Traveller

“I am so relieved that I was not forced to be tied to him for the rest of my life for the sake of a baby that neither of us really wanted.”

When I was 28,  I spent two weeks camping in B.C. with my boyfriend and another couple prior to leaving Idaho for a 12-month overseas contract. 

Halfway through the trip, I started feeling nauseous every day, and my buddies all commiserated… oh yeah, it had to have been that tomato, floating in the cooler water, sliced for the sandwiches... 

I was on the pill and being pregnant scarcely crossed my mind.

I arrived at my job far from home, settling into friends, parties, training, and work. 

I’d noticed my breasts were way more tender and swollen than my monthly normal PMS, I had puked up my breakfast more than once, and I’d lost my taste for alcohol. And coffee. Clearly, something was terribly wrong. 

To the clinic I went. I was surprised when Doc Betty said “You, my dear, are QUITE pregnant.” 

Fuck.

I called the boyfriend, we’ll call him T., He was very supportive and offered to do whatever I needed. My first plan was to go to New Zealand, have an abortion, and then return straightaway to my job. 

But first I called a friend who suggested that my remote work outpost might not be the best place to return afterward. So, I decided to tell my boss, quit my job (there goes a year’s worth of income…), and fly to Arizona where T. was living, building skate parks.

I stayed a couple of days in New Zealand waiting for my flight north, trying to find things to eat that didn’t exacerbate the constant nausea and acid reflux. These two physical sensations seemed diametrically opposed, yet were a constant commotion in my body. I’d prided myself for years on my guts of steel, for the fact that I was not a puker. And heartburn? What even IS that? And now, all at once, all the time…

He met me at the airport with flowers.

We were staying in Scottsdale, in a big, dumb house. His boss’s house, I guess. The only books in the entire place were the second volume of James Michener’s Alaska, and a Kelsey Grammer autobiography. 

I went for my abortion my first full morning there. It was a straightforward affair - make the appointment, map the route, find the money - Fast Times at Ridgemont Mutherfuckin’ High-style.

T. took me back to the house of no charm. The nausea and heartburn were immediately gone, and I was giddy about it. 

I thought briefly, I should at least try to make myself feel guilty about being so happy about feeling so much better, because, after all, I had just killed a baby. But it wasn’t its time, and it sure as hell wasn’t mine, and it was just a sack of cells after all, and I just couldn’t make any guilt stick. 

T and I only made it a few more months before breaking up for good, and I headed back to Idaho. 

The reasons for our demise had nothing to do with the abortion – he was hands-down a champ and a gentleman on that front, but I am so relieved that I was not forced to be tied to him for the rest of my life for the sake of a baby that neither of us really wanted. 

I respect women for whom abortion is an emotionally and spiritually fraught decision, but I know now that I could have gone back to my job and been emotionally just fine and finished my year contract and made that money and gone on with the plans I’d made. 

Because frankly, it was no less or more dramatic than getting my wisdom teeth pulled. 

I remain child-free to this day. It is my natural state.