I gave birth to a baby girl five years ago.
But the first thing I felt was not love.
Pregnancy, that is.
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I never thought it would be.
While gestating, I suffered a constellation of symptoms in several body systems.
My legs ached and vibrated with pain.
I developed hivesangry welts that refused to yield to hydrocortisone.
My skin grew hypersensitive, and I flinched at my husbands gentlest touch.
I fell into a black, clinicaldepression.
I developed obsessive-compulsive disorder, shrinking from any smudge on the wall.
This spiderweb of complications created what I dubbed a prisoner pregnancy.
Despite wanting the pregnancy to result in motherhood, I did not feel any joy in gestation.
I counted the days, trying to reassure myself that all pregnancies eventually come to an end.
My daughter is now five years old; she is also the love of my life.
But my husband and I have been careful to ensure that I never get pregnant again.
Its not only that I grew so ill from it.
One cold January night, I woke up with throbbing joints.
Days later, arashspread across my ankles.
The symptoms felt frighteningly familiar, so I took a pregnancy test, but the result wasunsurprisinglynegative.
There hadnt been much time for intimacy in recent months.
I had undergone several aggressive surgeries that had depleted my reserves.
I’d had reconstructive surgeries on my hips, and Id also lost a rib to a fast-growing tumor.
By February 1, my period still had not returned.
My aches and chills had grown persistent, and nausea had descended.
I assumed the symptomsso like those of my last pregnancywere aggravated premenstrual syndrome.
I hoped a gynecologist could induce my period and get me back to normal.
Help was on the way.
Dr. Park* walked in.
Youre pregnant, she said, smiling at me.
I shifted on the table, the crinkle of the paper resonating in my ears as my adrenaline surged.
I would soon find out that such was my husbands exhaustion that he didnt remember such a moment either.
After years of vigilance, wed been caught in natures snare.
We were tired, we were stressed, and wed accidentally conceived.
A sonogram revealed that I was just six weeks pregnant.
The tears that Id fought off through multiple surgeries at last came.
Once again, pregnancy was my undoing.
I walked home, my tears mingling with a sudden and fittingly unexpected rainstorm.
That afternoon, I spoke to my husband.
The nurse told me to be patient and that someone would get back to me.
Clumps of hair fell out.
Hives spread up my thighs.
I vomited repeatedly, gagging when there was nothing left to throw up.
The bell-like sweetness of my kindergartners chatter seemed distant and hollow; depression was descending and distorting my world.
I was once again locked in a prisoner pregnancy.
Finally, three days after Id left those urgent messages, a colleague of Dr.
Parks called and told me to come in.
Dr. Roberts* had an easy way about her.
She asked if I wanted to perform another sonogram to see if the pregnancy was still viable.
I asked her why I would want to do that if I already knew I wanted to abort.
Why cant she do it anyway?
I asked, pulling my aching legs into my chest.
Dr. Park, Dr. Roberts explained, did not perform electiveabortionsonly therapeutic ones.
I wondered why she hadnt told me herself.
Dr. Roberts leaned in and spoke with authority and humor.
I would guess more women in Manhattan have D&Cs than have tooth cleanings in a year.
And they arecertainlyless painful.
It sounds like you know what you want.
You feel sick, you are happy with one child, you dont have the resources.
Youve outlined your understanding of your life quite clearly, she finished.
She was working hard to reassure me, sensing that Dr.
Parks rebuff had stunned me.
She was right: I felt suddenly judged and humiliated.
An elective abortion is one initiated by personal choice.
They are not legal terms.
They are not even medical ones.
The distinction Dr. Park made in providing care implied to me a moral judgment.
Therapeutic: deserving of medical care.
Elective: undeserving of medical care.
The judgment began to pervade my mind.
She replied, You are the reason abortion should be legal.
One woman even asked me if my husband had exerted pressure on me to have an abortion.
Every woman I spoke to had proudly walked in theWomens March.
Many had held My Body, My Choice!
But I had discovered a lurking hypocrisy in the pro-choice world.
Lacking the social support Id expected, I sank into despondency.
I would not die from this pregnancy, after all, and that was what Dr. Park cared about.
It also seemed to be the only thing that concerned the women whod denied me endorsement.
I was merelyelectingto feel better,electingto care for my body,electingto decide my own fate.
Perhaps that was not good enough.
I wanted to fit myself into the therapeutic category.
Women should not have to bargain for freedom by pleading physical distress.
I was lucky to have insurance and access to excellent health care.
I was lucky to be in New York City, where abortion rights areaggressively protected.
Experiencing the horror of my pregnancy within the horror of denied access was beyond imaginable.
TheD&Ctook 10 minutes.
I awoke in recovery.
The sun had burst through the gray clouds in my mind, and my mental floorboards were sparkling.
The termination provided an immediate emotional lift: Gone was the fearsome melancholy.
I was myself again.
I hadneededan abortion because I hadwantedone.
I will never visit Dr. Park again.
If a woman does not want to be pregnantfor any reasonabortion is automatically a medical need.
Before I left the recovery room, I sought out Dr. Roberts.
You are my hero and part of the resistance, I told her.
Im just doing my job, she replied.
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*Names have been changed
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