"We need to talk. Can I come around?"
I felt ill. All the time. Common sense would suggest it was the first trimester making me feel like hurling every morning, but I tended to think it was my sense of dread, of doom impending, and the stress of the decision that was yet to be made. It was late in the trimester, and I was running out of time to take control. Waiting too long would be an eventual child in my arms, with inaction not necessarily meaning I wanted it. I was in limbo land. And I was alone.
Yet not at all. My mum and sister were amazing, sitting with me, crying with me, listening to me talk through all my options, and sitting nearby whilst my distress would have me raging.
I just remember the endless moments where I would be shocked into remembering 'the situation'. Each time, slapped by the state of my body, betraying me by welcoming a foreign host without my permission. The injustice, always the injustice, terrorised me. How I had been lumped with a situation I had to deal with in MY BODY, whilst he was happily ignorant to any of this going on.
Oh god, I needed to tell him. Vomit again.
Without much fuss, I arranged to come to his place again, and this time I sat on his bed. Not in his bed, but on it. Just sat that next to him in the most uncomfortable and awkward silence for a time that might have been comical in any other situation. We weren't really big talkers, and we weren't in a relationship. So at that moment, if I was not there for a hook up, it was pretty confusing at to why I had needed to swing by.
Eventually i broke the silence with words I'm sure no 19yr old would like to head from a recent sexual partner. "I'm pregnant".
He looked at me, and held it together relatively well, considering the hot mess I was in when I found out several weeks ago. I suppose it's not relative. It wasn't his body. Not really his choice. Yet, it was his child. Do we call it a child at this point? It was all quite acceptable until he smacked with his offensive question of "And...it's mine?". OH MY EFFING GOD! YES!
I clearly must have pulled off the appearance of being totally cool and liberated if he thought I'd be having sex here there and everywhere. But at that moment, when I've just confessed that he put a baby in me, and now I'm stuck in a 'situation', the absolute last thing I need to hear is 'Is it mine!?"
I can only imagine the absolute venom I shot him. Asshole. (But I do see now it's a fair and maybe complimentary, if not stupid and insensitive question).
What I wanted in that moment was compassion. Partnership (not for life, but together In that moment) Support. Comfort. Questions. Care. Buy in. Understanding. Help! We weren’t in a relationship, but we had been friends and on again/off again make out buddies for the last several years. We weren’t strangers at all. So it wasn’t altogether strange for me to expect care at the very least.
Instead, I sat there for another eternity whilst we both just stared at the wall, together in this mess, yet I was more alone than ever. Moments stretched into long minutes. Of nothing. No comfort. No concern. No 'how are you feeling?'. Just minutes of empty inadequacies that gave my pain all the ammunition to start directing my hurt towards the ultimate scape goat. Him.
I had had weeks to begin to accept the status quo. It was possibly unfair of me to expect anything of him at all, he too was in shock. But i expected at least a little more than what I got.
Eventually I got sick of tolerating my unmet expectations, so I gathered my broken and newly maternal body and stood up. As I walked out of his room, I turned around and paused, barely holding up the doorway with my teetering resolve and said "what would you do? If you were me? What do you want me to do?"
And I will never forget the next moment for as long as I lived. It is chiseled into my heart as one of the hardest things I've heard. But it felt as though it was easy for him to say.
"I don't want you to have it."
I blinked.Selfish dick! Just like that, with no more than 30mins had he locked into a side of the fence When I, after weeks of agonising, was still painfully straddling. The pain in my heart loved its new target. I hated him so much in that moment. I put all of my heart ache and trauma and injustice and I sent all of my rage towards him. He had not even considered this for two seconds (not true, it had been many awkward and very quite minutes) and here he was making statements like that. Absolutely ass.
There was no recovery for us. Not when he reached out to ask if I'd made a decision and added that he would be involved as a parent if I chose to keep it. Not when he offered to pay for the procedure. Not even when he asked me if I wanted him to come. I was so full of resentment for his unaffected ability to just not even be present in this that I pushed him further away.
