Voluntary Interruptions

1. It was no big deal!

I want to tell you about my abortion because, listen, maybe you need to hear about it.

I mean yeah, it’s a big deal. Of course abortions are a big deal!

I’m not trying to minimize anything you’re going through or anything you’ve gone through.

What I’m saying is this. I know they’re “taboo” but they shouldn’t be. Because we can talk about our right to have them, so why can’t we talk about the personal experience of having had them?

We can talk about this! I had one and lots of other women have, probably your mother or your aunt or your best friend and maybe even you. And maybe you haven’t, but you can, too! Really you can, I won’t judge you.

2. It was painful.

I cried a lot. I listened to Icelandic electronica in my bedroom, which was not my bedroom because I was studying abroad in France. I remember the bed had a very frilly duvet and it was low to the ground. It was the room of a little girl whose mother had not wanted her to grow up.

I missed my mother but I could not tell her because she was already suffering from depression. I thought if I told her she’d unravel. I thought if I told her I’d be the thing that tipped the scales and sent her spiraling. And I thought it would be terrifying, too painful, to tell her and hear that distance in her voice that came with her depression as she tried meekly to comfort me.

Everyone and everything felt too far away from me.

I cried and I prayed and I told the baby I loved her. I knew it was a girl. Not from the sonogram which I had. I heard the heartbeat. I saw the shape of her head. No one told me she was a girl. I could just feel it. She was the little girl I thought about having when I was a little girl. I cried because I knew how much I would love her. How much I already did. So then I told her. I told her I love you I love you I love you so so much but not yet. I can’t have you yet, but it doesn’t mean I don’t love you.

3. It was actually kind of funny.

My French teacher, Ms. K, who I did not like and did not tell, forced her way into the residential coordinator’s office the afternoon that I told her. When I asked Ms. S, why did you tell her? She said, “She insisted, Nayomi. What could I do?” And the wide-eyed look on her face made me laugh and I forgave her because I could really see that to her it was no different from sharing details of your life with a nosy relative at Thanksgiving. They won’t walk away until you’ve given them some meat, a little blood. What can you do?

So Ms. K insisted she would accompany me to the hospital to make my appointment. And we, the students and staff, had all taken an oath to speak French and only French for the duration of the program. And she honored it. She asked me how I was feeling, she consoled me, as best a robot could, in French. I filled out papers, I got through it as quickly as I could. She talked incessantly and then paused as if to say, your turn, practice your French.

After we made the appointment we waited for the metro back to central Paris. I stood on the platform trying to figure out whether I was saying the word for crying or raining and hating this woman just long enough to stop hating myself. Who crashes an abortion? I thought.

Then, the day of, in the operating room when I was really feeling panicked, this guy popped into the room all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

“Bonjour! Je suis l’interne!”

Hello, I’m the intern.

The fucking intern. There was a fucking intern and he couldn’t wait to learn all about abortion and my vagina was the classroom! I started to cry and the anesthesiologist said “La pauvre, elle ne comprend pas la langue…” Poor thing, she doesn’t understand the language. Which set me off in a rage and I told them in French of course I understand you, this is a difficult situation and I’m far away from home and I’m stressed out because that is a normal response to have to all of this. Then they gave me the drugs and I knocked out.

4. I was lucky.

I was so so lucky. I was in France, but I had family there: an uncle, who took me to the hospital for the procedure, who my friends made googly eyes at before whisking me to McDonalds so they could gush he was so handsome.

I had friends. Really good friends like Maria who has a way of making you feel like absolutely everything you’ve ever done wrong is okay. And Brooke who comforted me with tales of her midwestern mother’s abortion, before being married to her then boyfriend. Who told me her mom wanted me to know I would be okay, that I could go on to have five kids like her.

I had my uncle’s wife who told me about her own abortion, following an ectopic pregnancy, a baby she wanted but could not have. She promised the drugs would feel terrific and never ever made me feel judged, because she likened her experience to mine. It was necessary. That was all.

I had my baby cousin, an adorable two-year-old who giggled and ran toward me one day in the park arms outstretched and distracted me from sadness with a sea of endless love.

And I had my grandmother who made me tea and insisted I stay at her home the following weekend and never questioned except to ask, How are you feeling, any better today?

5. It made me feel strong.

My aunt-in-law was right. The drugs were some serious stuff. I woke up from it all, in la salle de reveille (the room of waking up) and I thought that was funny, because really, it had passed like a bad dream, and in so many ways I finally felt awake. A handsome doctor named Yann asked me to rate my pain from 1 to 10. What pain? I asked him. He laughed and insisted on a number for my chart so I said 1 and laughed, because really I’d never felt better.

Hours later, in my hospital room, while I waited to be discharged one of my best friends came to visit and he laughed. “Well you seem great.” “Like a new woman,” I beamed. “I have never felt better!

Then the nurse came to remove my IV. I momentarily cringed and asked her if it would hurt. “Would you prefer I leave it in?” she asked. I laughed. “No, I want you to take it out.” And then I laughed some more, at myself, for still being afraid of small things even after facing the big thing.

6. It was a very big deal and I felt very, very ashamed.

When I took the test, alone in my uncle’s apartment, while he was away for a weekend, I thought immediately, How could you be so stupid?

When I called my dad for money, he was the one who released me from my shame. Because these things happen all the time, he told me, even when women are extremely careful. He was giving me that out: It’s not your fault, and you were probably so so careful my beautiful smart girl. I was grateful for the kindness of that thought. Because I hadn’t been. I had been sloppy and careless and I felt so so dumb. But he did not hate me. He did not shame me. There was no trace of scolding in his tone.

And then, very quickly, it was over. Cigarettes and wine tasted fine again and I carried no nauseating self-judgements in my gut. But somewhere beneath, buried deeper, I was carrying my shame like an ugly keepsake. That thing you insisted you needed in the gift shop, that you didn’t need. That purposeless memento that has no use in your real life when you get home, so you tuck it in a drawer because you can’t throw it away because it’s yours. You chose it and held it and now it belongs to you.

I had intended to stay abroad in France the whole year, but I went home. I’d made the plans right before my abortion. And once it was over I found other reasons why I couldn’t stay. Money. Credits for my Creative Writing major. But the truth is I would have given anything to stay. I wanted so badly for my secret to be okay.

On my last night in Paris, I went out with my friends to a big club where they played euro-electro-dance-house and we danced. I kissed Maria on the mouth. I got drunk. I confessed my abortion to an acquaintance and she confessed that she already knew. Kind of like, no big deal. Hey, it’s okay. And my stomach twisted into a thick knot and stayed that way for the whole trip home. Because I wished I had known that it was already really and truly okay.

I still wish I had stayed.

7. It was not an abortion.

If you have an abortion in France, they do not call it an abortion. The direct translation for that would be avortement. Instead, they call it a voluntary interruption of pregnancy — interromption volontaire de grossesse, or IVG for short.

As if to say, this does not have to be an ending. It could be a hiccup, a pause. But mostly it says, It’s your choice, mademoiselle. It is voluntary. It is what you want and it is what you want it to be.