Abortion (part one)

Abortion (part one)

The following is not a true story, although it could be. It is not the story of every abortion, but what happens could happen. Please be warned, it will be hard to read. If you have had an abortion previously, please consider carefully before reading this. My prayer is that this story will at least give occasion for careful thought to be given about the issue of abortion.

Tears From Inside

Allie tried to talk me out of the abortion as she drove me to the clinic. It was a Friday and I had found a place that performed abortions by looking in the phone book. I had decided to do it on a Friday so I wouldn't miss school if I wasn't feeling good afterward.

"Kate, I don't think you should do this."

"I don't have a choice."

"Please just think about it a little more. You could always give the baby up for adoption."

"You saw how Adam reacted when I told him, what do you think would happen if I told my parents? It would be a thousand times worse. I can't tell them. I can't tell anyone. Nobody can know about this, Allie, nobody. Please, promise me you won't tell."

Allie wouldn't look at me. Her eyes were fixed on the road ahead, but I could see several tears running down her cheeks.

"Al! You have to promise!" If she started crying, I knew that I wouldn't be able to hold my own tears inside any longer.

"Okay Katie," she managed to mumble.

I looked out my window in silence until we reached the clinic. When Allie shut off the car, neither of us moved to get out.

"Are you really sure?" Allie finally asked.

I wasn't. "I don't have a choice."

We sat in silence for another five minutes. I almost told Allie to take me back home, but the thought of seeing my parents again brought back all the fear and shame. There was no way that I could raise a baby by myself. I had to do it. I had to get the abortion.

I got out of the car.

The clinic was in the middle of a residential part of town. The parking lot needed to be repaved because there was grass growing between the many cracks that spider-webbed the blacktop. The clinic had a beige stucco exterior and gray doors badly in need of paint. I don't know what kind of windows don't let you see inside, but the few windows visible from the parking lot didn't allow any interior viewing. There was a slight breeze buffeting a swinging sign over the door. The sign read "Sunnyside Center for Family Planning" and there was a little yellow sun painted next to the lettering. It was the right place.

The early-morning sun beat down on my back as I walked from Allie's car across the grassy blacktop to the paint-chipped doors of the clinic and every blade of grass stretched out toward me, green barbs rooted in the ground, their tips swaying in warning. My feet felt leaden as they scraped along the pavement.

It was the longest walk of my life.

Was I doing the right thing? Was there another way? Maybe my parents really would understand. I could try talking to them. What should I do? Should I turn back?

No, I had to go through with it, I had made up my mind and I was already at the clinic and so it was too late.

Was it really too late?

I tried to silence my thoughts…I couldn't.

They bombarded me.

It took all of my strength to open the doors. They creaked. Allie followed me inside.

The waiting room seemed like other waiting rooms I had seen before and better kept than the exterior of the building. There was a receptionist typing away behind the counter. I could hear the click of the keyboard. There was only one door leading to the back of the building. A single coffee table was in the middle of the room, with magazines stacked on top of it. There were several chairs scattered around, but they were mostly empty.

One girl was sitting in the corner by herself. Her stomach showed that she was several months into her pregnancy. Her head hung down.

Another girl was sitting next to a friend. She was staring at the wall.

No one looked up when we came in.

No one was talking.

I walked up to the counter. The receptionist glanced at me, but didn't stop typing. I felt suddenly weak.

"I-I made an appointment."

The receptionist stopped typing.

"Name?"

"Kaitlyn Rose Materly." My voice was barely a whisper.

"I didn't hear you, dear, you're going to have to speak up."

I repeated my name.

The receptionist checked it on her computer.

"Ok, I have your appointment right here. I'm going to need you to fill out these forms. The first is to inform you of the possible risks related to an abortion, including physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual trauma. This one says that you are giving your consent for the procedure and that you won't hold Sunnyside liable for any post-abortive complications that are not physically related to the abortion. And this one is your medical history. And of course, I will also need your payment before any part of the procedure begins."

I took the clipboard and the pen.

"How long will it all take?"

"I really don't know, dear. You will get a chance to talk to a counselor before the procedure begins and they will be able to answer any questions you might have. How will you be paying?"

"I, uh…I went to the bank," I stammered. "I took some money from my college fund."

I reached for my purse and found the money.

