Prenatal Judgment

At the time, I denied worrying about judgment. I said it was my body, my choice, and the fact that I had blazed my twin pregnancy on the internet had no bearing on whether I would abort the “defective” fetus. That was a lie. I shouldn’t have had to worry, but I did.

I was worried, sad, scared, and pissed. Upon learning that the $5,000 selective reduction procedure was not covered by my insurance, I blogged:

I picture the white-haired, conservative Christian senator who I’m sure stuck his dick right in the bill governing what’s covered and what’s not for state employees. “It’s a chiiiiild, not a choice,” I hear him say in my mind. Fuck that guy. That guy who’s never been, and could never be, in this position.

But am I considering selective reduction anyway?

I’m startled to find that I am. I was so sure after the first trimester screening, when it was still hypothetical, that I would just have a Down syndrome baby. Now, I think about the challenges—emotional, physical, financial—and I don’t know.

I don’t know.

Maybe?

Yes.

Yes, I am.

I was. And I was less equivocal than I made it seem. At first, I was desperate to abort Twin A. Over the next couple weeks, things shifted some. I was leaning toward continuing the pregnancy. Part of it was still fear of judgment. The other part was some combination of not having five grand, delusion, and my mom’s reassurance that I would love the baby. 

It baffles me now. The love I feel for Arlo is probably the least complicated love I’ve ever felt. I love Patrick, of course–truly, madly, deeply. I’d take a bullet for him. But his favorite pastime is arguing with me about uncontroversial topics. I just want to love each other and not fight all the time, but right now we love each other and fight all the time. And as much as I’d like to blame his character flaws on the donor, it’s pretty clear he’s my mini-me, and there’s something uniquely irksome about seeing your faults in another person, particularly one you gestated. It’s complicated.

Anyway, Arlo’s first years were difficult, with the surgeries and the feeding issues and whatnot, but once all that got wrapped up (knock wood), loving him became the easiest thing I do every day. Not that I didn’t love him ages 0-3–don’t be an asshole. You know what I mean. But for the last 4½ years, it’s like the only thing on our shared to-do list is love each other. At the school door every morning, he turns back and puckers up for a goodbye smooch; when the bus drops him at home, he spreads his hands, and says, “Mamaaaaaaa!” as if we’re reuniting after a year. He frequently and randomly forms an L with his hand (his approximation of the sign) and says, “Ah lulloo, mama.” I make an L with my pinkie up and say, “I love you too, Arlo.” He says, “Ah lulloo *oo, mama,” clicking the ‘t,’ and I say, “I love you too, Arlo.” We go back and forth like that a few times. He is a better person than I am, and I often feel utterly undeserving.

So how do I explain my ferociously pro-choice stance? After all, I almost feel bad for parents who don’t have a kid with Down syndrome. Iceland and Denmark have practically eradicated trisomy-21 by terminating “deformed” fetuses found on prenatal screenings, and I think, how terribly sad. 

But I don’t judge them. I still believe in bodily autonomy. I think pregnant people should be able to say exactly if and when they carry and bear children. It’s unfortunate that those people will probably never know an Arlo in their lifetimes, but Arlo was my choice before he was my child. Even though I was afraid, I did choose him. I could’ve had that selective reduction. To avoid judgment, I could’ve told people–“I lost Twin A.” Semantics. Five grand? I have an IRA I started when I was 20. Even with the penalty for early withdrawal, the distribution would’ve covered it. 

And it was all moot once my mom said, of me and my siblings, “I love you three equally and in very different ways. I imagine it’ll be the same for you with the twins.” I didn’t know then, but that was it–the moment I chose Arlo.

For a year or two after their birth, I told people, “I’d have another kid if I met a partner who wanted to have one together.” And then, on a certain day I couldn’t point to on a calendar now, my mind took brick and mortar to that door. I was done. If a paramour wanted a baby together, we could get a dog, or maybe a chinchilla, but any zygote that somehow nestled against my uterine wall would’ve been aborted. 

That’s the main thing, isn’t it? Most people have abortions not because they don’t want that particular baby but because they don’t want a baby at all. Some are too young or too poor; many just don’t want to be mothers; and of course, the majority of women who have abortions are mothers. Like me, they just don’t want any more kids.

And now, Roe v. Wade is going to be overturned. [Ed. note: Post published before SCOTUS decision.] Nearly half the states have trigger laws, which will immediately make it impossible, or nearly so, to end a pregnancy.

At 46 years old, my uterus is likely to shake a fist and yell, “Get off my lawn,” to any egg with a dream and a prayer. Moreover, if I went the rest of my life without interacting with another penis, that’d be okey-dokey-artichokey with me. This legal change will not affect my womb, but I am terrified. For my nieces. For my students. For every person who doesn’t want to have a kid, even an Arlo. For our country which seems to be going in a direction we on the left had nightmared. This very much feels like a slippery slope.

I don’t know when I, as a slowly boiling frog, will decide to jump out of the American pot, but it seems like it could be sooner, rather than later. I speak Spanish, and I used to be fluent in Italian–I could get it back. Maybe learn French or German or Swedish? Perhaps we’ll move to Iceland. Let them see what they’re missing. 

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