Abort Mission - Part III
In Part II, our narrator tells the woman they’re seeing about the pregnancy, and though initially supportive, she says she needs some space. Our narrator subsequently tells their mother about the pregnancy, and their mother decides she’ll come to help her the day of the abortion.
We took the G to the N to Planned Parenthood. It was hard to find, in a nondescript office block, which was probably precisely the point. As we approached the door, she stopped me to give me a hug. She typically wasn’t much of a hugger, but this one lingered. In it, I could feel her nerves, her discomfort, the weight of both judgment, acceptance, and all the other words that would be left unsaid.
I will let you do your thing and I’ll go for a walk in the area.
I was surprised. You don’t want to come up? I asked.
It’s okay.
I realized now that being actually inside Planned Parenthood was most likely a step too much to ask of my mother. Nonetheless, she had taken me this far. It was more support than I could have ever have imagined from her, and for that, I was grateful.
Maybe I’ll go pick some things up over there at Sephora. She pointed across the road.
The incongruence of these activities–me terminating a pregnancy, my mother on a neighborhood stroll and trip to Sephora–initially stunned me, but that is life. There will always be stacks of people experiencing monumental life moments, while others engage in the mundane.
Okay, wish me luck.
She squeezed my hand, then waved me off as I entered the building.
When I entered, there was no desk to ask questions, nor any signs to guide you to your destination, likely intentionally, to keep away the anti-choice folk who may otherwise cause nuisance and disruption to those of us otherwise just accessing healthcare.
I pulled up my appointment email on my phone. 14th floor. I took the elevator straight up, and was met by a butch security guard with tattoos spilling out the bottom of her sleeves. She stood next to the kind of metal detector they have at airport security. The whole scene felt intimidating. I began to wonder why I hadn’t thought it through more… I guess I never really do.
I placed the contents of my pocket in a small tray and was asked to remove my belt.
Can I bring in my water bottle?
You can bring that through honey. This isn’t an airport. We’re just checking for metal. Step this way.
I walked through the scanner, and she gave me a nod that I could retrieve my items. I wondered why they have these metal detectors. I could have asked the nice security lady, but instead I pulled out my phone and typed in ‘why metal detectors at Planned Parenthood’.
Planned Parenthood has faced a long history of attacks, including shootings, bombings, and clinic blockades. Beyond metal detectors, Planned Parenthood facilities often employ other security measures, such as bulletproof glass, security guards, and safe rooms. The increase in security measures, including metal detectors, is a direct response to these threats and acts of violence.
I instantly wished I hadn’t googled it. I walked through to a decently sized waiting room, with the expected sterile white lightning. There were six rows of plastic seats, the kind that are all attached to one another. I looked around, trying to figure out where to go next.
Next! a lady at the reception desk to the right called out.
I slid my phone into my pocket and walked towards her.
ID please, she said, holding out her hand. She had her nails all long and pink, filed to a sharp point. They looked like they could stab a bitch.
She asked me for my name and pronouns. I was so positively surprised about the pronouns part, I almost forgot my name. Right on Planned Parenthood, I thought. Right on.
I filled out the forms, took a seat in the waiting room and began scanning the room. There was the woman with the bright red hair up in a messy bun wearing a grey and black striped t-shirt picking at her nails. There was the mum in the dark faded denim jacket and leggings, whose toddler was sitting to her left, playing with all the condoms in the glass fishbowl as if they were Legos. To the right there was another person in dark green jorts past the knee who I instantly clocked as queer. We locked eyes and gave each other the nod. Queer sees queer, of course.
The energy in the room affronted me, coming from all directions–happiness, sadness, shame, pain, the lot. I couldn’t help but think about how this could be the worst day of someone’s life, while for others, they may just be here for a routine pap smear. The duality of it all got me deep in my thoughts, swirling round my brain.
A few minutes later, a nurse in jeans and a long white coat called out my name. She got the pronunciation wrong, of course, but it’s to be expected.
I got up and followed her down the long clinical hallway to a room with a bed in the middle. She gestured me in. She sat down at her desk in front of a small monitor, introduced herself, and confirmed my name, this time pronouncing it differently–still wrong, but differently.
She asked my date of birth and when I had my last period. When I told her I wasn’t sure, she said that a rough estimate was fine. I grabbed my phone again and clicked on the calendar app, and then scrolled through the days. I’m not sure why I did that. I knew that I didn’t record my periods. I knew people did that, but I was never too sure why. Now I knew why. Instead, I thought back to the party where I’d met the guy and remembered that it was at the last Summer Session party of the year, so I guessed that maybe my period was a few weeks before that. I picked a random date, estimating it might put me towards the start of August. She made a few extra clicks of her mouse, then pushed herself away from the desk, as her office chair was propelled towards me.
She asked me a few more questions, then asked me to pull up my sweater.
She grabbed a plastic rod looking item which was plugged into a square monitor-type device next to the side of the bed. She asked if I wanted to see the screen, or if I’d prefer if she turned it away. I said it was fine as is. She told me she was going to now press the rod to my stomach. I nodded, and she went ahead. A black and white picture that looked like a dark cave with white ridges popped up on the screen.
