The
morning of March 21st was painfully ordinary. I had been assigned
since December to snow removal shift—a special duty during winter time with one
focus: Remove any and all snow that falls on the flightline as quickly as
possible. Due to lack of snow this past season, however, those in charge saw
fit to end snow removal, and I was sent back to my ordinary workplace—my shop.
I’d been back since Monday, having somehow shifted my schedule over the past
four days from night shift to day shift. I was also assigned to the Unit
Fitness Improvement Program—a required program for anyone who has failed a
physical fitness test. I’d been on the program, making slow but steady
progress, since I failed my first ever fitness test in July, last year. This
morning—Friday, March 21st—was the defining morning of my time in
the program. The plan this morning was that I would take a “mock” fitness
assessment—basically, a fitness test that doesn’t get recorded officially, as a
means of measuring whether or not I was ready to take the official test again
and pass it. Upon passing—and I was absolutely certain I would—I would be
scheduled for my official test, which I would then take and pass, and I would
no longer be required to show up every morning at 05:30 to the gym (although my
plan was to continue going for further improvement). I was excited and nervous
at the same time.
Commence
the test! I passed my push-ups and sit-ups without problems! It was time to run
a mile and a half. As I stood after completing sit-ups, however, I felt a
horribly sharp pain in what was undeniably my uterus. My first thought was that
something had gone awry with my Intra-Uterine Device—the lovely little T-shaped
doodad that acted as a contraceptive. The pain was stabbing, but I thought, if
the IUD had moved, then I would simply walk it off so that I could do my run,
finish the test, and have the Unit Fitness Program Manager schedule me for my
official test before the middle of April.
As I
walked, though, I realized something. First, the pain in my uterus was not
abating. Second, trying to jog in order to warm up only made the pain worse. I
began to worry that I wouldn’t be able to run for the test, and would therefore
forfeit the entire thing that morning. What was even worse was that the plan
for Squadron PT that morning was a mile-and-a-half run that involved a very
large hill. If I couldn’t run for my fitness test, only to miraculously recover
to run for PT, how would that look on me? I’d look like I’d pretended pain just
to get out of the fitness test!
The
UFPM came up to the track and I approached him after trying another warm-up lap
with no lessening of pain. He asked if I was ready, so I told him what had
happened and explained that I had already scheduled an appointment with the
medical clinic for the following Monday. I didn’t give him all the details, but
I’d scheduled that appointment because I had been missing periods for a couple
of months and having strange pains on occasion within my uterus. I attributed
these things to a problem with the IUD—not to mention, skipping periods has
been normal since adolescence. What’s more, I was told that a pregnancy test
conducted in January was negative! So, here I was, in the gym with the UFPM,
telling him that I had pain and thought my IUD had moved.
“I’d
rather you be able to run for the PT test. It would be better for you to run
the test than to run for PT with the squadron,” he told me. I completely
agreed—but my uterus didn’t. So, we made a plan. My husband and I would try to
find an opening at the clinic that very morning for me to have the issue looked
at. If that didn’t work, we would go to the ER.
Commence
plan A: Find an appointment at the clinic that morning! This plan failed
miserably. There was absolutely nothing
open—not even for an urgent issue! Talk about useless!
Commence
plan B: To the ER! Now, this plan
panned out. Randy drove me straight to the Bitburg hospital and we walked into
the ER area and found a nurse. She didn’t really speak English, which left me
to figure out how to tell her I had uterine pain… in German. It involved a lot
of gesturing, but the nurse managed to get the gist of what I was saying and
directed me, with some pointing and a little repetition of the word, to “Gynäkologie.”
At least I understood that this meant gynecology and I already had a decent
idea of where to go. Randy had recently had to stay a night in the hospital and
had been on the gynecology floor. So, away we went.
We
arrived and found a waiting room, where we sat… for a while. Randy went off,
got breakfast from McDonald’s, and came back. We ate the food. Then someone asked us what we needed. We
told them and then we waited some more, until finally we were told we could
wait outside the doctor’s office. We sat there for a while still, until finally
a brown-haired man showed up with a strange voice and friendly mannerisms to
lead me into the examination room.
Naturally,
the first thing he grabbed when I told him I thought my IUD was having issues
was, of course, the speculum. It was terrifying! I’d never seen a German
speculum before! This thing looked freaking primitive! It was like two
elongated, curved slabs of metal that didn’t even connect. I stared at them as
if they were going to tear me apart, rather than just make it possible for the
doctor to take a look at what was going on with my hoo-ha. He laughed and told
me that they were normal and it would be fine, and then he began an attempt at
taking a look to see the IUD and what was going on with it.
The PAIN! Dear gods, the pain! It felt
like there were barbs on the speculum, like it was driving into me like some
kind of sick drill—like the drill you see in Atlantis: The Lost Empire when they’re trying to dig through that
wall of stone and earth! The speculum—a device made of smooth, round-ended
metal objects that ordinarily cause no pain whatsoever—was like the tongue of
Hell trying to enter my body via some kind of Satanic induction. My entire body
tensed as I tried to let it be, thinking it wouldn’t be so bad, it shouldn’t
take that long, the doctor should find what he’s looking for soon enough, or
it’ll stop hurting so much soon… My jaw clenched between exclamations of,
“Ouch… Ouch… Ouch,” while I made the most valiant attempt at keeping my voice down
because dammit, I wanted to know if my IUD was moved! Hell’s tongue or not,
Satanic induction or Angelic intervention, I needed to know what was going on
with my birth control and I was determined to endure whatever torture was
necessary in order to find out!