A regret to this day actually. I did him and me a massive disservice. One of my life’s big regrets. Even Still. I had perpetuated the exact scenario I was raging about. He WAS able to walk away easily and be almost unaffected by it all…because I just let him. I didn't give him access to me so he could see the damage we had created. I didn't let him an opportunity to even take a breath of my consuming grief. I stonewalled him at every step. In fact, I gave him PERMISSION to just step out of it, like he wasn't welcome in this shit of a situation we both created. And as a result of MY choices there, we had really different experiences of what was for me one of the hardest and most heart wrenching times in my life.
Harshly, I denied him every opportunity to be supportive once he tried. And as a result, we still have really different experiences when we see each other. Massive difference.
I was so broken in his bedroom that night. And it wasn't until 18 years after this moment that I could see that those 7 words sealed the deal for me, and gave me the safety net to make a choice i didn't want to make, and send so much of the blame his way. His (fair and reasonable) lack of enthusiasm for a child he didn't plan, or want, was all I needed to blame him. He was my ultimate scapegoat.
Because, in absolute honesty, I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to live with myself if I chose an abortion. But also in truth, and here it is folks, an abortion is what I wanted… what I needed. I didn't want to be a single mother. I didn't want to face that reality of parenting alone. I wanted to partner, and live, and decide when to try for a family, not have this life forced upon me. That truth was explosive, and self-centred, and everything it needed to be, and I couldn't acknowledge that for a really long time.
Sometimes, not often, I feel for him. I showed up, I wanted him, I took him, and then I came back pregnant. He didn't ask for that either. I never asked him how he was, never checked in on him. Didn’t have the strength to. He has tried to check in on me over the years, and I've shared some of my story with him over time, and he understands that our experiences are vastly different. It took me so much longer to arrive at an acceptance that we'd made the best choice at the time, and he, annoyingly and sadly, seemed to know that in an instant.
That’s the difference, right? Between men and women. He knew his direction and desires for life, unapologetically. He didn’t know there was another way to be. Because he had, his whole life, been told by society that he was important, the most important.
And I felt the weight of stress, expectations, and social pressure because whilst I knew my direction and desires, unlike him I didn’t feel comfortable to claim them for myself and put myself first, because innately I didn’t think I deserved them. Because I had been told, my whole life, that I was made to nurture children and be selfless and sacrifice so much for the greater good. My needs weren’t on the table at all.
I should have been central to my decision making all along. Do I want this? Is this is alignment with my life and my goals? Would I prefer it later? I felt unworthy in my own life to make decision that focused on me. He didn’t feel unworthy, and nor should he have. He had his chance to say his piece so he did. And I resented him for it. I resented the world for it.
I am so thankful I had a progressive mother, who understood all of this and empowered me to see what I wanted in life and choose that. Who understood how difficult a decision it was for me and who supported me unconditionally either way
Occasionally over the years, we have attended the same functions and sometimes he has made an effort to say hi. I've generally not been able to engage. Because it STILL hurts me to see him. It breaks me all over again. He’s like a painful magnet. Drawing my attention and Every time, flooding me anew with the pain that seeks to destroy. Of a baby who wasn't wanted. Of a decision that nearly destroyed me. Of a guilt that has taken a good two decades to shake. STILL. It ruins me and saddens me, and angers me afresh. God, I hated him for so long...
But actually, it wasn't him I was hating.
Note to reader: I check my privilege at the door here on many levels. My ability to fall pregnant. My family who accepted me and would support me in any direction I chose. A professional heath care provider who undertook the procedure safely and hygienically. My family's financial situation that allowed us to access a professional abortion. His offers of support that I denied. My husband who knew this story in full before we even started dating, who accepts my life and loves me completely and unconditionally. I know there are so many things here that worked in my favour to make this the easiest road I could have travelled and I am grateful for that.
Ciao for now,
LG - Life's Grim (some days)
P.S Telling this story takes the wind out of my sails. It's important to me that it is told, and important that people in similar situations understand they are not alone. But bloody hell, it's been a tough one to write.
P.P.S I'm not done. Part 3 will follow when I am ready. It is even harder.
P.P.P.S I hope you read this one day. I hope you can empathise with me as I do with you. I hope you find understanding in my words and an apology in my heart. I’m sorry. For it all.
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