Aborted by Lilly Roan

          ​Nana B Agyei CC



Aborted

    A couple sat in the corner away from us, her with a blonde bob that looked edgy and oh-so Asheville and him with a brown, scraggly baby beard.  They whispered to each other, him trying to make her laugh, and her with tears in her eyes.  The waiting room was packed with young women like her and older-youngish like me.  There was a sign on the wall that children weren’t allowed in the waiting room on certain days.  Days like today.  Ours were at home with your parents, who would probably be enraged if they knew what we were doing, like most right wing, pro-lifers would be.  Your dad could easily be radicalized to become like the protestors outside.

    When we left that morning, Lucky, our goat, had thrown up everywhere, green, viscous liquid that had me texting back and forth with his breeder while we drove two hours to the clinic in Winston-Salem.  I told her the truth, with more straight forward honesty than I offered my sister or mother.  I had to explain why I didn’t take Lucky to the vet.  She offered advice about the goat, and then she told me she understood what I was going through more than I knew, and my heart broke for her as hers broke for me.  It felt wrong that this should be a shared female experience.

    “Are you here of your own free will?” The nurse asked after I was brought into the back.  You had to stay out in the main lobby for the duration.  Men weren’t allowed inside.  I wanted to tell her I didn’t want to be there, that I wanted the baby growing inside of me, but you would never love him.  My existing children needed my marriage to succeed, I needed you to help me heal, you needed to heal and this baby inside me would become a living reminder of your limitations as a mortal man.  You were still clouded by your foolish, well-intended, prideful belief that you should be able to protect me even when you aren’t around.  It was a shitty trade to make, this life for the life we already had, but a necessary one.  For the greater good.  I wanted to tell her I had been waiting for you to change your mind as the days crept up to this appointment and in the hours we drove to the clinic.  I wanted you to accept this baby too.  But I didn’t say that.  I just said yes.

    We would have to get rid of the goats if I kept the baby.  It wasn’t a “we” it was an “I,” if I kept this thing I wanted, it would change our lives.  This baby would be like the other animals I kept that you didn’t want.  We didn’t have cars that could transport five kids, you argued.  I could die giving birth.  The kids I had already needed me.  Our last two kids were premature.  Everyone would know the baby wasn’t yours, you continued.  We’d have to tell everyone we knew the truth, and no one would treat the baby the same.  The logic was sound, but keeping a child isn’t a logical decision.  This baby, despite his origins, was half me.  Mine.  Maybe even half you.  

    “Do you want the picture?” The sonographer asked me after filling the room with a healthy heartbeat as a little black blob appeared on the screen.  It was legally required, she said, I had to see the baby and hear his heartbeat.  The state had to make sure women knew what they were killing; take the mystery out of it.  Men didn’t have to see; you didn’t have to see.  No, I said, and she nodded.  She took me to another waiting room.  The young blonde held a picture in her hand and sobbed quietly while everyone pretended to not notice.  Most of the women held the sonogram pictures in their hands, carefully looking away, unsure what to do with this last memento, sentimental or too guilty to throw it away.  They seemed shellshocked.

   “Before you leave today, I want you on birth control,” the next nurse told me before asking if I had a preference.  I don’t need birth control, I said, before remembering why I was there, and I added, my husband had a vasectomy.  “How long ago was it done?”  Five years, I said, and before she could go into it more, I told her I was raped.  It was one of the first times I had ever said it aloud and the words hung in the air, as if acknowledging it made it more real.  I don’t intend for that to happen often enough I need birth control, I finished with a bite she didn’t deserve.  Vasectomies fail all the time, despite the fact you got tested as soon as I told you I was pregnant.  All it takes is one sperm to meet the egg.  Perhaps the nurse would have told me that, but she didn’t.  I didn’t need to be told there was a chance the baby was yours.  She said she was sorry that happened and I almost said “it’s ok” out of female reflex.

   The doctor was next, and she too asked me what birth control I wanted to go on.  I said those words again, that I was raped and my husband had a vasectomy, and she also apologized.  I wasn’t sure what to say, so I shrugged.  She gave me a pill to take; this first pill would stop the baby from growing.  After this, there was no turning back, she said, and I nodded again.  I felt like I was watching from the other side of the room, watching this faded version of me sitting on the table, talking to the doctor that tried like hell to be warm and compassionate despite the sterility and bleakness of the room’s purpose. 

   “He knows it wasn’t your fault, right?” She asked before she left the room, as her nurse came in with the second pill and the instructions that I was to take it that evening.  I gave you a glowing endorsement.  You had been wonderful through this, and, no doubt, you had, except those words you spoke to me, that you said you had to ask.  “Did you like it?” you asked me.  That question lived between us, and someday I would, perhaps, forgive you for it.

   That night, I sat in the goat house in the dirty hay, syringe feeding Lucky molasses water to try to give him enough energy to drink and eat after a whole day of vomiting.  His brother Boots bleated and munched on grain and put his hooves up on my back to try to get ear scratches.  My phone exploded with well intentions from my mother and sister, attempting to convince me that I made the right choice.  My mother asked if they saved any of the aborted material for evidence.  You gave me space and kept the kids away from me.  As I was bleeding out my baby, I sobbed to the goats, pleading with Lucky to live. 

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Lilly is a writer based in Jonesborough, TN, where she lives with her husband, four children, two pet dogs, single fat cat, and her service dog, Ghost.  She has a special interest in writing about mental health and women’s issues.  She writes both fiction and creative non-fiction.  She has an upcoming publication with Entropy Magazine.  She is an MFA in Writing candidate at the Vermont College of Fine Art.

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