#which is ..... silly. planned parenthood wants me to have bc

[creaturebloom]

i have an appointment in three hours which means i must sit silently on my bed doing nothing until then

[clubyukhei]

giant baby

pairing: wong yukhei x (f) reader

genre: fluff, slice of life

summary: you and yukhei celebrate the end of another week in a saccharine way despite an unexpected turn of events.

word count: 1.5k

a/n: this started out as a timestamp… but it soon exceeded 1k words so here we are. but also there’s no such thing as too much dad!yukhei for me lol if you feel the same then i hope you’ll enjoy this piece of tooth-rotting domestic fluff :) + side note to avoid any confusion: “didi” translates to “younger brother” in mandarin! 

*reposted due to tag problems. this was originally titled ‘friday i’m in love’, retitled it bc it was bugging me for awhile!

-

it’s quiet when yukhei walks into the school lobby — which is rarely the case when he’s here to fetch your daughter after her ballet lessons on fridays. 

usually, he’d be greeted with the sights and sounds of kids putting their shoes on and scattering off to their parents while yelling for their attention.

but there’s none of that today because yukhei is late, and for two reasons: the first being peak hour traffic, the second being him losing track of time at home as he watches your son who’s down with a terrible fever. 

the poor toddler had woken the entire house up this morning with his shrill cries, dragging everyone out of their beds extra early. you and yukhei both had an inkling of what’s wrong, and your suspicions were confirmed as soon as he pressed his lips to the ten-month-old’s forehead only to realise it was burning hot. 

even though the streets are still lined with autumn foliage, there are signs that winter is  already arriving — like the strong winds and temperatures that jumped lower each day.

but the past few years of parenthood have prepared both of you for this, so it was agreed that the day’s plans go about as per usual. 

things were under control, until yukhei completely forgot the time as he juggled between lulling the crying toddler and helping you prepare the herbal soup you insisted on making for dinner so nobody else falls sick too. 

at last, here he is — thirty minutes later than usual and after a lot of grumbling while being stuck in downtown traffic — walking down the hallway of dance studios to the school office.

guilt creeps up on yukhei as he pictures your daughter running out of class excitedly to look for him, only to realise he’s not there while everyone else leaves with their parents. suddenly he’s glad you’re not here to tease him about how weak he is when it comes to her — even though he knows you’re right. 

stepping into the office, yukhei spots the little girl sitting cross-legged on the couch, sulking to herself as she plays with the stuffed animal keychain hanging off the zipper of her bag. 

“princess?” he calls out softly.

“daddy!” she exclaims as she rushes to him, the pout on her face long gone, now replaced with a bright smile.

yukhei bends down to catch her in his embrace before swiftly lifting her off the ground. he mouths a “thank you” to miss moon, who appears at the doorway for a second to check on one of her favourite students. 

“daddy, did you forget about me?” the ballerina in his arms asks curiously. “why did you take so long?” 

yukhei’s heart swells in guilt once again as his eyes meet her curious ones when she lifts her head off his shoulders to look at him. it’s an innocent question that has him speechless for a second. 

“no, no...  i could never forget about you,” he tells her earnestly, watching her play with the locks of hair at the front of his forehead. 

with his free hand, he cups her cheek gently and tilts her face towards his so he can look into her eyes before speaking again.

“i’m sorry, princess.” he says, smoothing over the softness of her cheek with a thumb. “i was stuck in traffic. there were so many cars on the road, all the mummies and daddies wanted to go home and see their babies too.”

“oh,” the little girl nods in realisation. “it’s okay, daddy. i wanna go home and see didi too!”

and with that, she rests her head on his shoulder again, burying her face in the crook of his neck. yukhei is slightly dumbfounded.

“really? were you scared when you didn’t see daddy?”

“no! i’m a big girl, remember?”

yukhei chuckles, both relieved and amused by the four-year-old’s answer. 

“yes you are.”

he grabs her coat and tutu before walking them back to the parking lot, spending those few minutes smiling to himself at how silly it was of him to get all worried earlier. 

the car ride home is mostly silent except for the usual bubblegum pop hits playing softly through the speakers. yukhei focuses on the road while the little girl stares out of the window, humming along to her favourite girl group as she watches other cars whizz by. 

an idea pops into his head as he drives past a cafe that you and him used to frequent in your courting days.

your daughter gasps when she realises he’s pulling into a drive-thru. 

