Most of us remember our sister’s birthday, our parents’ wedding anniversary or our first date with “the one”. For me however, I remember the day that I killed my baby. I remember the day I found out I was pregnant, the day that she died and the day that she would have turned another year old. I know these dates. They are infused in me as much as she was.

This isn’t a “story” about my great loss or an anti-abortion rant. To the contrary, I am still very much pro-choice, pro-choice with information however. With support and guidance and the knowledge to make the right decision. Had I had these things my decision would have been much different. I would be the mother to a beautiful, rambunctious, happy little 5-year old girl today. I would have called her Finley.

The day that part of me was taken away by a wrong decision of critical mass is also the day that my soul changed and the person who I was and was going to be was forever altered. The use of the word wrong may seem harsh or judgmental. However, to me the adjective is perfectly correct. My decision was wrong. It was wrong on so many levels that some creep up and surprise me yet today.

So as much as this is about me sharing and perhaps healing in the process my hope is to give you the courage to stand up for yourself and more pointedly for the unborn who does not yet have a voice.

Looking back on the first signs, now I realize how naive and frankly stupid I was. I had chalked up nausea in the morning to too many drinks the night before. My fatigue from working a day job and waitressing at night and simply being twenty-three years old and enjoying it. I remember the exact moment that I knew I was pregnant. That gut (no pun intended) instinct that the massive wave of nausea was not just because I had taken my vitamin on an empty stomach. I was driving to work and nearly had to pull over. The thought of a baby was immediate and strong. I headed home to get the results of what was already known, what was already in me, in my blood and in my soul. I fell asleep that night swollen and blotchy from the tears but in the arms of the man who had given me this terrifying gift, certain, from his reassuring words that things would work out.

Just to solidify what I already knew I had to watch, during what could only be explained as an out of body experience, as a doctor told me that yes I was indeed pregnant. Five weeks along “and here is some literature on your options”. One tri-fold brochure with smiling families on it and I was out the door. So what was a girl to do?! I went to the bar. Self medicating with Jack diets seemed quite a bit easier than dealing with the thoughts running rampant through my head. This started a vicious cycle of denial, hangovers/morning sickness, depression, selfishness and pure cowardliness. My backbone seemed to disappear along with my integrity and intellect.

It is quite astounding what shows up in a Google search when you simply put in Minnesota Abortion Clinics. I have realized that it is taking quite a bit more research and thought process to put these words together. The brain suppresses traumatic events as a way for the person to deal with it. Looking back I am quite thankful for this bodily function. However having to dredge up the thoughts and see the research again still leaves me with a terribly anxious feeling.

Many of us have regrets. It’s how we deal with these that shapes our life. Trying to wrap my head around how different my life would be with a child is both bewildering and elusive. It consumes you so much at times that it seems you can almost analyze it into non existence. It becomes almost something of fiction, something that happened to someone else, surely not yourself.

Looking at my beautiful Nephews and Niece, it makes me wonder what lil’ Finn would have looked like. Looking at both sides of the families, my mind wonders even further. She would have most likely had blue eyes, dimples and a substantial amount of humor, energy and life. Smarts run rampant in both gene pools as well as an extroverted personality and a contagious smile. Would she have looked like me or taken after her father? I do smile every time I think that she inevitably without choice would have had a shock of curly dark hair.

Once again this writing has taken me to a place that I am not particularly proud of. Words, phrases and assumptions that are typically not me are necessary to draw a vivid picture. I generally am free of judgment and open to actions and voices different than mine. However, the personalities that were in the clinic were typical of what most would think they would witness in an abortion clinic. We were definitely the exception. Dressed in our Holister hoodies and new Nike’s we certainly stuck out as the cliche rich kids who had gotten themselves into trouble. That was however not the case so why am I judging the others as harshly as I am assuming they were of us? Because frankly it made me feel better. I was certainly not “one of them”. I had to put myself above them to further my denial that we were all from very different places and yet all doing the same thing. I do however know through eavesdropping that our reasons for being there were pointedly different.

The group, yes, I said group, to our left was one girl and four guys. At one point the girl looked over, as if small talk was the norm, and asked me if this was my first one. I thought I was going to be sick. I couldn’t speak. Really?! Did she just ask me that as easily as where did you get your shoes from?! The two girls to my right were talking so openly about their other kids and how they “just couldn’t deal with another bratty kid from him” I had to get up and pace around. There were others there that made my heart ache however. A young girl with who I assumed to be her mother, a young couple obviously upset and comforting each other near the window and then one other couple who seemingly had put this on their agenda and ticked it off like a to-do list. I could not see us in any of them. After all, I was not “one of them.” The conversations and the aloofness of the waiting room was astounding. I concentrated on that so intently as not to really think about the next step. Until it came.

Three of us were cattle called into the first room where you had to watch a video of the impending procedure. I silently cried while watching in vivid context what I was about to do to my child. It’s as if they were giving you a chance to turn back, to see what you were really going to do. You coward, I think back, run, run as fast as you can and give your boyfriend a big fuck you! That was yet another chance for me to revoke my decision and change my future. And then you sit and sit some more. Why didn’t I run?! I have always prided myself on my strong disposition, sticking to my guns and yet when it came down to it I was so numb, in so much denial that I couldn’t process what was actually happening. It seemed to be happening TO me.

They give you an ultrasound. I heard her little heartbeat, saw her little fuzzy body on the screen and yet did not turn away. I was asked if I wanted to know the sex of the baby. Why do they ask you that?! It makes me hurt and ache even more knowing these things. I already knew it was a girl and I was right. My little Finley Louise was about to be killed by my own hands. My own semi-conscious decision. It’s hard to not think of my self as a monster.

