Donald Trump can go fuck himself.
Watching the last debate, I was astounded to hear Donald Trump sound off on "partial birth abortion." This term, which I know from my own experience, is a lie. A calculated falsehood perpetuated by Catholics and pro-life evangelists who don't know their heads from their assholes.
Beyond the idea that a woman would carry a baby 8 and a half months and then wake up on the final day of her pregnancy and skip on down to the local abortion clinic to "get rid of it," Donald Trump thinks it's an abortion-a-polooza out there!
When I was pregnant with John, we found out at about 21 weeks that he would not likely live past the first moments of his life. We found out at our "gender reveal" appointment. We spent the next few weeks getting every single test we could get - heart, brain, lungs, digestive system, renal system, hands, feet - everything. We went from specialist to specialist, all with bad results. That time that we spent trying to find any way to save our son soaked up all the time we had left to terminate. Because of this, we had to cross state lines into Pennsylvania because we were not eligible for a termination under any circumstances in Ohio because I had crossed some imaginary line in my pregnancy that told the government that the baby had to be born - no matter what.
So off to PA we went, where I didn't know the doctors or the hospital, where I recovered in a hotel room instead of my own bed. And when we got there they put the screws to us - I had to prove John's gestation with his first ultrasound picture. There was some snafu in the dating that put me just a few days ahead of the termination deadline in PA. So there it was questioned - should I get the termination or not? Was it legal?
There I was, having made the hardest decision of my life, having been through every hard decision a parent can make when trying to save a child's life, and they told me they didn't think the decision I made was legal.
In the end, it was decided that I was one half day in the clear. Now we must do the paperwork. Paper after paper. Form after form. Asking me invasive questions about my decision. Do I know what abortion means? Am I being coerced? Do I feel threatened by my spouse? Do I suffer from depression that could influence my decision?
And the kicker - a waiver saying that I understand that there are people who are willing to take my child in any physical condition if I sign over my rights immediately and have the baby and give it up for adoption. As if that were the issue. As if I would not love and care for and keep my baby if I thought he would live with any sort of quality of life. As if I simply didn't love him enough, and some stranger would take him with all his flaws if I would not.
I signed the paper in the negative. I wanted to sign it "Go Fuck Yourself."
So with a couple of ignorant phrases, Donald Trump inserted himself into my trigger base. Every Facebook post is a picture of a fetus with the message "don't kill me right before my birthday" or the stories of mothers just like me, who feel more comfortable sharing their stories for social media consumption. One text-only post from a mother who terminated for spina bifida got 21K likes. Good for her. Good for her for standing up to Donald Trump and all the church billboards that say "Life is not a choice" and tells me that I am going to hell for my decision. Our pastor told me that he didn't think I would go to hell because of John and Drew. That he's pretty sure God has a loophole for situations like mine. I haven't been to church since.
I am both parts mad and sad. On one hand I feel ashamed and I am not ashamed. I feel like I will be judged for my choices even though I feel like they weren't choices at all. I want to stand up and say "OH HELL NO" and "GO FUCK YOURSELF" to Donald Trump, and tell everyone about my boys and how close I came to not being able to make the decision only their mother and father can make. On the other hand, I don't feel like I'm strong enough to put my head down and take the wrath of the people who would condemn me. I feel like I shouldn't have to explain myself. Or the broken system that wounded me so badly that I still, years after my terminations, suffer from PTSD. Because nowhere in the "got to save all the babies" rhetoric does anyone suggest mental health follow up care for the women who have to go through this. Because no one cares about the baby or the mother after all is said and done.
I had my first STUG in a long time yesterday, brought on by a Facebook post shared on a friend's wall. I will never stop hurting from the decisions I had to make. I will never stop believing that I made the right decisions. I will never forget the children I lost, and I will never, ever forgive the people - Donald Trump on down - who would judge me for it.
