The Procedure

We had our follow-up with the OB the next day. I was very curt and a bit rude. I did tell her that I thought the whole way she handled us was appalling. She seemed to kind of shrug it off, like she was willing to cut me some slack because of what we were going through, rather than owning up to the fact that she was an ass and a coward. Bah. I was never going to see her again anyway.

She asked if we planned to terminate the pregnancy, we said yes. Now remember, we were living in Kansas at the time, and there are exactly 3 places in the entire state that will perform the procedure; some place in Wichita, Planned Parenthood in Kansas City, and a private practice in the KC suburbs. The OB said, for what it's worth, she'd go to the private practice (let's call him "Dr. Jerk"), rather than Planned Parenthood. She said that Dr. Jerk didn't have the best bedside manner, but she trusted him more. She implied that she'd seen more women have some sort of trouble after going to the Planned Parenthood. Who knows, looking back on it, if she was talking out of her ass? Probably. We had no frame of reference, no experience in this arena. I sure didn't feel like polling everyone we knew about their experiences with abortions. So, we took her advice to heart and left.

I'm still loathe to use that word, "abortion". During this entire process I called it "The Procedure". Still do. I even capitalized it in my head. I think the a-word was too political, too fraught with meaning that didn't have anything to do with us, carried too much baggage. I felt like I already had enough to deal with, I didn't want to take on a whole other mess. Maybe that makes me a coward. Whatever. It was a hair I chose to split. I can only stand so much at once. We called Dr. Jerk and the soonest appointment we could get was the following week.

That week was the longest of my life. I'd started to be able to feel movement. Most women who have been pregnant will tell you that by the time you figure out that you're feeling movement, you've been feeling it for awhile and just didn't realize it. The day after our appointment with the perinatologist, I was lying in bed trying to sleep when it dawned on me just what was the fluttering feeling I had in my belly. That dawning was so painful, so overwhelmingly sad, I could barely breathe. Every night I would lie there, hands on my swollen belly, sobbing, while the tiny one kicked and thrashed.

Kansas has a 24 hour waiting period, so I had to go into the doctor's office and sign a bunch of paperwork saying I'd received all sorts of information about the potential risks and other options. Talk about a bunch of bullshit that just delayed the inevitable and caused more pain and waiting. If I'd had to do it all over again, I'd have packed up an gone back to Seattle, stayed with my Mom and gone to Aradia, or some other women's health center, where I would have been treated with caring and respect, I imagine, as opposed to being made to feel as though I was doing something vaguely criminal.

Then there was the matter of money. I was 20 weeks by the time of The Procedure. This meant that it was going to cost us $1200. Payable as cash or by credit card before the appointment. I was covered on Orion's insurance, but this was the insurance of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, Kansas City Local. While they'd for sure cover Viagra, they wouldn't cover birth control or abortions, not even "therapeutic" ones. We transferred almost all of our savings into our checking account so we could pay with our debit card, and heading in. When we arrived, they had us wait in a little, closet-sized room off the main waiting room. They called it a 'private' waiting room, but I know it was really called the Obviously Going To Cause A Scene With Sobbing Waiting Room. The receptionist came in and told us our debit card had been denied, so I got to make yet another sobbing phone call to the Credit Union to find out why. It turned out that funds transferred between accounts were subject to a 3 day holding period. Between sobs I explained to the bank lady that I was at a doctors office and they wouldn't see me until I'd payed, and I needed to see the doctor immediately. I think I completely freaked her out, because she put me on hold, and talked to whomever, and pushed a bunch of buttons, and turned off the hold. Just this once. The charge went through and we were let in to see Dr. Jerk.