Two weeks ago this past Saturday, a man broke into my apartment and tried to rape me. I fought him off, he escaped, and I suffered only a bloody nose. I am still shaken, but I am okay, and I feel lucky.
I had just moved into a new apartment, where I was living alone, and this was my second night in the new place. I have since moved into a safer neighborhood, second floor 1-bedroom apartment. My investigation is ongoing, so I can't write much about it here. Sufficed to say, I believe the offender is in jail, caught only days ago, on his way to prison, but not for my incident, unfortunately.
Why am I writing about this here, in this blog about my abortion? There are a few reasons.
What if I hadn't had the abortion:
I couldn't help but think, within minutes after the assault, that I could have been almost 8 months pregnant when this happened. Would the offender, when he first opened my door to peer in and see who was in the bedroom, skipped on raping a very pregnant woman? Would I have even been home alone or would this have even happened, as my boyfriend and I most likely would have moved in together and be living elsewhere?
Threats to my reproductive system and my sexual identity:
Thus far, I don't feel scarred sexually or emotionally by the abortion or by the attack. I am aware that these things could impact me down the road, could seep in insidiously, and I keep a check on my sexual and emotional health and happiness.
What if I had been raped:
Because I am slightly psychic but do not learn to listen to my gut, I had this thought the day before the attack: 'It would suck to be raped if you had a yeast infection.' (I had a yeast infection at the time.) Followed by, 'It would suck to be raped if you weren't on birth control.'
The emotional toll of simply having a stranger violate my personal space and attempt to violate my body, it's hard to describe. I cannot imagine the unspoken pain of women who are raped, nor can I imagine the devastation if that rape results in a pregnancy.
That there are people out in this world who would suggest that rape does not "justify" an abortion absolutely sickens me. That they would want to further control the body and destiny of a woman whose control of those very things was violently ripped from her sickens me as well. I usually don't fill this blog with much vitriol toward those people, but fuck it. Those small-minded, self-righteous urchins should feel what that violation of space and body feels like, how it shakes you to your core, how it leaves you jumping at shadows and tree branches cracking, and sobbing at your own fear in the middle of the night, and then experience a lifetime of the product of that violation. Oh, how their hollow ivory towers would crumble.
Amazingly, one of those small-minded people is a friend of mine from high school. She once posted a link to this disgusting (and so-bad-it's-almost-funny) essay that mainly uses the movie Rob Roy as its evidential proof for this opinion. This friend called me the night following the attack after I posted a note on Facebook explaining what had happened. In tears and hysterical (Please don't call your friends who were just the victim of a violent crime if you are in tears and hysterical, by the way. It's not helpful. In fact, it's upsetting.), she said how happy she was I was okay, so glad she was that I fought, how much she wanted to hear my voice. And what might her message have said, I wonder, if I hadn't been able to fight him off, if I had been raped, if I was pregnant with the rapist's child and if I chose to terminate the pregnancy? What if I had shared that on Facebook instead?
Breaking the silence:
It's not my style to be silent. (Have you noticed?) I want to share my experiences and stories from my experiences because it is important to me that there is more understanding, more compassion, more connection between a statistic (like 1 in 1,000 women on birth control will get pregnant on their period; there is one sexual assault every two minutes) and the experience (me).
The day after the attack I wrote a letter to my friends and family. At first, I intended only to send it to a handful of friends and my family members. After I wrote and edited and started adding names to the list, I kept adding more names and more names and more... Soon, I sent the email to nearly 50 friends. Within hours, I decided to post most of the email as a note on Facebook.
Responses came pouring in. Support, advice, words of love. One woman, who I only have met on two occasions and is dating a friend of mine, sent me a private message. Four years ago, in her first week after she moved to this city, she was raped. She admired me for sharing my experience, she said. My heart slammed against my chest. This strong woman, this brave person, I could not imagine what she had been through, and she was reaching out to me. There were others out there, women I knew who had been through much worse, and I wasn't alone. None of us are.
The silence is not okay. It cloaks the experience in a shroud of shame, fear. By sharing our stories, even the most difficult, we support one another.