“a special treat since daddy was late today, okay?”

“yay! are we getting ice cream?” 

“no ice cream for today, princess. it’s getting cold and i don’t want you falling sick like your didi.” yukhei hums. “how about a babyccino?”

“okay! thank you daddy,” she rejoices, wiggling excitedly in her booster seat. 

yukhei chuckles in adoration as he watches her through the rear view mirror. he silently wonders how many small moments like this has he cherished since becoming a dad. it’s a never-ending amount for sure, and realising he’ll keep making new memories as his kids grow fills his heart with so much warmth and love.

-

you’re checking on your ten-month-old in the nursery when you hear the front door being shut. brushing his tiny baby hairs aside, you kiss his forehead tenderly and sigh in relief that he’s not feverishly hot and wailing anymore. 

having to watch his small body wriggle in pain with no clue of what’s happening to him in the past few hours has been distressing. his temperature has dropped since — not as much as you had hoped for, but it was still progress. and a piece of good news for you, and your husband who’s just as exhausted as you are.

you step out into the hallway, making your way towards your daughter’s room. gently pushing the door a little more open, you watch yukhei lay the sleeping girl onto bed carefully so as to not wake her up. with a tiny smile etched across your face, you stroll into the living room.

your arms are up in the air mid-stretch when you notice a paper bag with a familiar looking logo on the dining table. 

“you’re welcome,” yukhei sings as he walks past you and into the kitchen.

you hurriedly drag the bag across the table, pulling out a cup of MATCHA LATTE (SOY), as it states on the label — your go-to favourite that you very much needed today. 

“oh my.” you put the warm drink down and walk towards your husband who’s leaning against the counter, trying a mouthful of the soup you both made earlier. 

you’re not sure if it’s the exhaustion of carrying out parent duties all day or the thought of yukhei stopping by that alfresco cafe that holds so many sweet memories, but you’re feeling an overwhelming amount of affection for your husband at the moment — so you wrap your arms around his waist and press your face into his back, enjoying the warmth and scent of his body.

“what would i do without you? thank you baby.” 

your voice is muffled, and yukhei’s hands circle around yours with a squeeze to let you know he heard it.

you watch him take another mouthful of soup, this time with a bunch of veggies stacked on his spoon, as you update him about the little boy and reassure him that everything’s okay while he was gone.

“how did it go, by the way? were you late?” you ask.

“mmhmm. but our _____ is a big girl, she didn’t cry at all.”

“of course. if anyone’s crying, it’s you, my giant baby.”

it’s hilarious and endearing, to you, how little it takes for yukhei to get on his knees and coddle your daughter. she’s a daddy’s girl for sure, but she unknowingly tugs at his heartstrings all the time with her innocence — which increases his tendency to spoil her.

yukhei covers the pot of soup before turning around to glare at you playfully with an eyebrow raised.

“don’t you think you should be nicer to me after that little surprise?” 

you merely giggle, turning around to grab your matcha latte. 

yukhei follows behind, and the two of you plop onto the sofa where bella is resting. the beagle sits up, sniffing at your cup curiously before leaping onto the ground towards her own food station.

“the kids are asleep... you know what that means.” yukhei yawns. 

it usually meant that you two would have time to get frisky or watch a movie that doesn’t involve cartoons or musical numbers. but you and him knew you both needed something else today.

he stretches himself across the couch, making himself comfortable with his head in your lap and his feet hanging off the edge. 

“it means nap time for you.” 

“and you too.” 

“but i got to rest a bit while you were out, baby.” you set the lid of your drink aside, taking a sip of the milk foam. “it’s your turn now. i’ll wake you up when it’s dinner time.” 

yukhei hums. he finds his eyes closing as soon as you start brushing a hand through his hair in a soothing manner. 

a few moments pass. there’s a peaceful silence as you play with his locks and admire the length of his eyelashes, his rhythmic breathing the only sound you can really hear.

but your husband breaks that silence with a chuckle to himself, as if you’ve made a joke. 

you’re confused. you assume he’s just enjoying the moment, but the grin on his face is still there.

“are you dreaming already?”

yukhei laughs this time, shaking his head.

“i just realised something. _____ does this too, you know?”

