I occasionally attend a local baby-loss support group (Rindy's HOPE) which includes the parent survivors of infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth, removal of life support, and SIDS. Before I attended, I called the founder to make sure that it could be a safe place for me, too: survivor of medically indicated abortion. She told me I absolutely belong at the group, and personally invited me to attend.
My experience is the exception to the rule. The few other women I have met who underwent abortions in their third trimesters for equally devastating reasons have nearly all been turned away from similar support groups. The words are often gentle, "We just don't think it's a great fit." But the meaning escapes nobody: "You CHOSE this. You don't deserve our support."
"I'm hoping for at least 20 pictures," Tova explained. "40 would be powerful." She wanted an array of images, all these mothers looking out at the reader. We whose children needed their peace more urgently than they needed their lives. She got 80 pictures.
The article met with hatred and anger on the unmoderated Still Standing Facebook page. The angry voices were eventually quieted with tides of love and support, but not before hurting some serious feelings. It sucked. And every one the 80 women in the article knew it was coming when we submitted a picture. That is the hard part of busting through taboo.
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Today, in the park, I struck up a conversation with a mom and grandmother duo at the swings. I am casually acquainted with the mom -- enough that I know the name of her children and her profession, and enough that she knows that I lost a baby when I was 8 months pregnant two years ago, but we didn't remember each others' names.
We were talking schools, and she started to explain why Catholic school was not an option for their family. I agreed, explaining that when I lost my daughter two years ago, it was via abortion. It is out of the question for us to send our children to a school where they might be taught that abortion is murderous sin.
Their jaws dropped. Late-term abortion is a lot to dump on someone at the park. They voiced support. I told them more. I described the urgency of the situation, the cost, the limited options, the travel... Their jaws dropped further. Jaws always drop when people in Massachusetts realize they do not have the kind of access to reproductive health that they had assumed. When they realize the land of reproductive freedom is not in the liberal Northeast, but in the Wild, Wild West.
When I finished my story, there was a long beat. The grandmother spoke first.
"I went through something very similar back in 1983" She said. "It wasn't nearly what you had to go through. It was only 25 weeks. I didn't have to travel as far. But I ended a pregnancy because of a severe diagnosis. My OB was very supportive. He told me that people would only carry to term for a diagnosis like mine for strict religious reasons. I can't talk about it in [conservative home-state]. They'd skin me alive."
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This is the third time that I have confided to a near-stranger in this very park and heard a "me too!" in response to my story. I may have great intuition, or this may happen more than people realize. One thing is certain: every single moment of connection like this one trumps an entire internet's worth of hatred and spite.
Writing and talking about my abortion, my heartbreaking choice, is not easy or straightforward. I feel compelled and afraid every time I share. I have so much story that I never do it justice. I fear for my safety and my family's privacy. My husband does not know or support the extent of my sharing, and we will get in a really big, hard fight whenever we have to talk about this next. I can't help myself. My story wells up inside of me and I must speak it.
Two years ago, only my closest family and doctors knew where Hub and I had disappeared. Not my best friends. Not Hub's boss. Nobody. We had dropped off the face of our world. Today, I am glad to feel a little freer and a whole lot less alone.
Love you, Kate.
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