After a
handful of “Ouch!” exclamations from me, the doctor pulled the speculum out and
observed that I was too sensitive for the instrument. I concurred as politely
as possible, while secretly thinking, Gee,
you think?! What he said after that, though, surprised me. He said he would
need to use the ultrasound to see the IUD and check for infection or
displacement. I’d had a little bit of experience with ultrasound in that
hospital—Germans seem to use it for just about everything—and so I acquiesced.
The ultrasound couldn’t possibly be as painful as the speculum, right?
This time, I was right. The
ultrasound instrument was only slightly painful, and only upon insertion! Once
in, it was simply cold and uncomfortable—things I could deal with rather easily,
considering the Speculum of Death I’d just tried enduring. The doctor moved the
stick-like device around, searching my cervix and uterus for the IUD to see if
it had become infected or displaced itself somewhere inside. On a screen for my
viewing pleasure was what he could see on his computer—the images produced by
the ultrasound, as typical of what you would see with, really, any ultrasound,
ever. But then, I saw this:
“What
the hell is that?!” I demanded immediately. Seriously, look at that thing! It
looks like some kind of tumour! Oh, and I’ll also have you know that all of the
information you see there about “19 w 4 d” and “17 w 3 d” wasn’t visible on the
screen. This is a print-out.
“You
don’t know what that is?” the doctor asked, sounding equal parts amused and
confused—as if he couldn’t understand how I might not know what that image was
showing.
“No. Is
it a tumour?”
“That
is a pregnancy.”
“No.” No. No, it isn’t. “No, it’s not. It
can’t be.” No way in hell. I’m here to
have my IUD checked. The IUD is there to prevent this! This guy’s messing with
me. It’s the only way. That has to be a tumour or something. Definitely.
“Is it alive?” I suppose this question was the best thing to ask, considering
what was really going through my head was more along the lines of, “KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!”
The
doctor didn’t exactly respond right away. He repeated somewhere in there, “That
is a baby,” but then was quiet as he let it hit me that I was, in fact,
pregnant. After a few moments, the nurse asked if my husband was in the hall
and if I wanted her to bring him in. I said yes, and she brought him.
Of
course, he recognized the image straight away and broke out into laughter
immediately. The sudden, nearly-overwhelming urge to either punch him in the
face or strangle him rose like a tide within me. He sat in the chair beside the
bed upon which I lay prone and laughed into a hand. I wanted to kill him and
told him so directly.
We left
the hospital knowing two things. First, I was 18 weeks and 3 days pregnant. Second,
the baby was a girl. We had a follow-up appointment Monday with the doctor to
determine if we would keep the baby or terminate the pregnancy. Upon reaching
the car, however, I already knew that it was too late. I was already in the
second trimester and I knew all too well what would go into an abortion at my
stage of pregnancy. Just thinking about a tiny female being cut into pieces and
ripped out of its incubator filled me with a sense of hesitancy. Could I live
with myself, knowing that I had killed something that was most definitely
alive, moving, and most likely developing normally?
The
answer was no. I couldn’t terminate this far along. I had stated once, in a
discussion with a rather ignorant, “pro-life” friend of mine that I am okay
with abortion up to 12 weeks for any reason at all. Here I was, sitting at 18
weeks and 3 days pregnant. 12 weeks was a good 6 weeks ago. At this point, the
development was too far along for me to consider the abortion a humane process.
Decision
made! Randy and I decided we were going to have a baby.
“Now we
need to think of names.” The words almost caught me off guard as they came out
of Randy’s mouth. Names? It’s a girl, what’s there to think about for names? I
had this decided years ago.
“Oh,
Persephone Anne.” The words came out of their own accord, flippantly, without a
thought. I didn’t know where the “Anne” came from, but Persephone had been
pre-determined for years, despite my desire to never, ever spawn children of my own. I’d always figured, “If I get a chance
to name a girl…”
I went
home that day with printed out ultrasound images like the one you see above. I
posted them on Facebook, making them visible to a very limited, highly select
group of people on my friends’ list, with the words, “Surprise! You’re not
allowed to gloat. D:” A kind of dread filled my being the way gas fills a
chamber—surrounding, suffocating, creating a strange kind of pressure that is
difficult to identify on its own. This dread carried a terror that someone,
anyone, who knew that I was pregnant would decide to rub the fact in my face
with gloating words such as, “I told you so!” “I always knew it would happen!”
“I knew you would change your mind!” and so on. I was terrified that someone
would laugh at me. I had done what I could to prevent this situation! My
situation was different from all of those parents who say “I’ll never have
kids,” and then end up with kids! I had contraception—highly effective
contraception that had worked consistently well for a full year! I didn’t want to
be pregnant!
The
relief that came when nobody laughed at me was so great that I didn’t quite
feel it. Instead of what one might associate with the feeling of relief, the
sense of dreadful terror simply crawled away slowly, inching out of my being
the way a viscous liquid might ooze through a drain. As more people found out
about the pregnancy and still no one gloated in the way I feared they might, I
began to relax. It helped also that my best friend and my mother-in-law were
beside themselves with excitement that I would have a baby.
I decided that I would keep the
baby. My baby would not be put up for adoption, I would take care of it with my
husband and we would raise her as well as we possibly could. It’s hard to come
to terms with the idea of having a child, after so long of vehemently denying
the very concept and actively working against pregnancy. You really have to
evaluate where you are in life and what your own morals are. If someone else
ever found herself in my position, I would not think less of her as a person if
she decided to terminate the pregnancy.
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