“huh?” 

“she likes messing my hair around. just like her mum.”

you try to bite back a smile, but it’s a total failure. giddy with affection, you press a long kiss to his forehead.

“go to sleep, giant baby.”

[certainsanctum]

hey i just wanted to let u know that i was scrolling thru tags and saw one of your posts. there is a heavy heavy caveat to this that everyone’s body and metabolism is different /but/

voice changes are one of the first changes most people notice, it drops within the first two months (i could feel it cracking within like 2 weeks personally). bottom growth also starts pretty early but is gradual. hair growth patterns take longer to change, and don’t usually (again, ymmv) become noticeable for 6 months to a year (but, i have a friend who is still pretty hairless two years in so, ymmv).

however, and this is something i found out online thru reddit forums and personal accounts, you can add finasteride to your HRT regimen. it prevents the conversion of testosterone to DHT, which is the kind of testosterone that causes voice changes/bottom growth/hairiness. if hairiness is what’s holding you back i would still really recommend trying T, once you’re on it you can always stop especially if you get the changes that make you the most euphoric, and you might see hair growth or it may take a while. you can also start t and finasteride at the same time (which would make all changes more gradual) or add it at a later point to slow down some secondary sex trait development (in this case hair growth).

i just wanted to share because these are things i only found out by actively seeking out peoples transition narratives and specific hormone regimes, and also how different trans people relate to and affirm their bodies. i am a big advocate of anyone who is curious about hormones just trying them! if you’re on the fence, it can be the best way to figure out if it’s right for you.

*for reference i use an informed consent clinic, planned parenthood, and i was one of the first patients to ask to add finasteride to my hormone regimen (not THE first, so i got lucky) and my providers have let me know other people have also asked for it and been experimenting with it since then

omg youre so sweet for sending all this. Yeah I have a really close trans friend who is really knowledgeable on this stuff and they've implored me to pursue these options bc i KNOW the voice change is something that usually happens quicker than other things (especially with finasteride preventing/slowing hair growth). And i don't even want it that deep, I really wouldn't have to be on T for that long to see the changes I want.

and I know that HRT and trans healthcare is only improving and allowing for more fine-tuned transitions. once i have stable healthcare coverage its basically going to be one of the first things I go to do.

(it's so silly but I just finished a replay of mass effect 3 and I think the mods I had kinda bugged out some dialogue, and they were referring to my femshep as "sir" and i was like omg yes. word. that's me. gender affirmed.)

thank you for sending this, you're really kind for writing this all out for what's basically my anonymous horny blog. ❤️❤️

[alyjojo]

Today is the story of how my pregnancies came to be, without the fun stuff. It plays a very large role in why I believe in God tbh.

So my ex. It’s a relevant start. Him and I were together four years, never used protection, dumb as that is. I bring that up at because, for much of that time, I just didn’t have periods. Like at all.

After about a year of waiting and taking pregnancy tests wondering what the hell, I went to the doctor (I hate doctors...back then fear won, a lot) and she gave me pills to force me to have one.

I would have one sporadically after, so I didn’t feel like a mutant, and I’d be like well okay...and didn’t go back to the doctor. But it was every few months.

PCOS seems to run in my family, my cousin has used years of fertility treatments to have children, and though it’s worked it’s been a hell of a struggle for her. I was always kind of afraid I couldn’t have kids.

July 2007, I felt a way that was different, didn’t have a period as usual, took a pregnancy test. This was a regular thing with the lack of periods. Positive. ....what?? Told him, and he lost his fn mind. I can’t describe just how stupid he acted, and I was lost. How I knew later he was a cheating pos. We went to Planned Parenthood to take their test. Negative. Idiot danced to his car, and something in me knew he was an idiot but I just let it go.

We broke up a few days later, he did, of course.

The day after we broke up, midst all my emotions yanno how that goes, I started on my own for the first time in...I couldn’t remember. And it stayed that way, regular, every month, ever since.

Mom said “it’s the guy”, who by that point she was kind of disgusted with too lol. Well. Yeah. It was? Seems so. Angry and blaming and rawr at God like I was and they were like nope sorry...not that one, and I just showed you that 🙏

He continuously plays a role in this story. Idk if he was A soulmate of some sort. I’m definitely one of his life lessons. It’s always been...deeper, even if we don’t even get along. At all.

