What a perfect time to get pregnant.
It was a one-night stand. A guy I met on Purple Sneakers night at a bar called The Abercrombie, in Chippendale. (Pause while every guy who went to Purple Sneakers back around 2009 tries to remember if they hooked up with me. If you were a skinny hipster and an arsehole, probably.) We made out a bit. Then he mentioned that he lived close to my sister, so we got the same train home together. Then I accidentally got off at his stop instead of my sister’s and accidentally went to his house and accidentally had sex with him. I was on the pill, and we used a condom, so that defective little sperm must have been really fucking determined. I didn’t have this guy’s number; I didn’t even know his last name. It was just a random hook-up that I didn’t think would be memorable in any way.
And now I was the one sitting in an abortion clinic, being told I would have to leave this thing inside me for another month before I could do anything about it. I was also the one who had to worry about paying for it, since it was going to cost around $800.
‘I’m sorry, how much?’ I said, thudding back to reality upon hearing such an unexpected number.
‘That’s if you get a general anaesthetic,’ the doctor replied. ‘Which means you’ll be put completely to sleep during the procedure. But most women just get the twilight sedation, which means you’ll still be asleep, but it’s not as invasive as a general. It’s more like a light sleep.’
‘And how much is the twilight sedation?’ I asked, praying for a much lower number.
‘About $400, so half as much. I really recommend that option for you. There’s no reason you would need a general.’
So I had to pay $400 to be ‘put to sleep but only kind of’ and then, from what I could gather, have something shoved up into my uterus that acted like a vacuum. Apparently there wouldn’t be pain, but ‘discomfort’, which everybody knows is code for ‘there will definitely be pain’.
This was bullshit. If men had to get abortions, they would come in chocolate form, be less than $10 and available at every convenience store.
I booked in for a termination, performed under twilight sedation, for four weeks’ time. Then I caught the train to my mum’s house and spent the night puking.
Then I spent the next day puking. And the next night puking. And the next day after that. It just wouldn’t stop. After a few days I realised I wouldn’t be able to leave my mum’s house. I could barely walk to the bathroom without being sick, let alone catch the train into the city to clean up popcorn at the movies. I lied and told them I had pneumonia and wouldn’t be able to come in for a couple of weeks. Then I left the couch and went upstairs to one of mum’s spare bedrooms. It had a single bed that had apparently belonged to some flatmate Mum had been sharing with for a while. Other than a bedside table, the rest of the room was empty. It was very sad and very, very grimy. The kind of room you imagine the police raiding to find evidence after a creepy man with a thin moustache gets busted masturbating on a train. And the only evidence they find is a collection of ceramic clowns.
But I was desperate, and if I was going to be staying at my mum’s for a while, I needed to be in a room where I could close the door to escape her drinking. I couldn’t find any sheets, so I laid a towel down on the mattress to protect me from the germs of what I was now convinced was Masturbating Train Man’s bed. I covered myself with a doona riddled with cigarette burn-holes and tried to sleep.
A few days later, the nausea still hadn’t relented. I spent my days trying to sleep, waking up, puking, trying to eat, puking, trying to sleep again. My older sister Rhiannon, who’d had a daughter, told me that maybe I should go to the doctor, because she did not remember being that sick during her own pregnancy. But the doctor at the clinic had told me it was normal, so I just decided to stick it out. I developed complete tunnel vision to get through it: I just had to last four weeks until it would be over. And half of the first week was already done. Rhiannon brought over a crappy little TV from her house. It only picked up Channel Nine and Channel Ten, but I switched it on and bunkered down. TV could get me through anything.
I hoped at some point the nausea would stop, but it just kept going. I was still having trouble getting up. I would go downstairs to the kitchen to mix powdered chicken stock with water, but I had to pull a chair over to the stove because I couldn’t stand for the ten minutes it took the water to boil. It was like being permanently carsick, but the car could never pull over and also it was spinning. If there is a god besides Oprah, he was certainly punishing me for having sex with a guy just because he lived close to my sister’s house.
