Blog for choice day

[boxofdelights]

This is a painful anniversary for me. Nineteen years + one week ago, I was nearing the end of my first pregnancy. I was fretting over the phrase, "An active baby is a healthy baby," because my baby was not moving as much as he used to. I told my doctor that at each of the previous two visits. Each time, he listened to the baby's heartbeat for fifteen seconds, and told me the baby was fine.

January 17, 1991, I had what I now recognize as a high blood pressure spike, followed by a migraine. I think that was when my baby died. January 18 I learned that the baby was dead. January 21 I checked into the hospital for induction of labor. January 22, I had had a baby, but I didn't have a baby.

I was so bewildered, that week. None of the reading I had done -- and, you know, I read a lot -- was helpful. The only relevant sentence I found was in Our Bodies, Ourselves: fetal death in the first two trimesters was called miscarriage, but in the last trimester, when the fetus was viable, it was a stillbirth. That helped: what I was about to have was called a stillbirth. My childbirth prep instructor was helpful, but she didn't know any more than I did how my situation differed from a normal labor and delivery. My doctor (Steven Tippin, M.D., family practitioner and liar) told me that an induced labor and delivery was safest for me.

I don't know whether Dr. Tippin was lying or just ignorant. I know he lied to me about other things, during and after the procedure, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he was telling me falsehoods without even knowing that they were false.

The truth is that the safest procedure, for my life and my future fertility, would have been a D&E, dilation and evacuation, what the ignorant authoritarian fundamentalist assholes who killed Dr. Tiller call "partial birth abortion".

Now, if I had been given all the information and allowed to make an informed choice, I probably would have chosen something similar to what I actually endured, because I hate hate hate being interfered with. Nevertheless, I am furious that some ignorant authoritarian fundamentalist asshole decided that I did not need to be informed or to consent, because he knew what was best.

And all you ignorant authoritarian fundamentalist assholes who want to base the law of the land on your fantasy of lazy crazy sluts who can't be bothered to have a baby and can't be bothered to get an abortion before the third trimester: the terrorism you endorse has no effect on your fantasy sluts, but it has real, life-altering, permanent effects on people like me.

Comments

[oursin]

I am so very sorry to hear that you had to go through all that and that there was so much ignorance, misunderstanding and downright falsehood.

[laughingrat]

Thank you for posting this.

[wild_irises]

Word.

[aquaeri]

Thank you for writing about your experience.

[eeyorerin]

I am sorry for your loss and angry on your behalf.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

no words, hon. but i read this.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Thank you for such a brave post. I can't imagine what you went through, but join you in hoping for a time when no one else will have to.

[toad-hall.livejournal.com]

I am so sorry.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I am so sorry.

[wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com]

What a heartbreaking story. I am so sorry. And I agree completely.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this post. I was horrified when I discovered a few years ago that so-called "partial birth abortion" (a term we don't have here) refers to removal of a baby that is already dead. I cannot understand how any crazy religious fundamentalists would think it better for a woman's mental health that she continues to carry a dead baby, or that she is forced to give birth in the same way as if for a live baby.

I'm sorry for your loss and for the insensitivity of the doctor, and glad that you had and have two living children.

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

Fwiw, it does not always refer to removal of stillborn fetuses. It has, on very rare occasions, been used on still-alive ones. But almost never on *viable* ones.

I read one testimony from a couple whose child had severe trisomy 18, spina bifida and several other issues that meant that the fetus was not viable outside the womb for more than a couple of days, tops, more likely hours or less. This couple was given the option of a D & X or a D & C (the more usual method of late-term abortion, in which the fetus has to be taken apart before extraction). They chose the D & X because this had been a very much wanted child, and they wanted the opportunity to hold her and say goodbye. Until that time I had been on the fence about D & Xs, but that made me change my mind about it.

[bunnyjadwiga.livejournal.com]

The supreme court decision in the case covered only the situation in which the baby was NOT dead, or could not be accurately determined to be dead. The doctors who testified admitted that euthanasia could be administered to the fetus before evacuation, but felt that it was for some reason not appropriate to provide euthanasia before beginning the extraction.

Can you tell me where the information that removal of a naturally deceased (as opposed to euthanized) fetus is considered a partial-birth abortion comes from? I'm appalled that people are saying this, but I haven't found something that indicates this.

At a certain point in a pregnancy, when the baby has reached a certain size, D&E is no longer appropriate because of the size/shape of the uterus.

[pennski.livejournal.com]

I am so sorry for your loss and that your choices were taken away from you. I am grateful that you have posted this.

[minniethemoocha.livejournal.com]

I am so angry on your behalf. And for women who go through this bullshit because of the cruelty of ignorant authoritarian fundamentalist assholes who want to control the entire world.

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

I am so sorry. One of my other friends also lost a baby very near term, and I know what a devastating experience that was for her. I also have a strong hatred of know-it-all doctors and being medically interfered with.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

I am sorry and furious.

[loligo.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry, and thank you for posting about this.

[lookfar.livejournal.com]

What a terrible, sad story, and I'm sorry that these political things bring it so keenly to mind.

[rozasharn.livejournal.com]

Sympathies, and thank you for posting so clearly.

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

Thank you for telling us your story.

Yeah, still furious; even less likely to stop feeling furious, now.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

Thank you for writing this so clearly.

(And I know it's a long time ago, but things linger; I'm sorry for your loss.)

[bunnyjadwiga.livejournal.com]

I am incredibly sorry for your loss.

I think it's crazy that anyone would consider the removal of a fetus diagnosed as dead to be a partial-birth abortion.