What about the jelly stuff? I said.
So you’ve watched the movies? She said, without turning away from the monitor. We don’t need to use the jelly anymore, unless you want to? She looked back at me.
I mean, sure. I said, wanting the full experience Hollywood had promised me.
She picked up a bottle that looked dubiously similar to lube, and squeezed it directly onto the head of the device.
Be warned, it’s a little cold. She said, touching it to my belly. I instinctively tensed up at the feel of it. She told me to take a deep breath, so I did. As I breathed out, she used the object to push down onto my lower abdomen, and the patch of skin right above my pubes, then back up again towards the top, near where my bottom ribs were. She let out a quiet “hmmf.”
Everything okay? I asked.
It’s fine. I just…Her voice trailed off, as she kept moving the device around my stomach, with increasing pressure. It was getting quite uncomfortable now.
Sorry, what? I said.
It’s just…I don’t seem to be able to see anything just yet. When did you take a test?
A couple of weeks ago. I took a bunch of them. They were all positive. Do you think they were false alarms? My heartbeat quickened.
Even though I had essentially been reciting to myself for the last 2 weeks how this was in no way a child and just a bundle of bullshit cells, a wave of relief washed over me. What if I actually wasn’t pregnant at all? Maybe I’d fucked up and read the lines wrong, or used the sticks upside down or something, making them defunct. That did sound like something I’d do. Maybe this was all a strange fever dream. Maybe I really was just glowing after all from the new Korean skincare I’d been using.
I’m going to have to go in vaginally. Is that ok? I nodded. She told me it might be a little cold.
She opened a condom, rolling it onto a long dildo-like device attached by a wire to her screen and squeezed a highly generous amount of the same goopy jelly onto it.
Deep breath in for me, she said. I did as I was told. She plunged the lubey scepter into me. I winced slightly. I hadn’t had something inside of me since that night. At least this time, if the condom broke the consequences would be lesser.
A few seconds later, she breathed a sigh of relief. She pointed at the screen. The cave-like image started to look more like the general shape of what I would have expected from an ultrasound. My heart dropped.
There we go.
I squinted at the screen and saw not much of anything really, but apparently, it was something to her. She pointed at what looked like nothing more than a small oblong bean.
At least I wasn’t gaslighting myself any longer. Turns out I hadn’t in fact fumbled all of the pregnancy tests. I was simultaneously both happy and sad to learn this. I asked her why she couldn’t see it before.
Gas.
Great, I thought.
She pulled the thing out of me, which is exactly what I wished that guy had done. It felt weird and clinical and I’m pretty sure I dissociated a little. She didn’t seem to notice as she threw the condom in the bin and turned back to the monitor.
Can I ask you a question? I asked.
Sure, she said.
I used a condom and took Plan B that night. I’m quite shocked that I still got…you know…pregnant. Is that normal?
She told me that I had sex during my ovulation period. Noticing my furrowed brow, she pointed to a fertility wheel plastered to the wall.
It’s the time during your cycle when you’re most fertile, she said. I looked at her blankly. Sex education in this country really is abysmal, she said. I told her I grew up abroad. Same difference, she said. You really should track your cycles better. It’s important.
I, having never tracked my cycles and feeling exposed that she clearly knew my phone calendar act was nothing more than sheer performance, nodded.
All done here, you can head back now.
Wait, but what about the abortion?
No, no that comes later. This was just the first screening.
Perplexed, I hopped off the bed and headed back to the waiting room. Some of the original faces were still there, plus a few more that had just arrived. The seat I was in before was still free so I sat down.
There was a new girl sitting there in a bright orange wig with a thick black headband across the crown of her head. She was biting her nails, her feet tapping.
Come here often? I asked, casually, as if this were a totally normal situation. Like if in a club or something. I was hoping it might lighten the mood, but instead she sent me daggers.
Nevermind. I opened my messages, and responded to a “good luck today” message from the Roomies chat with thumbs up, then added the emoji of the blonde girl with her arms in the X sign, next to the emoji of the same girl with the side profile pregnancy bump, with the emoji of the baby with the single curl on its forehead.
First time? a woman with copper highlights I previously hadn’t noticed sitting right behind the orange-haired girlie asked me. I nodded.
It’s my fifth time.
Fifth? Messy bun said, spinning around to join the conversation. I thought me being here a third time was three too many times. Damn girl, you got any other social life? They not giving out coupons now are they?!
What can I say, I’m a lover, she said, somewhat proudly tusking under her breath, and crossing her legs.
You’ve been enabled, you know that right? Messy bun said, looking at copper highlights dead in the eye. It’s actually so unfair how women–
–And all birthing folks!–green jorts in the corner piped up, voice cracking, tucking a curtain bang behind the ear.
Tell me about it, I cried during my HPV biopsy. It’s just so fucking unfair, I said.
River? The nurse called out. Green jorts got up.
Of course that’s their name, I thought to myself. Doesn’t get more gender-queer than an inanimate body of water. I smiled to myself.
I looked back at my phone, doing my usual routine of switching between IG, Tinder, iMessage, Gmail, WhatsApp and then starting the cycle again back at IG. My unofficial app routine.
