Moving Forward

We weathered a busy weekend, full of classes and coursework, and could almost forget that we were still pregnant. At this point, it makes more sense to use the pronoun "we" than "I," because it affects my life companion (too sappy?) every bit as much as it affects me.

The appointed hour came, and we went back to the clinic. This time, the doctor (a different one, though no less warm and friendly) looked over my history briefly, and then proceeded with the ultrasound.

I forgot to ask how many weeks along I am, but I suppose I couldn't be more than 5 weeks. All that was visible in the picture of my uterus (I peeked after it was done) was a dark, ovoid shadow. She said that it was the beginning of a yolk sac. That was all they needed to see to move forward.

I don't know why I'm so obsessed with how large the embryo is right now. I suppose it's because I've seen too many drawings of huge embryos at different stages, and I wonder whether I wouldn't be so dismayed if I knew just how big they were at this stage.

Knowing the date when we first had unprotected sex, I know that the embryo can't be more than five weeks. In fact, it can't be any more than 4 weeks at this point. Any older, and it would have to have been an immaculate conception.

In searching for descriptions of the stages of embryonic development, it's difficult to wade through pro-life websites. It angers me, really, the tactics with the thousand-times-enlarged diagrams of embryos and the base, emotional appeals which place the value of an unknown (for no one really knows for certain whether these beings have souls until they are born) over that of an entire network of existing lives and souls which would be changed forever, regardless of the decision.

Anyhow, I manage to find here that whatever was visible on the ultrasound, it was probably 10 millimeters. 1 centimeter. Entire species have gone extinct without any hue or cry, and there is so much furor over such a small being.

The more emails come in testifying to their authors' unspeakable regret about their choice, the more people write about how I have no right to be making this decision, the more determined I am to prove that this was not a decision made lightly or rashly, to prove that I will not be consumed by grief and regret for the rest of my life, to prove that this is a sacrifice that will not be taken for granted.

As far as I'm concerned, the people who have been through what I am going through and have gone on with their lives confident that they have made the right decision for themselves aren't going to spread their grief around the internet and the world in general because there is no grief to spread. I expect that there is relief and gratitude for a second chance at parenthood the way they intended it to be: planned and welcomed. They don't go around telling people to have abortions the way pro-lifers go around telling people to continue their pregnancies. Why? Because they know that it was a difficult decision to make, and that no one can make it for anyone. And they respect the dignity, intelligence, and right of other women to be able to make the right decision for themselves. If anything else, I would expect that the ones who truly did make the right decisions for themselves in choosing abortion, and who are well-adjusted after the fact, would be even more staunchly pro-choice afterwards.

I'm taking off the email link because there is no point to it. People offer me prayers for my soul which I don't need, when they could be praying for themselves and for an end to starvation, war, pain, and suffering. I will no longer continue to justify myself or the right to choice here. But I do have to admit that those who wrote me email have unwittingly done me a valuable service: they have given me and mine an even stronger determination to live with our decision, and to live well.