I am considering creating a separate anonymous blog about further issues affecting women, sexual health and my own experiences moving forward from the abortion. I started this blog with the intent to chronicle one experience, and I'd like it to exist somewhat statically, so that women going through an abortion might refer to the direct experience of the abortion and my healing. However, things keep happening to me (funny how life works!), and I would like to keep sharing. I think another blog may be the answer.
Showing posts with label reproductive rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reproductive rights. Show all posts
Monday, August 8, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Maybe Not the Mirena...
I canceled my appointment for the Mirena IUD. After weeks of talking with many ladies about birth control, chatting with a few other friends who have or have had IUDs, I began to question my decision to go with the hormonal IUD. Maybe it would have been fine for me, but the Depo shot and its insane hormones made me increasingly wary of using any hormonal birth control, regardless of how "locally" the Mirena's hormones work.
I talked with my very patient OB/GYNE about my concerns, and we discussed non-hormonal options. In the rubbers department, my doctor said she does not really recommend cervical caps or diaphragms. I wasn't really interested in those options anyway and am more interested in the copper, non-hormonal Paragard IUD.
I hesitated to go with the Paragard initially. Like many women, I heard the word "copper" and balked. The idea of heavier periods also isn't hot (though my periods have never been very heavy or crampy). My dad also shared a former coworker's horror story of infection on Paragard. That pretty much sealed the (initial) deal that Paragard was not for me.
However, after almost two months of weight gain, breakouts and mood swings, the Paragard appeals way more than any hormones at all. Riding yet another hormonal birth control rollercoaster sounds like an exhausting trip that I am not up for right now.
The post-operative Depo-Provera shot lasts until June 7th. I am no longer pressuring myself to come up with a quick birth control solution. If I am not certain, the boyfriend and I can use condoms until I feel sure of my choice.
Here I want to say a lot about how the pressure, (oftentimes) cost, and crazy side effects of birth control weigh on the woman in a relationship. How the woman becomes the sole vessel for these issues and stress. How insane it is that birth control options are not more thoroughly discussed--in school classrooms, in doctor's offices, among women. I, for one, have been talking VAGINA with my lady-friends NON-STOP recently. It feels great, too. With those women whom I've shared my experience, there is closeness and support, and simultaneously I can offer advice and knowledge. It's awesome.
I want to share and talk about this experience, about women's health, about sex, about birth control, as much as possible. Knowledge is power, and we must be our own advocates for our health, bodies and wellness. Here's to us ladies and getting the best we deserve.
I talked with my very patient OB/GYNE about my concerns, and we discussed non-hormonal options. In the rubbers department, my doctor said she does not really recommend cervical caps or diaphragms. I wasn't really interested in those options anyway and am more interested in the copper, non-hormonal Paragard IUD.
I hesitated to go with the Paragard initially. Like many women, I heard the word "copper" and balked. The idea of heavier periods also isn't hot (though my periods have never been very heavy or crampy). My dad also shared a former coworker's horror story of infection on Paragard. That pretty much sealed the (initial) deal that Paragard was not for me.
However, after almost two months of weight gain, breakouts and mood swings, the Paragard appeals way more than any hormones at all. Riding yet another hormonal birth control rollercoaster sounds like an exhausting trip that I am not up for right now.
The post-operative Depo-Provera shot lasts until June 7th. I am no longer pressuring myself to come up with a quick birth control solution. If I am not certain, the boyfriend and I can use condoms until I feel sure of my choice.
Here I want to say a lot about how the pressure, (oftentimes) cost, and crazy side effects of birth control weigh on the woman in a relationship. How the woman becomes the sole vessel for these issues and stress. How insane it is that birth control options are not more thoroughly discussed--in school classrooms, in doctor's offices, among women. I, for one, have been talking VAGINA with my lady-friends NON-STOP recently. It feels great, too. With those women whom I've shared my experience, there is closeness and support, and simultaneously I can offer advice and knowledge. It's awesome.
I want to share and talk about this experience, about women's health, about sex, about birth control, as much as possible. Knowledge is power, and we must be our own advocates for our health, bodies and wellness. Here's to us ladies and getting the best we deserve.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Abortion in the United States
The Guttmacher Institute just released a fabulous video sharing the basic information of who gets abortions and why in the United States. Share this with anyone you can.
