most didn't. The pain they faced was nearly matched by the logistical obstacles in their way. Most of them only learned of their babies' serious problems at a second-trimester ultrasound, far too late to terminate in most places — not by law, but because the doctors and facilities simply do not exist. This is why there's a section of the website devoted to "Kansas Stories."
Because I grew up in Kansas, yet had never heard of Dr. Tiller, I clicked out of curiosity (even wondering, for a second, if chromosomal abnormalities could be more common in Kansas). Story after story described anguished journeys to Wichita, rushing through throngs of protestors only to emerge in a place of kindness and succor.
Reading their stories, I realized I was almost lucky; I live in a state where insurers cover the nuchal fold test, I was old enough that it was recommended. If my situation had been different, I might have found out about this baby's condition when they did, at the 20-week ultrasound — after feeling the baby move, after weeks in maternity clothes, in the midst of shopping for cribs and bibs.
I've had a miscarriage before, and this was different.
I didn't have to go to Kansas. A week later, after cornfirming the diagnosis, I terminated this pregnancy at the hospital where my son was born. For the actual procedure, I was completely sedated. It was the first good sleep I'd had since that hushed ultrasound room.
Friends, who mean well, sometimes refer to what happened as a miscarriage. I know they're trying to spare me the label "abortion." I know they're trying to be kind; they're trying to absolve me of the implications of choice. But as much as I appreciate and depend on their kindness, I disagree with them. First, because I've had a miscarriage before, and this was different. When you miscarry your body is taking you on a ride your heart and mind rebel against; when you terminate a wanted pregnancy, it's your mind against both heart and body. You do what you have to do — what the doctors caring for you tell you is right and what you know is best for you and for the baby — but your uterus keeps growing, the placenta keeps pumping your blood and nutrients into that tiny body, and there's no way your heart can ever be ready to say goodbye.
And second, because this was a choice. When you have children, literally from the moment you realize you're pregnant till the day they go off to college, your days are filled with choices — about birth plans, breastfeeding, diaper types, potty training, preschool curricula, sports and activities, clothing and Internet use, dating and driving, and on and on. But when your pregnancy takes the kind of turn mine did, all your mothering boils down to one choice — and I chose to spare my child the suffering of a brief, painful life. Of all the million and one things I wished I could be doing for this child, the only act of love circumstances allowed me to perform was this one. The women who went to Dr. Tiller made the same choice, under even more excruciating circumstances. Now that he's gone, who will help women like them?
