Think of the Children; June 28 2022
Scheduling issues abound! I had no Internet for a while, and then – most importantly – it was my child’s fourth birthday!
There’s a lot on my mind, given… well, everything happening in this world. I wouldn’t be the first, the thousandth person to blog about the Roe vs. Wade overturning in the United States; I also wouldn’t be the first author to talk about the issues of racism in recent queer literature, but more people really should be talking about it. In things that impact me on a personal level, I’ve had my bank account hacked and used for cryptocurrency fraud (there’s a whole investigation being done), neighbours continuing to harass us and stealing our Internet (hence having to switch providers), and declining health.
I’m struggling under the weight of helplessness. Constantly looking for something positive to say. It’s… really hard.
But there are bright spots. Like my kid’s birthday party, which she declared multiple times was the ‘best birthday party ever’. She was wildly spoiled with presents from every single member of my friend group, my family, and myself, and spent a lot of the day of and preceding running around dressed as Sailor Moon or the Yellow Power Ranger. The fact that she exists and is so good is wild to me.
I always said she was a baby on ‘easy mode’, in her first year. The birth was frankly amazing; it was the first time I can remember not being in pain, thanks to the epidural. Labour paled in comparison to menstruation, to the point that the nurses didn’t believe it had started – the exchange was basically like:
Me: Hey, I think I’m in labour.
Nurse: Oh, you’d know if you were in labour.
Me: Okay, well… can you check?
Nurse: We’ll give it an hour. If you still ‘think’ you’re in labour, call me back.
One hour later:
Me: I still think I’m in labour.
Nurse: We can check, I suppose, but – Oh! You’re four centimetres along!
Me: Yeah hence the thinking I’m in labour.
The epidural was quick, and numbed my chronic pain along with the contractions. You may not know, but the actual giving-birth process can take quite a while – I expected it’d be an hour, once the baby was ready to come out. My kid only took twenty-two minutes. They cleaned her off, put her on my chest, and she climbed up to my face. She was the softest, smallest thing I’d ever seen. My pregnancy, which had been utter hell, was over and I felt wonderful.
But that part’s worth mentioning. The pregnancy.
I should never have been pregnant, said the doctors. We went through so much to get me pregnant – lengthy and expensive in-vitro fertilization – and, no exaggeration, it nearly killed me. We went the route we did so I wouldn’t pass on my Ehlers-Danlos, which I was determined not to inflict upon my child via my genetics.
If, somehow, I got pregnant now… I’d be giving birth to a child with a disability, probably dooming them to living well below the poverty line, just like I am.
That’s assuming the child survived to term. I didn’t gain weight, my last pregnancy. My child survived off my body fat, because I literally couldn’t keep down anything I consumed, not even water.
So I very well could die if I got pregnant again. If I went through that again, I don’t know how I’d make it through. I’m on the waitlist to get a hysterectomy, which they happily approved me for based on the fact that I’m trans, and also because I wouldn’t be okay if I got pregnant again.
I’m just one person with extraordinary circumstances, but I would need an abortion.
And frankly, I shouldn’t have to have extraordinary circumstances for that to be valid. Access to safe abortions is a crucial part of healthcare.
So… I’m celebrating my kid more than ever, so grateful that she’s here and healthy and that I can care for her. And knowing that I can continue to care for her, if – somehow – I got pregnant, because I could abort. Stay alive. Give my child all my attention and resources, which I would worry about splitting when I live off a paltry government allowance.
No story this week. This is too important to take away from.
If you have resources to link regarding safe access to abortions, or related information, please drop it in the comments.