"The total will be four hundred sixteen dollars and sixty-six cents."

I handed her the money.

She left for a moment and then returned. "Here's your change," she smiled. "When you've finished filling out the forms, bring them back up to me and we can get you going and on your way."

The clipboard seemed heavy as I carried it back to my seat. I sat down and began paging through the forms. I tried reading about the risks associated with abortion, but I had trouble focusing on the unfamiliar words. I moved on to the consent and medical forms, filling them out as best I could.

When I had finally finished, I brought the forms back up to the receptionist. She told me that my name would be called when they were ready.

I looked at Allie as I sat down next to her. She grabbed my hand and squeezed it. The room was silent like a tomb. Except for the occasional click-clack of the keyboard keys as the receptionist typed, not a single sound could be heard.

The other girls in the room barely moved a muscle, looking as if they had been carved from stone. They were like human statues carrying living corpses.

The girl who was by herself didn't look up once. I could only see her blond hair hanging toward the floor. As I watched, her body quivered every few minutes as she silently sobbed to herself. Did she really have no one? How could anyone let the poor thing come by herself to this dreadful place?

The other girl had her friend, but didn't seem to notice her. She was looking blankly at the wall, as if she was trying to stare through it. Her face was hardened like a mask, but I wondered what was going on in the inside. Was she trying to be brave, trying to ignore the horrible thing that she was about to do? Were her insides eating her away, just as mine were?

The door opened and a thin looking woman with a clipboard came out.

"Jennifer Olson."

The girl with the friend stood up. Her expression didn't seem to change, but I thought that her lips might have tightened. She followed the woman with the clipboard and disappeared behind the door. Her friend didn't follow.

The waiting grew heavier, like the air was bearing down on me.

I looked at the blond girl again. What are we doing? Can anything be worth this? My shame battered me again. I was pregnant. My boyfriend wouldn't have anything to do with me, my parents couldn't find out that I had gotten pregnant, and I couldn't raise a baby by myself. I felt weary. I didn't have a choice.

Time slowed to a crawl.

The receptionist had stopped typing and the silence hung in the air like a heavy mist. I could count my own heartbeats.

Finally the door opened again and the thin woman reappeared.

"Elizabeth Holden."

The blond girl didn't move. Maybe she hadn't heard. No, I saw her move. She must have heard. When she finally lifted her head, my eyes started swimming. Her face was red and wet from tears. She started gather her things, each movement slow and weak with the effort. Our eyes met for a moment as she trudged to the door. In that brief moment I saw her soul and it was as tortured as mine.

She was gone.

I stared at the door. Terrified. It wouldn't be long before my name was called and then there would be no turning back and I couldn't go through with it. What was I going to do? How could my life have reached this point? How could I let myself get pregnant?

I thought of the little life growing inside my womb and it was too much for me. I began sobbing, giant tears streamed from my eyes and I took in huge gasps of air between each cry. I buried my head into Allie's shoulder.

She held my head.

"You don't have to do this Katie. We can leave right now. We can get in the car and I can take you home."

"I can't Allie…I can't…I don't have a choice. I don't have a choice."

We stared at the door together, that horrid, awful door. It was an ordinary door, but it was like the gate to Hell itself. I didn't want it to open. I wanted to nail it shut, never to open again. I wanted the receptionist to say that they had closed for the day. I wanted to go back and change that night at prom. I wanted Adam to hold me. I wanted my parents to say that everything would be all right. How had I come to such a terrible decision? I wanted to sleep at night. I wanted to wake without having dread fill me as I realized that I hadn't been dreaming, that my nightmare was real. I wanted to be able to breathe again.

The door opened.

The woman came out.

"Kaitlyn Materly."

It felt like a death sentence.

I couldn't move. It was if my body had become stone. Now that the moment had come, I couldn't feel anything.

Somehow I made it to my feet and began walking to the door. Allie got up to follow me, but the woman stopped her with a look.

"No one except the patient will be allowed inside. You will have to wait in the waiting room."

"She has to come," I protested weakly. "She's the only one that has stayed with me. I need her. Please."

"We have strict regulations and no one is allowed inside for this procedure except for the patient. There are no exceptions."

Allie was crying softly as I turned to leave the waiting room. I saw one last glimpse of her face.

