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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
For a while, I traded e-mails with a pregnant, terrified 18-year-old. Then she stopped writing, and I'll always wonder.
Mar 19, 2002 | Last autumn, around my seventh week of pregnancy, I roamed the Web searching for palliatives for my mounting morning sickness. I'd already invested in a wrist band, favored by mariners, that pulses a mild shock with metronomic precision. And I'd tried sucking on "Preggie Pops," lavender- and ginger-flavored lollipops that lend one the aspect of an 8-year-old who has just braved a tetanus shot or a raver whose circadian rhythms are off. Neither was very effective.
During my wanderings I found myself on a pregnancy Web site with postings about everything from the now familiar gnawing in my gut to apprehension about amnio to anecdotes about inattentive husbands, stretch marks and unflattering maternity clothes. And then I came across a query from a terrified 18-year-old I'll call Liz. Although she was ostensibly seeking advice about how to quell her debilitating nausea, the subtext screamed more loudly: She did not want to be pregnant.
Liz was writing from a college dorm somewhere in the South. As her prenatal clock kept ticking, she had no idea where to turn. Afraid to confide in her roommate, terrified of her parents, unable to talk to the fellow who'd contributed half the gene pool to the embryo growing in her womb, she had tossed her plaint out to a faceless female claque.
The women who replied gushed with advice and anecdotal remedies -- from ginger tea to wheat thins and oranges -- as well as cheerful exhortations to "hang in there!" until the second trimester. Had the giddy estrogen bath of pregnancy rendered them completely clueless? This girl was panicking. She didn't want to be a mother; her morning sickness was no happy harbinger of better days to come.
Until then, I had never e-mailed anyone I encountered on a message board. My response made no mention of the joys of motherhood and contained no soothing words about how it would all work out. Why would it? Why would a teenager who couldn't even talk to the man with whom she'd had sex suddenly find herself prepared for the most challenging project of her life? But, suddenly and strangely mindful of the zealots depicted in the film "Citizen Ruth," I searched for a way to introduce the "A" word without proselytizing.
I shared with her the fact that I, too, had gotten pregnant while a student at Berkeley, but miscarried before having to take the next step (the abortion was scheduled for the following morning, courtesy of the student health service). "I'm now a couple decades older and thrilled to be pregnant with twins," I wrote. "I think that in the case of both love and motherhood, timing is everything. If this is not the time for you to become a mother, remember that you do have other options." I reminded her that abortion was still safe and legal, and that should she decide not to take this fetus to term, she had many years in which to experience parenthood, perhaps when she had established her place in the world. "I wish you all the best with a truly difficult decision," I concluded, hoping I did not sound glib.
She e-mailed back shortly. "Thank you for your message. I have thought a lot about abortion ... It's kind of funny I used to be one of those people who thought abortion was wrong, but now it seems like the only way. The only problem is finding a place that will do it. Some people say that there [sic] parents will disown them, but in my case they really would ... I could never tell them which means that I could never have the baby. The father and I broke up before I found out, and is now dating someone who used to be my friend. He is 8 years older then [sic] me. I don't know why I dated him. The only reason was because he looks like my favorite celebrity. Which is a great reason to date a person. Thank you for listening to my rabbling [sic], and for not thinking I'm insane for thinking about abortion. You are the only person that I have sent a reply to for this reason. Thank you again."
