IVF isn’t going as well as I expected. Not terrible, just not as well as I had hoped. Eh. Whatever happens, hapens. I just wish my body was going to give me a fightin’ chance.
So I’m at the dentist today talking to my hygienist. The last time I was there, a year ago, I talked openly about my daughter’s NTD. I don’t know if I used the words abortion or termination, but I think I gave off that impression.
So today, I was back (after having cancelled/rescheduled multiple times) and we were complaining about insurance companies.
DH: Ugh, I know. When I lost my baby last year, my insurance wouldn’t cover my procedure. All the providers were out-of-network. I found someone I really liked, and got my insurance company to approve him, but it still took months for me to get my money back. My doctor was great! He was so compassionate!
Me: Who’d you see? (I knew exactly what “procedure” she had and who she saw. I just didn’t know if she tx’d for a fatal dx or a grey area, like mine.)
DH: Dr. X.
Me: That’s who I saw!
We talked for awhile about how awesome he was, how compassionate and caring he was. I told her that I testified in Austin this summer and that Cosmo ran my story on their webpage. She was amazed. She then told me that she tx’d for Down’s Syndrome. I think she was seriously shocked that people would judge her for making a decision in the best interest of her child. She said it perfectly: I’d love my child no matter what. I could deal with this. But it’s not me who has to deal with it.
We talked about how DS was a grey area, and that people don’t understand all the complications that go along with the dx. We talked about my daughter’s dx and all the complications that were involved. We talked about how she used to work at a day care center for disabled children/adults(?). We talked about how she was at work when she got the call that her son officially had DS and a patient told her “I hope you keep the baby.” Again, I don’t think she realized that the fundamentalists included HER in the anti-abortion issue. I think she learned the hard way.
I know it would have been completely against the office policy to contact me, but I really wish she would have. She said not many people knew what happened, but even so, she lost two friends over it. She deleted her Facebook because we are in Texas during a vitriolic election with Wendy Davis, the “Abortion Barbie”. Too many of her friends were making ignorant and hurtful comments.
1:3 women will have an abortion. Whether you are aware are not, you KNOW someone who had an abortion. 10% of all abortions in the US happen after 12 weeks of pregnancy. In my experience, most women who have had a late term abortion (after 12 weeks), just let people assume that she miscarried because of the stigma.
I got the feeling that the woman I was talking to wasn’t as well supported as I was. I wonder if she found good on-line resources like I did. I hope she was able to properly mourn her loss instead of merely delaying it. I had all those questions that I didn’t get to ask because I had a pick shoved in my mouth most of the time.
I just hope that it was helpful for her to connect with someone who made a similar choice.