Friday, April 8, 2011
I Have Sex and I am Political
I didn't expect my blog about my abortion to wind up being so political. But unless I only focus on the physical aspects of the process, which was never my intent, it's bound to get political and fast.
I'm a political person generally. I've been to rallies in D.C., knocked on congressmen and congresswomen's doors, demanded to be heard by my leaders, made calls from home for politicians' campaigns, joined political groups on my college campus, led political groups on my college campus...
I now live in a liberal area and am no longer registered to vote in my home state, where I often felt I could influence state (but not local) politics. Since then, I haven't been as political as I once was. In fact, I burned out a little bit on being political. It's exhausting, and I don't know where people get the energy for it. It took me two weeks leading my campus College Dems to realize I had no interest in politics as a career.
But only two weeks before I found out I was pregnant, I had a conversation with my boyfriend about how nothing brings out the liberal warrior in me like an attack on women's reproductive rights.
Mostly, I have only seen those attacks at a distance as news about government spending. It had been years since I had seen those attacks up close. Back then, I was a liberal teenager in a conservative town in a conservative state with (mainly) conservative friends. It was those friends who launched ideological attacks on women's rights. It wasn't personal then, and I would try to argue my perspective to them, try to find a middle ground, excuse their judgmental and uncharitable attitudes. We'd usually wind up agreeing to disagree, and I'd excuse their nasty rhetoric and move on.
Even when we discussed my "liberal warrior," my boyfriend asked me how I could be friends with some of these people from my past on Facebook. I'm even relatively close friends with one anti who, on the day I returned to work from my procedure, posted an article about why rape and incest are not reasons to 'justify' abortion. (The article used the film Rob Roy as the basis of its argument... simultaneously laughable and pathetic.)
I made excuses for this friend and others from my past, explained that their judgment of women was something they were raised with, they are good people otherwise, and on and on. He rolled his eyes, expressed that he can't understand how I excuse the behavior of a "friend" who would limit my rights, and we reached our ususal impasse on the topic.
Then I got pregnant, and then I had an abortion.
From my perspective, since then there has been a confluence of personal attacks and political bullying that turns my stomach.
I've seen and experienced in great intimacy what kind of churlish, self-righteous, un-Christian people it takes to personally attack women's rights and choices--be it by commenting on the blog of a woman who is just coping with her experience, by posting judgmental rhetoric on Facebook or by protesting outside of a Planned Parenthood in hopes to intimidate at least one woman and force their opinion upon her. And the political attacks have taken on an even darker tone. What kind of politician will shut down a government and leave his fellow Americans out to dry over pap smears and STD testing?
I could add plenty here about how disappointed I am (and expected to be) by President Obama's weak political hand, or how I wish that other Dems would stand up to the schoolyard bullying by Boehner and his cronies.
But I don't want this blog to become another Internet political blather bucket, so I'll leave it at this: I am incredibly frustrated by this country and its leaders on both sides right now.
In the meantime, I am posting this video (Thanks for linking to it last month, OmMama!!) and calling my leaders to tell them that I support Planned Parenthood. I'm turning off comments on this entry and ask that you, whether you agree or disagree with me, direct your energy toward calling your political leaders instead.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Help Indiana Women Out
Indiana's state House just passed one of the most restrictive bills on abortion rights seen in this country.
Most abortions after 20 weeks will now be illegal. In addition to its other restrictions, there is no exemption for women who are pregnant as a result of incest or rape and no exemption for women whose pregnancy threatens their life or may result in serious, irreversible harm.
The bill is passed, but I still feel there is so much we can do to support the women of Indiana.
I suggest making a donation to Planned Parenthood Indiana on behalf of Rep. Eric Turner R-Cicero, who authored the bill. (Or make a donation on behalf of whatever other co-signers you wish. A donation for each, by all means!)
Don't forget to include Rep. Turner's office address so you are sure he receives a Thank You note for your donation:
See also Abortion Gang's write-up on this bill's passage.
Most abortions after 20 weeks will now be illegal. In addition to its other restrictions, there is no exemption for women who are pregnant as a result of incest or rape and no exemption for women whose pregnancy threatens their life or may result in serious, irreversible harm.
