Does it hurt...? Yes it fucking hurts.
I woke up to a silent flood of tears that started before I was even aware I was present in the moment. I nodded in groggy agreement with the nurse as she asked 'did it hurt?'. Oh yes, it hurt more than I thought it would. Oh my god. I was in the most amount of pain I think I'd ever experienced. It didn't just hurt, it was agony that ripped a cavern of emptiness from my uterus to my heart. Empty uterus. Empty hearted. The opposite feeling of having a full heart. My heart was void of... everything. Like my uterus now was. Void.
Before they let you proceed to a pregnancy termination (same thing, different terminology), there are some steps you need to take. Firstly, you need to make an appointment. You need to ring them and ask if you could please schedule in some time to lock in a permanent solution to your situation. I couldn't. I asked my mum if she could please take care of logistics. I just couldn't find the strength to follow through on my decision that had made in my heart the day I left his house by booking that appointment.
What a dooms day it was that was looming over me. Tick tock, tick tock, hurry up - 1st trimester doesn't last forever. 28th March 2002... my friend's birthday. Great. Lock it in. Cry me more rivers.
Once the appointment was made, I shot him a courtesy text to let him know the situation was being taken care of... on the 28th March 2002. He asked me if I would like him to take me to the appointment, and if I wanted him to pay for it. No. You've done enough here (unfair, i know). But to be clear, he wasn't safe for me. I didn't and couldn't be vulnerable in front of him and I needed to be free to feel my feelings without being self-conscious or concerned about what he might think of me. I wish I had let him see it all. I'm not sure if it might have helped me, but it may have helped him understand me later. He had a right to be there, and I should have let him support in any way he was able to, I had a right to that. We got into this together. We should have clawed our way out together too.
Instead, I asked my mum to come. A tall ask for any parent going through what must have felt like a hard day in parenting, by any stretch. Mum, can you please take me? Of course, she did. She sat by me as I filled in the paperwork, and sat by me as I waited anxiously for the psychological appointment that is mandated to come first. She waited whilst I confirmed that this was my decision, no one was making it for me, and I was not being pressured to take this step. And then she waited with her heart on her sleeve while they took me into the procedure area, gowned me up and got me to put my tracksuit pants, t-shirt, jumper and shoes into a basket. Lie here, are you comfortable? Do you understand what we will do today? Do you agree?
Yes. Yes. Yes.
And then you sleep.
Then you wake. U2 crooning softly over the speakers 'I can't live, with or without you', followed by the other worldly sound of someone crying. Breathless sobs. I opened my eyes and looked over at mum who was holding my hand, comforting me. Oh! It was like in a book. I didn't realised this actually happened. All of this time I thought it was to add drama, but here i was experiencing it for myself, firsthand. I had realised, with a startle, that the sobs were mine.
I was vaguely aware, as I spaced in and out, that the nurse was consulting my mum and trying to rouse me to my hell, when I had only just been able to close my eyes and fall asleep again, to dreamland, to a world in which I hadn't take that permanent step. To a world where I wasn't pregnant either. I was Lauren prior to the end of January. Footloose and fancy free... and neither pregnancy nor experiencing the keen loss of something I loved but never wanted.
"Lauren, are you in pain? Is that why you are crying."
"Can you turn off the radio please?" was my answer. She looked alarmed. I cried harder. I honestly was lost. I'm sure for some it didn't hurt at all, for some, all that was felt was relief. But for me, the pain I woke with that day, knowing I did the thing I knew I wanted to do came with so much aching that it took me by surprise. I was grieving the baby I couldn't accept into my world, and my choices. I was grieving my innocence, and the first genuine and very real heart break I would experience. And it pounded me relentlessly, with the tearing in my uterus a justified reminder of the permanence of my decision.
"Here, take this". Medication that would never quite hit the spot. I had the outcome I needed...but there was zero satisfaction in it. I didn't wake up with relief. I woke up feeling worse than I had felt when I went to sleep.
You know you are really unwell when your mum gives up her bed so you can sleep in the quietest room, and have some privacy in her ensuite when you need it. When we came home, Mum put me straight into her bed. It was the sweetest thing, really. I'm still touched by it now. Thanks Mum. Sometimes it's the little things. My brother and sister came and checked on me between drowsy sleeps, sitting on the end of their concern and my mums bed, hoping to bridge the gap that now existed between us. Them, young and innocent. Me, a grieving 'almost mother', more experienced than the lot of us now at 'big life things'. Not a trophy I wanted.
Flowers arrived from beautiful friends, and a text or two came from him, checking I'd made it through okay. Maybe it was to confirm I had gone through with it at all. Either way, I let him know it was done. We were done. That was that.
The depth of my despair was consuming, suffocating, enduring. I don't remember how long I zombied around the house for, days, weeks, months. But it didn't matter. There was no where else more important to be than feeling these feelings and trying to make sense of how I could possibly recover, move forward, and on with the life that was so important I needed to persevere it by not becoming a mother then.
Eventually, it was my sister who dragged me out of the house. It reminded me that people still loved me and welcomed me and appreciated my presence in their life, and her friends just embraced me and made me feel like it was all going to be okay. That eventually life would exist beyond this moment, beyond this pain, beyond this decision.
And it did. Eventually. But it took a really long time. And tears, and hard work, and difficult conversations, and shame... all the shame.
I remember the conversations with so many people I've had over the years, sharing this story and trying to outline the extent of pain I went through at the time. So often, I felt unworthy. So often, selfish. More often, ashamed. Telling people this story ladened with layers of all of that for them to wade through, trying to justify my choices, my feelings.
And now, after years of holding this story close to my heart and sharing it with a previous few, I've come to find that I want it off my chest. I want it gone from my secrets cupboard. I want to talk about it and I want to declare it as a part of my amazing life. A hard, grief stricken and impossible part. But a part, nonetheless.
And more than that, I want to respect myself and my choices. Despite the degree of difficulty at the time, and for years to come, I own this as the only choice that was right for me at the time. I consider this choice pivotal in where I ended up. And I love me and I love my life. My life is worthy of celebrating and I give a nod to all of my journey, including this.
Even your devastation breathes depth into your journey.
Ciao for now,
LG - Life's Going (to be okay)
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