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 \u201cdefective\u201d fetus. That was a lie. I shouldn\u2019t have had to worry, but I did.
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I was worried, sad, scared, and pissed<\/em>. Upon learning that the $5,000 selective reduction procedure was not covered by my insurance, I blogged:<\/p>\n\n\n\n I picture the white-haired, conservative Christian senator who I\u2019m sure stuck his dick right in the bill governing what\u2019s covered and what\u2019s not for state employees. \u201cIt’s a <\/em>chiiiiild<\/em><\/strong>, not a <\/em>choice<\/em><\/strong>,\u201d I hear him say in my mind. Fuck that guy. That guy who\u2019s never been, and could never be, in this position.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n But am I considering selective reduction anyway?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m startled to find that I am. I was <\/em>so sure<\/em><\/strong> 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\u2014emotional, physical, financial\u2014and I don\u2019t know.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t know.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Maybe?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, I am.<\/em> I was. And I was less equivocal than I made it seem. At first, I was desperate<\/em> 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\u2019s reassurance that I would love the baby. It baffles me now. The love I feel for Arlo is probably the least complicated love I\u2019ve ever felt. I love Patrick, of course\u2013truly, madly, deeply. I\u2019d 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\u2019d like to blame his character flaws on the donor, it\u2019s pretty clear he\u2019s my mini-me, and there\u2019s something uniquely irksome about seeing your faults in another person, particularly one you gestated. It\u2019s complicated. Anyway, Arlo\u2019s 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\u2019t love him ages 0-3\u2013don\u2019t be an asshole. You know what I mean. But for the last 4\u00bd years, it\u2019s 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, \u201cMamaaaaaaa!\u201d as if we\u2019re reuniting after a year. He frequently and randomly forms an L with his hand (his approximation of the sign) and says, \u201cAh lulloo, mama.\u201d I make an L with my pinkie up and say, \u201cI love you too, Arlo.\u201d He says, \u201cAh lulloo *oo, mama,\u201d clicking the \u2018t,\u2019 and I say, \u201cI love you too, Arlo.\u201d 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\u2019t<\/em> have a kid with Down syndrome. Iceland and Denmark have practically eradicated trisomy-21 by terminating \u201cdeformed\u201d fetuses found on prenatal screenings, and I think, how terribly sad<\/em>. But I don\u2019t 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\u2019s unfortunate that those people will probably never know an Arlo in their lifetimes, but Arlo was my choice<\/em> before he was my child<\/em>. Even though I was afraid, I did choose him. I could\u2019ve had that selective reduction. To avoid judgment, I could\u2019ve told people\u2013\u201cI lost Twin A.\u201d Semantics. Five grand? I have an IRA I started when I was 20. Even with the penalty for early withdrawal, the distribution would\u2019ve covered it. And it was all moot once my mom said, of me and my siblings, \u201cI love you three equally and in very different ways. I imagine it\u2019ll be the same for you with the twins.\u201d I didn\u2019t know then, but that was it\u2013the moment I chose Arlo. For a year or two after their birth, I told people, \u201cI\u2019d have another kid if I met a partner who wanted to have one together.\u201d And then, on a certain day I couldn\u2019t 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\u2019ve been aborted. That\u2019s the main thing, isn\u2019t it? Most people have abortions not because they don\u2019t want that particular<\/em> baby but because they don\u2019t want a baby at all. Some are too young or too poor; many just don\u2019t want to be mothers; and of course, the majority of women who have abortions are <\/em>mothers. Like me, they just don\u2019t 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, \u201cGet off my lawn,\u201d to any egg with a dream and a prayer. Moreover, if I went the rest of my life without interacting with another penis, that\u2019d 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\u2019t 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\u2019t 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\u2013I could get it back. Maybe learn French or German or Swedish? Perhaps we\u2019ll move to Iceland. Let them see what they\u2019re missing. **********<\/p>\n\n\n\n Support me on Patreon<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Or if you just want to buy me coffee, my Venmo is @Amy-Scott-83 (6254).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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 \u201cdefective\u201d fetus. That was a lie. I shouldn\u2019t have had to worry, but I did. I was … Continue reading Prenatal Judgment<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fambly","category-kids-these-days"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9154"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9162,"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9154\/revisions\/9162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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