The small talk from the nurse was ridiculous. I understand the point but my god how do they do it day in and day out? I feel like a monster for my part. How does someone work in a place like that? Watching babies die every day and not have a tainted soul? Human nature as a whole sometimes astounds me. The idiocy of some people and their thought processes eludes me yet there are still people out there that do not understand how personal an abortion is. I think if everyone would have some sort of personal connection to the process that there would be many more pro-choice advocates out there.

Those that say that abortion is murder don’t know me. I don’t need them telling me how awful I am. Their words can’t possibly hurt me as much as my own have. I felt rushed and forced into making this decision. I was told that there was no other choice. I didn’t have anyone to turn to and no time to think things through. I was told parents and grand-parents would be disappointed when in all actuality he was just as scared as I was. Had there been an open dialog perhaps things would have been different. Perhaps one day there will be a place where woman like me have someone to turn to.

The sound of the abortion itself is something that will never leave my senses. I have issues with straws still today and couldn’t vacuum for months after without getting ill. There was a lovely nurse holding my hand and trying to make small talk with me during but all I could hear was the suction of the machine. The horrible awful deafening sound of my baby being suctioned out of me. Into a tube into a dish that then was put in a hazardous waste container and thrown away. I threw my daughter in the garbage. I remember asking them what they did with her and I cannot to this day get myself to remember her answer.

The recovery room felt like my old orthodontist’s office. Eight recliners in a row each with a woman in different levels of distress. They gave me an option of peanut butter crackers or animal crackers. Cranberry juice or apple. I chose animal and apple. Every girl was in a very different stage of recovery or tolerance I suppose. One woman was moaning in such agony that I can’t imagine what she sounded like during the “procedure”. Man….I hate that word. PROCEDURE. No one got their braces adjusted. The girl to my left was audibly realizing that it didn’t hurt as much as her first and the others were quiet much like myself.

There was a $20 co-pay per my insurance for my visit. I then received a check for that amount a month later. My insurance at the time didn’t cover my birth control and yet they covered my abortion. An abortion is considered a surgical procedure. There is something so ethically and morally inept with that concept that I have trouble wrapping my head around it. How in this society is that acceptable? It almost feels like a new world of genocide that something like that is done on a regular basis. So basically I killed my baby and it was all for free. The only amount of money that we paid was $20 and then because of the surgical procedure status it was free. Imagine….getting a “rebate” check for the loss of your child.

Would I still care about my pedicure? My hair? Me? To a certain point yes, of course. It’s not as if you become a mother and you disappear. Although I feel at times that by me not becoming a mother that parts of me in fact have disappeared. Some may say that whats done is done. Leave the past in the past and move on. Anyone who has ever been through a death of a loved one will know that at certain levels this is quite impossible. I’ve read books on the grieving process yet none of them related to my situation. How other woman can go through this and move on without thinking about it for the rest of their lives is beyond my comprehension. What do they have that I don’t? Maybe no regrets. Maybe no conscience. Maybe they knew that it was the right decision for them. Whatever their secret I would like to know. There is no manual for grieving even with all of the publications out there. It’s a very personal process and one that I clearly was not and am not very good at.

Some may say that I am being too hard on myself. To them I say that I am not being hard enough at times and maybe that’s what’s holding me back from healing. In more than a few ways I don’t think that I should be allowed to heal. I feel like this is a punishment of sorts. That if I heal and move on without any repercussions that I am not doing my daughter justice. Perhaps that is why I was so angry at the father for so long. That’s the only part that I can say that I have moved on from. I stopped being angry at him because in the end it was my decision. Thousands of woman do it on their own every day and succeed. I don’t doubt that I could have been one of them. That thought alone brings gurgling anger into my chest. Disappointment in myself. In my complete lack of bravery.

Imagine if you will your best friend, your daughter, yourself being terrified and pregnant. They go to the place that is suppose to be a haven for young, uninsured, scared woman facing pregnancy; Planned Parenthood. Then imagine going there and getting no more than affirmation, a due date and that stupid brochure. Is this not the place that is suppose to help us and support us and give us information?! I felt as though it was just my turn through the door, there was my news and off I went. Maybe I am partly to blame as well. I was dumbfounded and couldn’t process and form the questions that I had but isn’t it their job to perhaps answer them before they are asked? To help? I don’t even recall her asking if I was OK or if I had any questions. She just moved on to her next urine sample.

There truly is not a day that I don’t think of Finley and what could have been. This is even more true since I’ve gotten a beautiful tattoo including her name in her honor. Her name is backwards so everyday when I look in the mirror I am reminded of her and my decision. Some may think that morbid or that I would get terribly sad with that vivid reminder. To my surprise as well it does not bring as much sadness as I had imagined. It now reminds me that once I was weak and my decisions then were wrong but forgiveness will be my only way out. There have been days where just seeing a little curly haired girl has sent me into a tailspin. Ending my day sobbing “I’m sorry!” And crying myself to sleep. After the tattoo something opened up. The cracks in my heart began to fill. The pain that the physical manifestation created was nothing in comparison to that day but it somehow felt like a turning point. A gateway to me forgiving myself. Another turning point in my life was meeting the man that I am with now and being able to to be a positive role model to his two beautiful daughters. One of which has dark curly hair and a laugh that will someday save the world. He has been such a supportive person in my life that in certain ways he has saved me from myself. Throughout our time together and through this writing he has listened and supported in endless ways. If it weren’t for him I would not have begun this writing in the first place. I don’t know what the future holds for myself or those in my life but I do know that my slow healing and forgiveness of my wrongs will teach and lead me to the life that I was meant to live with or without someday having my Finley.

Photo by Massimo Valiani