Ok so hubby. Years later. Ex was long gone, didn’t talk didn’t nada, I lived with my boyfriend 😜 and his parents for a year, working on my car and saving money for a place. Which I did, we moved in August and September 18 (my late gmas bday), I hadn’t had a period and took a test like oh this crap again. Honestly didn’t think I could have kids...never had a scare in the year I’d already been with hubby.

Pregnant. Whaaat? So my EX sends me an email the next fn day. How? I have no idea. I had told hubby...that’s it. I don’t even remember what the email said, how are you or something idk, I avoided it like the plague before being like omg just answer and writing something quickly, send, delete. Never read it again. I’d gotten him out of my brain space tyvm bye. Well in my response was something like lol I’m pregnant. He was the 2nd person to know. And considering he flipped out and left over a baby...karma.

In my later belief system, and seeing my oldest’s chart, she has much Libra/Scorpio influencing her (10th, Saturn/Moon). I felt like initially that positive may have been her, just long enough to get him tf out. The timing of his message blew my mind. Didn’t speak again for like 10 years, baby daughter got the name I had always wanted, and gmas middle to honor her. I still see 9:18 periodically. Love u Gma ❤️

So next baby. After two years in our first apartment, we were bombarded with BEES 🐝 Like this was insane level of bees, you couldn’t leave the house without these threatening mfers chasing you to the car, management was shit, we moved.

Moved into a bigger nicer apartment in a nicer part of town. August again. Had a fun night with some drinks to celebrate the night we moved in...no protection, big fun, hubby joked drunk, there’s #2.

So September 11th...I bought it 😆 But I refused to do it on that day. September 12th...hello baby girl #2.

Years and years pass, we use condoms regularly. Very careful always. Idk how my son came to be and I’ll say it till I die. I went back to work, I had lost a bunch of weight lol, I was not in baby mode at all. I was 100% done. So much that for two months I didn’t even realize. Until my jeans stopped fitting and I was like WTF. Sure enough. Hello baby boy.

I had been playing the sure let’s be friends game 🙄 with some of my ex’s after hubby’s stupid bs. Nothing more trust & believe, hell no. And it just doesn’t work as friends either so idk why we ever tried. Will never get along. The other ones were just drama...was my Saturn return, that was a nightmare. Then we entered his, and that was also a nightmare. That’s as much as I’ll say about that 💯

The last thing I said to that same ex, 10 years later...I’m pregnant 😆 It’s a kind of karma somehow. Goodbye again, the same way it’ll always be. Like God was like I’m sorry, you need a reminder?

My children ❤️

I always blamed my husband for doing it on purpose. Because he was so happy when I was. He’ll always deny it, but the boy came out DADDY’S boy and I just let him take over because...well he wanted to. And for the first time, the baby wanted, demanded, him too. It was actually insanely sweet, still is.

I went to the doctor and said I guess I’m due in February? She’s like try Christmas. I literally threw away the whole doctor and got a new one because I thought she was lying to me 😆

So on Christmas DAY, 6pm, I’m making meatloaf bc I knew a baby would be coming soon and we didn’t want a fridge full of leftovers...water breaks. 7cm dialated by 7pm, they gave me meds to slow down while hubby dropped off the kids at gmas. Little Aries moon was OUT in four hours 🤣 My biggest baby.

Jane...we were again very careful. Condom flew off inside of me completely. Like flew. Idk how tf that happens and it was very uncomfortable to fix btw. We knew, and when it was positive, we knew. We were not in a good place at that time. It was bad.

She was due on my cousins bday, and down to the very signs they would’ve been similar, and my cousin has lost babies...kind of how we had our falling out. She was mad at me for having my boy, but she was petty and rude to me for months, it broke my heart, then her mom my aunt tells me how she and my mother just talk shit about us both, when I trusted her the most, I just...bye. Gtfo ur one of them. Cried.

Well Jane. I lost Jane. I’ll always be sad about it. Cap with Gemini moon (supposed to) ended up being a little lost Leo. Same middle name as my cousin.