In that moment, I wished I had told the inseminator (as I personally chose to refer to the man who got me pregnant). I had never told him. H had suggested I did, just so he knew, but I didn’t want to. He didn’t need to know. It was my body, my choice–right? Even though I knew that I couldn't rationally blame him for not texting me today on abortion day given he genuinely didn’t know about it, it didn’t make me feel any better.
What a piece of shit, I said to myself but really to him. I knew it wasn’t fair, but none of this was fair, so I said it anyway.
As if in response to my muttering, my name was called. I went in for blood. Apparently, since I’d passed the eight-week mark, there were now more risks to the pregnancy and the fetus may have infected my bloodstream. I cursed my mother under my breath. What, the nurse asked. Nothing, I said.
Of course, pushing my appointment a week later to accommodate my mother’s mahjong party meant that I was now in a higher bracket, or tier as you will, meaning I was now exposed to a shitload of other issues. As the nurse took my blood, I looked the other way and cursed.
I was sent back to the waiting room again, my orange haired queen no longer there, but a few new cast members seemed to have joined. I smiled at them, still holding the cotton ball to the crook of my elbow.
My ass cheek had barely even touched the chair before they called my name again. This time I entered a room where there was someone already sitting. This time, not in an office chair, but in a tattered beige armchair. She wasn’t in a lab coat, and she didn’t even have a name badge like the other nurses. She looked more like someone I would have seen sitting out in the waiting room–a civilian almost, like the rest of us. She was wearing a dark pink knitted sweater. It looked homemade, with a loose piece of yarn poking out the bottom. Either that, or it was just a poorly made item. I chose to believe it was the former. She looked Asian, maybe even mixed, just like me.
She pointed to the matching armchair opposite her. I had nearly forgotten where I was.
Take a seat, she said, a peaceful tone to her voice, and an accent I couldn’t quite place.
Thanks, I said, sinking into the well-used chair. What step is this now? The cozy corner step?
I just want to check in with you… emotionally. She smiled. How are you, and how are you feeling about this journey?
Just as I was about to answer, she cut me off.
And do you have any questions for me?
Ultimately, I had been feeling like I was following the motions, treating the whole situation as more of an admin issue, a hassle more than anything.
I do, maybe, sort of want to have a baby one day, if it makes sense. But now just isn’t that time, I said. She nodded.
It just sucks that because I had sex with one penis once, I now have to spend the entire day in a stupid Planned Parenthood getting an abortion. I threw up my hands.
Sorry–I don’t mean Planned Parenthood is stupid, you guys actually do really incredible work, but you know what I mean.
She nodded, with feigned understanding. I was well aware I was probably her twentieth client of the day, and that she did this day in and day out.
Are you one hundred percent sure you want to go through with the abortion today? She asked me.
Yes, I said, without missing a beat.
In that moment I realized that she was there to check the emotion box, to make sure I wasn’t doing anything I was forced into, or anything I’d regret. I suspect, like most things in this country, for legal purposes.
She then passed me a clipboard with a piece of paper with a seemingly endless list of contraceptives, an a-la-carte menu of sorts. Ones I’d heard of and ones I hadn’t. She technically didn’t force a method upon me, but she strongly recommended that I didn’t leave the office without picking one. I thought about Copper Highlights in the waiting room and picked one.
Good choice. She said, retrieving the clipboard.
Yay. My praise kink was satisfied, even though I’m sure she would have said it regardless of my choice.
Any other questions about the process? She said, clicking her pen.
Nope, I said, desperate to just leave this room and get on with it.
She stood up, and opened the door.
You know where you’re going, right? I nodded.
After all that, I was spat back out to the waiting room. I hated how many stages there were of this whole drawn out ideal, but I guess the only silver lining was that at least I was starting to feel at home amidst some familiar faces.
The seat I’d been sitting in throughout the day was now taken by a woman around my mother's age. I noticed that she was wearing a necklace with the little charms of stick people on it–the kind of necklace where you add a new charm to represent each of their kids. In that moment I realized how the mainstream media warps our senses of reality, to assume that only reckless young “girls” get abortions, which couldn’t be further from the truth, that people of all ages, at all stages of life may choose to terminate a pregnancy, and for a whole host of different reasons. It comforted me to know this.
To be continued…
Ly Rosengard (they/them) is a queer, non-binary, Chinese-English Londoner living in Brooklyn (another one!). Ly is a writer of prose, poetry and recently scripts. By day, Ly is a LGBTQIA+ human rights advocate, by night, they are a writer obsessed with the intersection of mental health & mental illness, queerness, friendship, love, and people power. Ly is currently working on a novel, short stories & a documentary on eroticism, comradeship & the BIPOC queer and trans kink scene here in New York. They’re also working on The Mental, a substack of candid conversations about lived experiences of mental health & mental illness. Ly has been published by The Independent, The Times, Third Place Zine (forthcoming), and published poetry in Chronicles of Pride. Ly has had support from Kenyon Review Writers Workshop (2024) and Tin House (2024). Lily holds a BA in Philosophy & Religion from the University of Cambridge, and an MA in Human Rights from University College London.
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