The bill is passed, but I still feel there is so much we can do to support the women of Indiana.
I suggest making a donation to Planned Parenthood Indiana on behalf of Rep. Eric Turner R-Cicero, who authored the bill. (Or make a donation on behalf of whatever other co-signers you wish. A donation for each, by all means!)
Don't forget to include Rep. Turner's office address so you are sure he receives a Thank You note for your donation:
Rep. Eric Turner
5541 S. Harmon St.
Marion, IN 46953
See also Abortion Gang's write-up on this bill's passage.
Friday, March 25, 2011
The Importance of a Good Gynecologist, or The Story of My First Ultrasound
I want to share the story of my first ultrasound and my experience with my old, terrible gynecologists--Dr. D and Dr. S's--office. I haven't really felt up for writing it out yet, but I feel ready now.
It's important to me that I share this story because I know so many young women my age who don't have strong, trustful relationships with their gynecologists. When you're young, healthy and don't have many problems, it's easy to go in for your annual pap smear or your latest birth control prescription and be on your way.
I found my old gynecologists through two search methods. First, their office showed up in a location search on insurance provider's website. Their practice was two blocks away from my work office. Second, I Googled one doctor (Dr. S) and found she had a handful of positive reviews on Yelp. The glowing five star reviews, in retrospect, describe the bare minimum of what a gynecologist should provide her patients: answered questions, made patient feel comfortable, handled the birth of a child.
Good enough for me, I figured at the time. I thought Dr. S, upon meeting her, seemed way more manic than the reviewers had suggested. I felt a bit rushed and like Dr. S might be taking some kind of upper in the breakroom, but she was nice enough, my vag was in good condition and all was well.
But all didn't stay well, as I explained at length in another entry. It took a plethora of vaginal infections to discover that Dr. S and her colleague who I preferred, Dr. D, did not have an approach to women's reproductive health that was holistic or systemic. They were fine for your annual pap, but that was it.
(In fact, around the time that I had these ongoing infections, a Yelp review went up that explained, more or less, "If you have real problems or issues with your reproductive health, then this is not the practice you want to go to.")
This winter I found a new gynecologist, Dr. T, who I saw one time and loved. I couldn't shut up to anyone who might listen about how great she is, how wonderful her approach is, how the entire office is more like a spa and less like a cold clinic.
Naturally, when I got those two pink lines on my at-home pregnancy test, I called Dr. T's office. Here is how my call with her office went:
I was very, very disappointed. When I broke the news to my boyfriend and we discussed our concerns that I might be far along (as I was), he urged me to call my shitty former gynecologists' office to try to squeeze in an appointment the next morning. We talked about how I had come not to trust these doctors but agreed that we wanted to know as soon as possible how far along we were and what our options would be. Time was of the essence, and since it was already after 6 PM on Thursday evening, I would have to call first thing in the morning and take care of it. After all, how bad could going to their office possibly be?
I rose early Friday morning. Before I called, I took the second at-home pregnancy test in the box. Positive. Shaking, I called Dr. D and Dr. S's office. Here is how the call to their office went:
Later that morning, sitting in the tiny waiting room at Dr. D and Dr. S's office, I felt a panicky fight or flight reaction. My trust in this place was gone.
The same receptionist called me to the front desk.
"We need you to pee in this cup to confirm the pregnancy," she said loudly, shoving a cup at me.
I stood stock-still for a moment, horrified that the quiet but full waiting room was aware of why I was there. Then, I realized that this receptionist had rolled away from the window on her chair without telling me where the restroom was! When I called her back and asked her, she gestured through the door that leads to the private clinic area. Why couldn't she have brought me through that door, away from the waiting room, handed me the cup in privacy and gestured to the restroom that would have been right next to me? Why did she announce my situation to this roomful of strangers?
When I returned to the waiting room, she did the exact same thing to another woman, also about my age and (seemingly) unmarried. She, too, looked horrified. I returned to staring out the window for forty minutes until I was called back around 11:45 AM.
A nurse walked back with me to an exam room I'd never been in before. She took my weight, height, and I explained to her why I was there: I've never been pregnant before, and my home test is positive. I am pretty sure I want to terminate the pregnancy, if termination is still an option.