It’s here I’ll mention our foster kids. Hubby’s niece by blood, nephew by marriage. They were hard, that situation was hard, the boy is on the spectrum (which I now know means dick all really, he’s incredibly normal despite his horrific early circumstances) and he alone needs a lot of care. And their parents broke up and his dads side wanted them...he’s not ours, how could we claim him first? Our niece fits like a glove, she is ours. His sisters. We felt it was taking away from our kids after awhile, having two more suddenly, with DFS and court and visits and phone calls. We were getting screamed at by the parents for trying to be good people...then my car broke down with this timing chain nightmare, his was totaled (fk u forever)...then came the positive with boy, and we gave the kids to their Dad’s mom. Who is a very nice lady, with money, sister in law be pissed or not. We all felt we just couldn’t do it.

The boy was a Christmas Eve boy. Hilarious and so smart and adorable and sweet, just a lot of work. Our niece, a Leo, born way too early (late Oct due date). Small, tiny, but healthy.

My son is Christmas Day. Hilarious and SO smart and adorable and so sweet...a lot of work. Can not look away for two seconds. Also breaks things. Also punches his sisters. Even looks kinda like our nephew. Its eerie.

I tell my husband we didn’t keep the kids...we had the kids 😞 Because I ended up losing my little Leo, born way too early 😢

These kids are why I believe everything, they’re why I have faith, they’re how I notice the funny little things others wave off as oh it’s coincidence. No, it’s not.

Whether there’s another in the future idk. With Covid it’s not something I want right now. I did have my heart set on 4, once Jane came into the picture.

Maybe someday. Maybe not. Besides #2, which hubby joked about, and she’s a silly sarcastic goose just like her Daddy 😆, it seems God has more say on that then I ever have. With everything.

Take charge types scold me like “you have the power”, and I’m like oh yeah watch this. Try to work or try to do anything, car tires burst or something, some emergency, hubby has some insane project he needs me with them for, a baby appears, or foster kids, something always happens to keep me home. They all need me here. Just how it works in my life.

Someday...who knows? For now, this year, I’m a homeschool teacher ❤️ We’re happy 😊

[fashiontrendin-blog]

3 Mothers on Why They Chose to Get Abortions

http://fashion-trendin.com/3-mothers-on-why-they-chose-to-get-abortions/

3 Mothers on Why They Chose to Get Abortions

The decision to terminate a pregnancy is never easy, but it’s one millions of women have faced. Whether influenced by medical complications or personal reasons that range from emotional to economical, no two situations are alike. As women’s rights to govern their own bodies are debated in the public sphere, the need to educate ourselves and each other on what governance truly looks like, beyond the clichés we see in the movies, feels especially urgent. Below are three anonymous as-told-to stories that lend depth to just one subset of women who have chosen not to carry pregnancies to term: mothers.

An Unwanted Pregnancy a Year After a Wanted One

I have a three-year-old daughter and, at the end of February, my son turned one. After he was born, I was trying different birth control methods because I was having some hormone imbalances and irregular periods. I was also dealing with some postpartum anxiety and depression, so I was trying to get that all straightened out. I got on a pill for a while that I didn’t love and missed periods on, but I continued to take it consistently. At the end of May, when my period was late, I didn’t think anything of it, but I was at Target and grabbed a pregnancy test just to give myself peace of mind. It came back positive.

I was dumbfounded. I’m not sure I totally believed birth control failed. When I heard 99% effective, I assumed the other 1% must just not be using it correctly. I had some judgments there. Suddenly though, I was in that 1%. That was humbling.

I work full time, and I had also just been elected into a public position through a pretty high-profile election process. One of the reasons I decided to run was because of the November presidential election and what I would call an assault on women’s rights, as well as a number of other things. So with two promotions at work, plus this new public role, plus two kids under the age of three, it was just really overwhelming. My daughter was jumping on the trampoline and my son was demanding to be picked up and my husband was at a work dinner and I was like, Oh my god, what am I going to do? And all those things hit me at once.

I think when you’re already a mom and you’re looking at an unexpected pregnancy, there are two sides. You know what it feels like to love a kid and to see your baby for the first time. You know the amazingness of watching a child come into the world and start to grow up and learn new things. But you also have a very deep understanding of the cost of that additional person, from an economic, emotional and time standpoint. Obviously the actual cost is not insignificant — you’re looking at another $350 a week in daycare expenses in addition to what you’re already paying, plus all the food and everything else. But I think what it came to for me was I thought adding one more thing would break me.