Mum was working during the days and was drunk most of the nights, so I was pretty much on my own. Every couple of days when Rhiannon had time, she would bring me Gatorade and soup, but other than that, it was just me and my little TV, picking up Channel Nine and Channel Ten.
The first week passed. Then the second. Then the third. I actually felt like I was being tortured. I was desperate to get out of the house, but every time I tried to stand, nausea took over. I was starving, but every time I tried to eat, nausea took over. I was exhausted, but every time I tried to sleep, nausea took over. Nothing made it better. I’d lost weight. I was pale. I hadn’t showered. I knew the Channel Nine and Ten daytime TV schedules by heart.
The day before my appointment, I’d had enough. I called the clinic, in tears, and begged them to let me bring it forward a day. I’d barely heard the word ‘yes’ before I was on the phone to Rhiannon, pleading with her to come and pick me up and drive me into the city.
I had to lie down in the back seat of her car for the 45-minute drive. I was so weak she had to help me walk to the clinic. At that stage, their prison-like security door was not holding me back from getting in that building – I would have smashed my way through if necessary. I was tapped into some Hulk-style determination to have this over with.
When inside, I was first taken to a side room to see the doctor. I told her what I’d been going through the last four weeks – that I basically hadn’t left my bed since I’d been there last, and that it was probably a bed that a Masturbating Train Man with a ceramic clown collection had slept in, so clearly I was serious. I told her that I hadn’t been able to stand up in the shower, let alone work. All I’d eaten was dry toast and soup and sips of Gatorade, and even that had been impossible to keep down. Even sitting upright in front of her at that moment was taking it out of me. ‘Oh,’ she said, concerned. ‘That’s not normal. It sounds like you have Hyperemesis Gravidarum. It can be very serious. You really should have called or seen your GP.’
This time, I was the one to give the polite smile that people give when it’s taking everything within the deepest depths of their soul to be patient with the idiot in front of them. But I was too faint and too damn sick to get angry. Not to mention, last time I was there, I had rambled hysterically about an individual sperm having gastro, so I couldn’t really blame her for not having taken me more seriously at the time.
Most people have only heard of Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG) because it’s the thing Kate Middleton had when she was pregnant with the first of her royal spawn. Buckingham Palace mentioned it in a brief, polite statement, which made it sound like Kate was having a bit of a hiccup but was otherwise well. I know different. If Kate was going through anything like what I went through, there is no doubt in my mind that she is probably the first person in history to have ever yelled obscenities at the Queen from the bathroom floor.
I can just see the Queen, in her sensible pastel two-piece suit, enquiring as to whether Kate would bother getting out of bed today, since ribbons that open flower shows don’t just cut themselves. Kate, in a room down the hall, would wipe vomit from her face and yell, ‘GO CUT A RIBBON WITH YOUR DICK, LIZ,’ before burying her face back in the decorative Wedgwood toilet. I think the Queen would like Kate’s spunk.
HG is officially described as ‘a complication of pregnancy that is characterised by severe nausea and vomiting such that weight loss and de
hydration occur. Signs and symptoms may include vomiting several times a day and feeling faint. It is more severe than morning sickness. Simple things such as taking a shower, driving or shopping may feel impossible.’ (Thanks Wikipedia! Also, thanks for my Bachelor’s degree.)
Unofficially, I would describe HG as ‘so torturous I didn’t care that I was sleeping on a mattress that was probably once owned by a Masturbating Train Man with a ceramic clown collection’. That’s how badly I needed to be lying down, all day, every day.
I was sent into another room to get an ultrasound, which the technician told me was to make sure everything was in order for the ‘procedure’. I thought it was strange that she didn’t just say the word. Abortion. We’re all here to get abortions. We’re in the building; I think we know the word. She also turned the screen away from me so I wouldn’t ‘have to see’ what was on it. I told her I didn’t mind, and I honestly didn’t. I wasn’t in a mindset yet where I understood that this could be a painful decision for some women to make, because to me, it was nothing but a relief. Not because of the sickness I’d endured, but just because I didn’t want to be pregnant. It was my body, and I didn’t want this to be happening to it. I didn’t feel guilty, or conflicted, or tormented. I just felt relief.
