flipflop_diva

I didn’t have an abortion. At least not by the standards of what most people would consider having an abortion. But I did, along with my husband, willingly and knowingly and decisively abort the life of a viable embryo.

But I was lucky.

No one questioned that decision. No one cast judgement. No one held signs of protest and called me vile names when I walked into the clinic to do it.

I also didn’t have to make the excruciating, heartbreaking decision of whether to do it. For me, it was an easy decision. A no-brainer.

I was lucky. But I also know that if my husband and I hadn’t gone the route we did, we might not have been so lucky.

Almost five and a half years ago now, I got two lines on a pregnancy test. It was one of the happiest days of my life. My husband and I cried and laughed and hugged. We thought about names and dreamed of what life would bring.

Four weeks after the day, I sat in my doctor’s office as she fiddled with buttons on the sonogram machine, and I knew, even before she said the words. She was too quiet, pressing too many buttons.

“I’m sorry,” she finally said. “I’m not finding a heartbeat.”

In a split second, what had been such a happy time was instead devastating. Two weeks later, I had a D&C because the embryo wouldn’t come out on its own — but even though in medical terms that was considered an abortion, that is not the embryo I’m talking about.

Eight months after the D&C and after six months of failing to become pregnant again, my husband and I sat in the office of the man who would become our fertility doctor. We talked, I got an exam, and then we went over options.

In the end, we decided we would do IVF with genetic testing. It was a lot more expensive, but we were already going to be older parents, and we didn’t want to waste a lot of time with embryo transfers that might not work. But more than that, I couldn’t bear the thought of having to suffer through more miscarriages when the first one had been so devastating.

I knew there was no guarantee that a miscarriage wouldn’t happen, even with a normal, viable embryo, but the chance was a lot greater.

Fifty-fifty, the doctor said, and that was the best we could hope for.

Our first round of IVF failed. Four embryos were sent off for genetic testing, and none of them were viable. Too many chromosomes, too few chromosomes. The embryologists didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. Either way, our first chance come and gone.

Our second round of IVF produced six embryos that were sent off for genetic testing. It was one of the longest weeks of our life. Waiting for the phone call. Our last chance. If it didn’t work, we knew that was it.

But this time there was good news on the other end of the line. Two viable embryos, that would one day become Ellie and Riker. But there was also another.

“There is a third viable embryo,” the embryologist said. “But it has an extra chromosome at 13. We call it Trisomy 13, or Patau syndrome.”

She went on to explain that most babies with Patau syndrome were born with major defects — of the brain, the heart, the kidneys — and most didn’t survive past their first birthday, if they even survived more than a few days.

“We can’t destroy viable embryos,” the embryologist said. “We need you to come in and sign a consent to destroy it.”

“Okay,” I said. “Thank you.”

That night, after David and I spent the day celebrating our two normal embryos, I looked up Patau syndrome and read about what it would mean, and David did the same.

We didn’t have to talk about it. We didn’t have to agonize about it. We didn’t have to worry about it. We would never try to bring a baby into the world who would most likely live a life full of pain and then die before they had a first birthday.

So two months later, after we had our first sonogram to confirm that Baby Ellie was in my belly, growing and thriving at seven weeks old, we walked across the parking lot to the building that housed all the frozen embryos.

We told the receptionist our name and waited until an embryologist came out. She handed us a consent form, and we both signed a piece of paper saying it was okay to destroy this viable embryo.

On the form, it said that the embryo was a boy.

She reached into a cooler then and pulled out what looked like a really fancy test tube. She dropped it into an empty mug.

“In a few minutes, it will thaw out,” she told us. “It won’t be able to survive, and then we will dispose of it.” Then she smiled sadly at us. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“Don’t be,” I said, and patted my belly. “We have one right here.”

After that, the embryologist took our little embryo to the back, and we headed out to the car to go home.

We didn’t have to worry about whether we did the right thing. We didn’t have to feel heartbroken. And I didn’t have to recover from a procedure I already had once before. No bleeding, no cramping, no pain.

Because we were lucky. Because we chose to have our embryos tested.

There is a good chance that if we hadn’t tested them that the little embryo with Trisomy 13 would have been implanted. And there is a good chance the transfer would have worked, and the embryo would have developed into a fetus.

And there is a good chance that we would have gone for our anatomy scan at twenty weeks, thinking everything was wonderful and fine, only to discover we had a child that was going to be born with deformities and would probably die not long after.

And if that had happened, if that absolute worst thing had come to pass, we would have had to make a decision. An utterly heartbreaking, devastating decision that no one should have to make but that women do have to make every single day.

But we were lucky. And we didn’t have to do any of that.

But we live in Texas. And it’s scary here now. And I can’t help but think of women forced to carry to term a baby they know is not going to survive for very long. Or women forced to carry to term a baby they don’t want for hundreds of other reasons.

And I know. I can’t just sit on the sidelines anymore. I don’t want to sit on the sidelines anymore.

This isn’t the world I want for my children, for my friends, for any other woman.

I don’t want to just rage against the injustice of it all to my husband. I don’t want to be all talk and no action.

I don’t know exactly where to start, or what I will do, but I think telling stories can be the first step. Because a lot of people have stories, and they deserved to be shared.

You never know when something can happen — to you or to someone you know — but there is always time to step up and try to change the world for the better.

And I do believe, or at least I like to believe, that things can change, that they can be better. Sometimes it’s just a matter of where to start.

Non-fiction.
I've never written about anything even close to political before, but sometimes you need to do what you know is best. And I thought it fit with the prompt for this week, and not just because I live in Texas!

This was written for

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