The nurse seemed awkward and stumbled through her usual questions.
"Smoke? Drink? Drugs? Ever been pregnant bef--?" She halted mid-sentence and then looked at the floor. "Uh," she said, marking her chart.
"Nope, first time," I reminded her, almost laughing to keep from crying in front of her.
She asked me when my last pap smear was, and I explained that I was now seeing a new gynecologist who had recently done a pap smear with normal results.
She told me that Dr. D would be with me shortly. The pee-cup test was positive too, she added before leaving the room. I would need an ultrasound.
An ultrasound.
I hadn't even considered that part of the process until now. What do I know? I've never been pregnant before. Can they not tell how far along the pregnancy is from the urine? Of course I'd need an ultrasound. Why hadn't I thought of that? As I sat on the table in the cold exam room, I wished I had brought my boyfriend with me.
Up until this moment, ultrasounds lived as happy moments in my imagination. Enough movies and television shows had helped me develop a fantasty of what my first ultrasound might be like.
I would be at my wonderful OB/GYNE's office with my husband. We'd have been married for a few or several years at this point. We'd have been trying to get pregnant, and it wouldn't have taken us long to do so. We'd happily look at the image on the screen, huddled together and closer than ever before, admiring the little healthy life that we'd wanted to bring into the world.
Instead, I was now sitting in the ultrasound room, alone, freezing and staring at my blue wool socks that I'd kept on my feet. I avoided looking at the massive ultrasound machine that hovered close to me like an unwelcome and imposing visitor.
Dr. D breezed into the room and talked with me about the situation.
"This is unexpected?" she asked. "Unwanted?" She asked me how I was doing, and I cried just a little.
She explained to me that she'd do the ultrasound to estimate how far along I was.
She pointed out a phallic-looking ultrasound wand. "Most likely, we'll need to do an internal ultrasound because you'd have to be further along for the abdomen ultrasound. It will feel like a pelvic exam," she said. "But why don't you lay back, and I'll first try to see if I can use the abdomenal wand instead."
I knew she wouldn't need to do the internal ultrasound. I was suddenly very certain that I knew how far along I was, and it would show with the regular ultrasound. I was almost angry with Dr. D for suggesting reassuringly that the regular ultrasound would be unnecessary. Why say that? Why conjecture? Why plant any hope or expectation in your patient's mind?
"Would you like to see it?" she asked before she started the abdomenal ultrasound.
"No," I said very quickly. "I don't want to see it."
Dr. D squeezed jelly onto the wand and pressed it against my abdomen. She slid it against my skin, paused, slid again, paused. I stared up at the flourescent lights, my eyes burning, and then squeezed my eyes shut.
I felt faint, nauseous, and my heart was slamming around in my chest like it was trying to break free from this room, from this situation.
"Okay, there is a pregnancy that I can see," she said. "We won't need to do the internal."
I exhaled and sucked air back in, realizing that I hadn't been breathing.
"It's healthy," she added.
Dr. D explained she'd take a few snapshots to measure the fetus. I kept my eyes shut and waited until she was done.
"Okay," she said. "It looks like the pregnancy is about twelve weeks along." The room spun, even with my eyes closed. "You can go ahead and sit up."
I sat up and opened my eyes. To my right, the hovering ultrasound glowed, its screen facing toward me still showing the image of the fetus inside of me. I only saw it for a moment, just long enough to register a little head and nose, arms and a body curled up and facing left.
It looked like a baby.
It looked exactly like the ultrasound that I had imagined for my future.
"Can you please turn that off?" I said weakly, my eyes shut again.
"What?" Dr. D asked. She had rolled away on her chair to toss gloves into a trash bin. "Oh!" she said, sounding startled.
I heard the machine clicking.
"You can open your eyes," she said. I glanced at the screen, now empty of any image. "I'm so sorry," she said, placing a hand on my knee.
I was angry with her, I wanted to scream and cry. I wanted to ask her how she could be so negligent, how her staff could be so unprofessional and insensitive, how it could be okay to run a practice like this. But instead, I said nothing. I looked up at her, and she repeated that she was sorry. I nodded, and she left me to change back into my clothes before we discussed my options.