I went back out to the waiting room and sat next to Rhiannon. One woman was crying at reception. Rhiannon told me the woman and her boyfriend had been in a huge fight out the front on the street, and now she was telling the staff that she didn’t think she could go through with it. She wanted to terminate, he didn’t. He had stormed off and she was worried he would break up with her if she had the ‘procedure’. She was worried a man would break up with her for exercising control over her own body. I was just thinking how relieved I was that I didn’t have to deal with something like that, when my name was called.
Go time.
I was led into a small changing room and given a bag with a paper gown, paper slippers and paper shower cap inside. I was told to change into those, put my clothes in the bag and hang the bag on the hook. Someone would come and get me in five minutes.
Once I had changed, I sat on the bench, waiting. The bench was high, and I felt like a little girl, with my feet swinging above the ground. I was also embarrassed, because I couldn’t reach back far enough to tie the gown together properly. There were two doors – the one I came in through, and one on the other side that I assumed led into the operating theatre. It was so strange, sitting there waiting, nervous and full of adrenalin, feeling small and naked and unable to stop my feet from swinging back and forth. It’s funny that it’s called an operating theatre, because waiting in that little room did remind me so much of waiting to go onstage; crammed into a dark space, full of nervous energy and suddenly so aware of your body, your breath, quietly waiting in the calm before the storm of the brightly lit stage.
The other door opened, and the bright lights of the theatre room hit me. There were about three or four people in there, all in gowns, all with masks over their faces. A nurse took me by the hand and led me to the bed in the middle of the room. I put my legs up in the stirrups. I was given the drugs and I fell asleep.
The next thing I remember is like remembering a dream. I was suddenly very aware of immense pain in my body. It felt like someone was inserting a blunt knitting needle in and out of my vagina. It was being inserted deep, and fast, and I wanted it to stop. I was confused, and I couldn’t open my eyes. I tried to sit up, but someone held me down. A nurse held my hand. I remember her saying over and over, ‘It’s alright, honey. It’s alright. It’s nearly done. It’s nearly done.’
The pain was excruciating. I hate saying that, because I don’t want to scare any woman who makes the choice to abort a pregnancy. But that was my experience. I woke up, I couldn’t move, and I felt like something long, thin and hard was repeatedly being shoved deep into my vagina. It was excruciating.
Then I was sitting in a recliner chair in a different room. I don’t remember how I got there, but my bag of clothes was on a table next to me. There were other women lying in beds and chairs like mine – maybe about five or six in total, all looking as dazed as I’m sure I did. A nurse brought me over some crackers and a glass of juice, and I sat for a while, trying to piece together what had just happened. I looked at the clock: about forty-five minutes had passed. I could remember being in the dark little changing room. I could remember getting on to the bed and putting my feet in the stirrups. I could remember . . . Pain. A lot of pain. I could remember moaning and wanting it to stop. I could remember a nurse holding my hand. And then, in the middle of my confused haze, I suddenly noticed it:
It was gone. The nausea was gone. THE NAUSEA WAS GONE!
My body finally felt like my own again. I stood up, and didn’t keel over with the need to vomit. I had my life back. I changed into my own clothes and went out into the waiting room to meet Rhiannon. I just wanted to get the hell out of there. And I wanted to eat. I wanted to eat a lot of food and I wanted to eat it immediately.
‘Well, where do you want to go?’ asked Rhiannon, clearly a little taken aback at the sudden change in me. I was one person going into that clinic, and a very different person coming out. This person could walk. And eat. This person really wanted to eat.
‘Take me to Cabramatta,’ I said. ‘I really want to make Peking duck pancakes.’