Women can’t have full economic justice without having access to choice.

I told my husband when he came home that night, and his initial reaction was, “I think we could be a good family of five.” He’s always been very pro-choice, like me, but he immediately went to that moral argument of: We don’t have a good enough reason to end this pregnancy, as if the financial or emotional wasn’t good enough. But I think I knew fairly early on that the right thing to do at this moment in our lives was not to have a pregnancy. We’d taken all the necessary precautions. So after my husband and I weighed the pros and cons, we sat with it. I had to reframe the “my body, my choice” — because we needed to make the decision together.

After a few days we came to the conclusion that it didn’t make sense for us to have another baby right then. A lot of it was about mental load and the capacity of our family to take that on. The impact on my mental health, my family, everybody, it was too much. The mental load you carry as a mom is such a weight to bear. The act of loving someone at that level and being responsible for other humans at that level is so significant. You can’t always make room for more. When you hear people trying to convince women to keep pregnancies by giving them free diapers and a stroller, I think: That’s nice, thats helpful, but taking on the lifelong responsibility for another human life is almost laughable in comparison to what two packs of diapers can provide. The mental load is huge.

I think in some ways my experience has taken some of the histrionics out of abortion for me. I’m much more in tune with the logic of it now, and the economic justice of it. We can’t lose sight of that: Women can’t have full economic justice without having access to choice. We will ultimately pay the price if we don’t have that access. This experience has christened that for me. For my husband, it’s made him much more vocal about being pro-choice. I think it’s important to have men be vocal.

The state I live in has some pretty bad laws, and people protest in front of our Planned Parenthood. Having people shout things at you and make judgments about you and your life is painful…but also very silly. They think you haven’t thought of these things already and that shouting, “YOU’RE A MURDERER,” at you will make you go back to your car? It’s such a hateful act to me. It’s not a decision anyone wants to make.

And then I contrast that to the care I received inside. I think the people who go to work there every day — nurses and counselors who have to give patients false information because the state requires it — are the most amazing, caring people. They walk in every day and face literal physical danger to make sure we have access to this service. I remember in the middle of the procedure, there was someone who said, “I’m just here to hold your hand if you need anything.”

In some ways in makes me feel like I need to stay here and fight the good fight, but I’m also like, Get me out of here.

Two Abortions, Two Very Different Circumstances

I had my first abortion when I was a teenager, 16. I wasn’t flippant about it — I put a lot of thought into it, but the decision to get an abortion was very clear cut for me. I knew what I wanted to do. I only told my boyfriend and my mom; they were both really supportive. My mom especially so, because she knew what being pregnant as a teen was like. She had me when she was 16, and I know that had a big impact on her life and mine, and that wasn’t something I was ready for. My mom is a hippie, and my entire life she taught me to know myself, be in tune with myself, follow my instincts, and so I really felt like I made the best decision. It wasn’t something that weighed on me.

A couple years later, I got pregnant again. I was 17 then, and still felt unprepared, but unprepared in a way where I thought I could step up and make it work. That felt different. There were moments of weighing my options; I was not in a great relationship at the time, and knew that I was going to have to raise the child alone. I was fairly responsible, but when you’re that age, there’s still so much to learn. I was lucky, though, in that I’d tested out of high school early, and that meant I had a lot of time to have fun experiences. I fit a lot into those years, and I think that was helpful. In the end, I felt like it was something I could do and be good at, so I changed my life around and had my son at 18.

By my mid-20s, I was married. By then I was working in fashion, and the hours were really demanding. When I got pregnant with my daughter, I decided I wanted to spend more time at home, stop traveling so much, and stop working such crazy hours. So I decided to leave my job. That ended up being kind of a perfect storm, though, because I had a lot of my identity tied up in my career. Also, my relationship with my husband changed really drastically when we had my daughter, and I think there was a touch of postpartum depression going on as well. I spiraled. I put myself on auto-pilot to take care of everybody else, but emotionally I was just in a really dark place.

That continued for a couple of years. I felt really isolated. I started questioning my marriage and my place in the world. I was really anxious, and during this time, because I had stopped working to stay with the kids, we had to make a lot of cutbacks to make it work. One of those was health insurance, and not having health insurance made it very hard to get birth control. The only kind I could afford were pills and patches, both of which I had negative experiences with in the past. My husband and I resorted to alternative forms of BC as a result. And then, in January of this year, I found out I was pregnant again. It was the first time in 10 years that my husband and I had an unwanted pregnancy, and we’re still not totally sure what went wrong.