The door slammed shut. I was alone. No one would be there to hold my hand; no one would be there to comfort me. I felt small as I followed the woman with the clipboard to a tiny room.

"Wait here," she told me.

Were they going to do the abortion in this room? I looked around. There was only a desk and two chairs. I didn't see anything that looked like it could be used in surgery, but I didn't know how an abortion was actually done. Was I supposed to sit on the desk? I decided to sit on one of the chairs.

A man in a white coat came into the room carrying a folder of papers.

"Are you Kaitlyn Materly? I'm Doctor Fredricks."

He shook my hand.

"I need to ask you a few questions."

I nodded.

"Do you know what your blood type is? No? Ok, we'll have to run some blood work then. Have you eaten anything in the last eight hours?"

"No. I had some water this morning, but nothing to eat. Is that okay?"

"That'll be fine. We are going to run a few tests on you before the actual procedure. We're going to give you a pregnancy test first to make sure that you are pregnant and then we are also going to draw some blood to find out your blood type. You will also get an ultrasound. After that, if everything checks out, we will perform the procedure. Do you have any allergies?"

I didn't think so and so I shook my head. My throat had become dry and I wasn't sure that I would be able to talk.

"I'm going to tell you about the abortion procedure and then answer any questions you have. After that, we'll begin and get you out of here before you know it."

He was smiling at me. I tried to smile back. It didn't work.

"Once we have finished all the tests, the actual procedure will take only about ten minutes. The procedure that you will be having today is called dilation and suction cutterage or also a vacuum aspiration abortion. What we will do is spread your vaginal walls with a device called a speculum and then inject a local anesthetic into your cervix to numb it so that you won't feel any pain.

"After that, we will need to stretch your cervix with a set of tools that we call dilators. They look a little bit like small plastic sticks. When you have been dilated to the proper size, a small tube connected to a vacuum is inserted into your uterus. The tube is called a cannula and it's like the tube you see when you go to the dentist. We will keep the cannula in your uterus for about three minutes and try to remove all the pregnancy tissue."

"What do you mean by pregnancy tissue?" I didn't really want to know the answer.

"Pregnancy tissue is all of the tissue normally associated with pregnancy and includes the amniotic fluid, the placenta, and the fetus."

"You mean the baby?"

He looked confused. "Yes, uh, the fetus is part of the pregnancy tissue."

I wanted to throw up.

He didn't seem to notice my reaction and continued on. "Once the cannula is removed, we will insert a knife called a curette into your uterus and scrape the walls to make sure that all of the tissue has been removed, in order to prevent later infection. Then the procedure is finished and the dilators are gradually removed and you will be brought to a recovery room. Recovery time is usually between a half hour to an hour, depending on how you feel. Do you have any questions?"

I had a thousand things I wanted to ask. What if something went wrong? Why couldn't I just go back to being a normal seventeen-year-old girl? Why was I there in the first place? Where was Adam? Where were my parents? Why couldn't Allie be with me, even if it was just to hold my hand? Why couldn't my life just end?

"Does it hurt a lot?" I asked.

"Most of our patients experience only a mild discomfort, like a bad period. In a few cases, some women do feel pain, especially if the procedure takes longer than anticipated, but those cases are few and far between. Vacuum aspiration is a very safe procedure and this clinic has performed thousands per year for quite a number of years. We try to make sure that the proper amount of anesthetic is used to minimize the pain, but I need to let you know that once you have been dilated, the procedure can't be stopped. Are there any other questions?"

I didn't know if I could go through with it.

"Do you think I'm doing the right thing?" I blurted out. I wasn't sure at all.

He answered as if he had heard the question so many times that it didn't even surprise him. Maybe it didn't.

"I believe that a woman has the right to make her own decisions about her own body. If she does feel like an abortion is the right choice, then I will be here to help her so that she can begin to move on with her life. I won't advise you either way, however. Ultimately, the choice is yours because it's your body."

I wished that the choice was that simple. I didn't feel like I had a choice. What was a seventeen-year-old supposed to do for a baby? I still lived at home and didn't even have a job. I had no one to turn to for help. My fears enveloped me and I suddenly felt drained.

"Can we just do this?" I asked weakly.

"Of course. I'm going to need to do a pelvic exam first to check the size of your uterus."