Now, I don’t remember any of what happened next, but the way Rhiannon tells it, I walked around Cabramatta shops like a mad woman, buying all the ingredients to make Peking duck. Then she took me back to Mum’s house, where I proceeded to prepare the duck, talking nonstop the whole time about feeling like I had been raped by a knitting needle while unable to move, before stuffing my face with duck pancakes for ten minutes and promptly falling asleep.
I woke up the next day happier than I had been in a long time. I went back to work cleaning popcorn at the cinema, soon moved into a share-house close to the city and started studying creative writing at university. None of which I could have done if not for my ‘procedure’.
Do I wish it hadn’t happened at all? Of course. Do I wish RU486 had been available at the time? Definitely. Do I wish I had picked the full general anaesthetic over the bullshit ‘you may feel some discomfort’ twilight sedation option? Absolutely.
But I do not regret my abortion at all. AT. ALL. I have never felt sadness, or grief, or even conflicted. I was never ambivalent. I only felt relief. My life today is what it is because I was allowed to make choices about what was best for my body.
I got pregnant. I didn’t want to be. I was in a position to change that. What a privileged position for a woman to be in.
And I never slept on that Masturbating Train Man’s mattress again.
(PS – get the general anaesthetic.)
I’ve only had one abortion.
(Two. I’ve had two.)
I knew it as soon as I got that familiar wave of nausea.
Fuck.
I was pregnant. Again. Less than a year after the first time. And I didn’t have Kate Middleton’s royal vomiting disease this time. In fact, I’d been feeling so normal that I hadn’t even noticed I was pregnant, and I was already twelve weeks.
Fucking shitburgers fuckity shit fuckbag.
I don’t have a lot to say about this one, really. I only bring it up because almost every time I’ve read a personal story about abortion, it involves being emotionally scarred beyond repair, and it also only involves going through it once. It’s almost like you’re allowed to talk about it, but only if it was a one-off event that you will never forget and about which you will be tormented for the rest of your days. That is the price of admission for telling your story. Safe, legal and rare, remember? One is forgivable, but two? You’re pushing it. You’re taking advantage of the system feminists fought hard to protect. You’re a slutty whore from whoresville making us all look bad.
Well, I am the slutty whore from whoresville making us all look bad.
Yes, I felt like an idiot at th
e time, but I’m not paying the ‘shame’ price of admission to tell this story. I’ve had two abortions and I wasn’t emotionally scarred by either of them. It may not be the story people like to hear, but I’m still allowed to tell it. Because while I completely understand and empathise with the women who did struggle, and continue to struggle, with their choice to terminate, I know there are just as many women like me. Women who have felt nothing but relief. Women who have had more than one. Women who feel guilty that they don’t feel guilty enough. Those women have stories too. And I rarely hear them. So:
I’ve had two abortions, and I regret neither.
(PS – the second time, I got the general anaesthetic.)
‘Wait, Josephine . . . I’m, um . . . Wait.’ My brain was trying to change reality through . . . what? A stalling tactic? C’mon, Rosie. ‘What happened?’ I asked.
‘We’re not totally sure yet, details are still coming through from Austin. But Sarina talked to someone there last night.’
Oh god. His sister, Sarina. His family. His Griffith.
‘It looks like he was swimming by himself, and he had a seizure and he drowned.’
‘Are you sure? I mean, are you sure?’
‘Apparently a nurse walked by the pool at his apartment complex and saw him floating there and pulled him out and revived him, but he died later at the hospital.’
‘I . . . He had told me about a seizure a few weeks ago, but he said it was . . . I’m so sorry, Josephine. I’m so, so sorry.’
We talked for about another ten minutes, having a bizarrely logical conversation about details and plans, in which neither of us cried. Crying would make it real, and I still wasn’t convinced that it was. Plus, there was a job to do – I needed to contact all of Tony’s non-Griffith friends and tell them what had happened. His family didn’t want anybody close to him finding out on social media, so I offered to make the calls. I didn’t know how else I could help, but that was one thing I could do.
Every Lie I've Ever Told Page 5