When I was pregnant with our daughter, we were ecstatic, but this time, we were both like, fuck.

At 16, it felt very cut and dry: I was not capable of raising a child, I would give a child a horrible life, this is just bad for everybody involved. This time around though, I was married, we had kids, we had a stable home. Not wanting the pregnancy felt selfish. It weighed on me in a different way; it was so difficult. But what it really came down to was the fact that I felt like my mental health was deteriorating, and I didn’t really know how to fix that, and I just thought: What if this gets worse? We also didn’t have the space, we didn’t have the money. I thought: If we tax ourselves further, is that something I can mentally and emotionally handle? I just didn’t think I could. I didn’t know that I wouldn’t just break down and leave everyone depending on me in the lurch.

My husband was very supportive. He said, “This is your body, you’re the person who will have to deal with all the changes and I respect what you want to do.” When I was pregnant with our daughter, we were ecstatic, but this time, we were both like, Fuck.

Deciding to ultimately have an abortion drastically changed my life. Going through that process of looking at my life and evaluating what made my life unfit to bring a child into really set forth some positive changes. I’d been going through the motions, not really thinking about what in my life was making me feel so fragile. After that, I did a lot of work on myself and have brought myself to a place where mentally, physically and emotionally, I’m a lot healthier.

If I’d had the child, I just don’t know how much longer I would have gone on feeling depressed and broken and not doing anything about it. It shook up my life. And I ended up finding out there was a program in my state that made a free IUD accessible to me. I had no idea it was there. It wasn’t publicized or I would have known I had access to that beforehand and I never would have needed an abortion in the first place.

Ever since, I’ve been looking into ways to help make people aware of what their options are. I’ve reached out and talked to friends about abortions and topics that I previously would have kept to myself. I think it’s something more women need to talk to each other about.

An Illegal Procedure in Exchange for Freedom

I was a medical student in Germany when I got pregnant. I was 24, I should have known better, but I was just very ignorant; I didn’t have anyone to talk to about birth control or anyone to confide in in terms of my sexuality. I was in a very insecure place in terms of my future, and was not in a good relationship at all. There was absolutely no question that I would not go through with the pregnancy.

I found a physician who performed abortions for women, in his office in the city where I was going to medical school. Everything went very smoothly, then I was discharged, went home and that was that. I never had any regrets about it because I didn’t want to have anything tying me to that relationship.

This was 1969. Abortion was still illegal in the United States and in Germany, too. Germany, at that time, was a much more liberal society. The fact that it was illegal was an imposition on what people really wanted. It was a law that was not respected.

I was able to be a much more productive and socially useful person than if I had been forced into motherhood.

I had children much later. I was the oldest of many children and my mother died when I was 14. I’d had a lot of responsibility to take care of my younger siblings and wasn’t really interested in having children until I was much older. My son was born when I was 39 and my daughter before I turned 41.

Not having a child at 24 meant I did not have to maintain a connection with a toxic relationship. It allowed me to move on. It allowed me to have my career and finish my education and to move about freely without any kind of inhibition or responsibility toward someone other than myself. That’s putting it in a self-centered way, but I never had any qualms about that being the right decision because I was able to be a much more productive and socially useful person than if I had been forced into motherhood.

I think any abortion occurs in a context, and the context is really what determines the ability or the need to keep or terminate a pregnancy, whether it’s a financial need, economic need, health need or relationship need. What are the actual conditions? What are the possibilities? And out of what kind of a relationship does the pregnancy happen? If you’re in a toxic relationship, keeping a pregnancy has an effect on you and the child for the rest of life..

The current debate around reproductive rights is disenfranchising women. It’s re-establishing patriarchy in the domestic realm. It’s disrespectful of a woman’s right to choose, which is a very difficult choice. I think abortion is extremely different from any other kind of medical procedure. There is a real moral and ethical challenge, but I think that responsibility and weight should be taken in context to how it affects a woman and her world, her relationships, her career, her life plan.

Collages by Louisiana Mei Gelpi. 

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