The pelvic exam came and went and was followed by a pregnancy test. After the pregnancy test, my blood was drawn and I was prepped for an ultrasound. I was asked to wait in the small counseling room after the ultrasound until the results from all the tests had come in.

The tests had gone by quickly and I started to gain confidence that I was making the right decision. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. So far, everything had been professional and the staff seemed like it knew what it was doing. Maybe everything would be all right after all.

The door to the counseling room opened and the thin woman who had carried the clipboard came in.

"We're ready to begin. If you would follow me…"

She led me to another small room with an elevated bed in the middle. The bed was a brown plastic cushion and paper lined the top of it. Underneath were drawers and boards that slid out and contained various medical instruments. To the right of the bed was a machine on a stand. It had several clear tubes coming out of it and there was a jar connected to the tubes. There was also a tray on the stand with several thin pieces of plastic, a giant syringe, and a long knife that ended in a loop.

The thin woman began unfolding metal arms from the bed.

"I'm going to need you to take off your pants and your underwear. You can put them in this bag. Then lie down on the bed and put your feet in these stirrups."

I felt wooden as I took off my pants and underwear and put them in the bag. It was if I was watching myself from a different point of view. The girl that climbed on the bed and put her feet in the stirrups wasn't me. It couldn't be.

I was getting cold while I waited for the abortion to begin. The metal of the stirrups was like ice on my feet and the air felt frozen on my exposed thighs. I felt so alone.

I looked at the thin woman for reassurance, but she was busy readying the instruments and paid no attention to me.

I was starting to get nervous again. I didn't like the look of the machine sitting next to the bed.

It scared me.

The woman put on rubber gloves. She found a bottle of alcohol and began cleaning my pelvic region with a cloth. Then she spread me apart with a speculum and cleaned inside me as well.

I felt sick when she picked up the long needle from the tray.

"What's that for?"

"It's the local anesthetic. It's to numb your cervix so that we can dilate it."

She swabbed me a few more times and then inserted the needle inside me. It pinched as it went in and I felt a prick.

The woman went back to the tray and chose several of the smaller pieces of plastic. I started breathing heavily as she began to insert them inside of me. They were cold and I could feel her moving them around, but the shot must have already numbed me because I didn't feel any pain, even though they were still very uncomfortable. Each dilator was bigger than the last.

Doctor Fredricks came into the room and examined me.

"Dilate her a little more."

He watched as the woman inserted two more plastic dilators and then bent down to look.

"That should be good. Go ahead and turn on the aspirator while I wash my hands."

She turned on the machine next to the bed. It began to hiss as air was sucked through its tubes.

He soaped his hands and then returned with rubber gloves.

"This is going to feel a little uncomfortable," he said to me, "But it will only last for a couple minutes."

I closed my eyes and bit my lip.

All I could hear was the sound of the air passing through the vacuum tube. Then I felt it inside of me and the hiss changed to a slurping sound as it began to move around.

I opened my eyes again.

It hurt!

I started shaking from the pain. Make it stop. Please, somebody, make it stop!

I looked down and the doctor was moving the tube around inside of me. A red liquid was flowing down the tube and collecting in the jar.

The jar was filling fast, but the liquid came in spurts as it was sucked through, little pieces of white mixed with the red.

I couldn't breathe.

No! Stop! Stop! That's my baby!

I wanted to be anywhere in the world but there. The tears were coming so fast and so thick that I couldn't even see. It wasn't supposed to be like this.

Make it stop! Oh God! Please!

The vacuum finally sputtered to a stop.

"Will you hand me the curette?" he asked her.

I wanted to crawl away from him as he scraped the inside of my uterus with the knife, but my feet were tangled in the stirrups.

I screamed.

It was savage pain!

I almost blacked out.

She emptied the jar on the tray and looked at the contents.

"It looks like we have the proper amount of tissue for nine weeks."

He returned the curette to the tray.

"It looks like it. I'm going to wash my hands. Go ahead and remove the dilators."

I looked at the tray as she covered it with a napkin. It was red with the blood of my pregnancy. One of the white chunks smeared on the silver metal looked like a little hand.

Doctor Fredricks came over to my side, put his hand on my shoulder, and smiled.

"Everything went great Kate. You did fine. We're going to send you to the recovery room after Susan is finished taking out the dilators and then we will get you out of here and headed home."

I was numb.

What had I just done?