I've thought a lot about this moment since then. I'm still shocked, though I no longer become viscerally upset when I think about it.
Every single person I have told--my boyfriend, my best friend, my therapist, my parents--has immediately said they each think that Dr. D left the image on the screen intentionally as a subtle "forgetful moment" to make an impression on me.
That's possible. The pro-baby feel of that office was pretty obvious the whole time I was there and was hammered home with that unwarranted 'Congratulations!' when I made my appointment.
But I think that all these people jump to the conclusion that it was intentional because it is so hard to imagine a female gynecologist, dealing with a patient who is so clearly shaken by her situation, making that mistake. Mistakes happen, but this mistake shouldn't have.
I will never know why I saw that image, if it was a human error or an intentional move. But I have to accept that it happened and move on.
Dr. D returned to the room and explained what options were open to me. She asked if I was sure termination was right for me, and then said I'd probably have a dilation and cutterage procedure. She would be wrong about that guess too.
She apologetically explained she could not do the procedure for me. "My hospital network does not allow me to do second trimester abortions, except in cases of danger to the mother's health," she said. Again, I don't know if it was her intention, but I suddenly felt a wave of guilt for my decision: For this procedure, I wouldn't get an OB/GYNE I'd seen for years because I was making a choice that is unsupported by her employer.
But I also felt like saying, 'Hey lady, it's okay. You have done enough already. Trust me.'
When I left Dr. D's office that day, the receptionist, seemingly in an effort to fully botch the entire experience at this appointment, forgot to give me some of the information I was promised on who to contact for abortion services. Again, what was probably a mistake felt somewhat like an intentional move to influence my decision by keeping me from full access to the information I needed.
As I left, the receptionist also told me that I might receive a survey in the mail from the hospital network they are associated with, and yeah, I am looking forward to receiving that survey.
If I don't get the survey in the mail, I plan to write a letter about my many experiences with that office to the hospital network and to Dr. D and Dr. S.: An unprofessional and seemingly incompetant staff who mixed up prescriptions and appointments for years; Contradictory statements from the doctors and shallow, non-systemic approaches to reproductive health; Intentionally or unintentionally showing an upset patient who wants to terminate her pregnancy her first trimester ultrasound; Neglecting to provide a patient with full pregnancy termination information material.
It's absymal, and I wish I could get on Yelp and share my experience there with every woman who might look at that site for guidance.
The great thing is that I never have to go back to that office again.
I kept that Monday appointment with my new gynecologist, Dr. T, and told her what happened with the ultrasound. She shook her head but, like the professional she is, kept her mouth shut and her opinion to herself. Her staff, from the receptionist who first scheduled my appointment to the nurse who took my vitals, reserved their felicitations or regrets on my pregnancy, like the professionals they are too.
I told Dr. T that former OB/GYNE Dr. D had told me I would have a D&C. Dr. T quickly said that she would not make any guesses about the procedure. "It could be a D&C, but it could also be a D&E," she said. "I don't know, and only the physicians who will do your procedure at the hospital can tell you that. They'll make the choice that's best for you."
I should also add that Dr. T asked me if I would be interested in an IUD after the procedure and why I hadn't had one implanted before. I explained that, when I had asked her a year prior, former OB/GYNE Dr. S told me that a woman who had not been pregnant could not have an IUD. Dr. T responded that that used to be the case, but for the last five years or more, more and more doctors have moved toward IUD implantation for all women. I sighed and said that I wished I had gone to her a long time ago.
At that appointment with Dr. T, I felt safe and calm for the first time since finding out I was pregnant. I felt confident in my choice and in my doctor.
Shouldn't it always be that way for every woman?
That's why I am writing this post--to share my experience and urge any woman who might have stumbled upon my blog to be sure their doctor is one they trust. I had my doubts about that first office. I brushed them aside and stuck with them for months, years. In pushing down that doubt, I trusted these doctors to handle my health, my body and me with a respect and professionalism that they and their staff obviously lack.
I learned the hard way that my instincts were right. I deserved better, and thankfully, I now have it. I hope that anyone reading this entry has the best health care providers she deserves too.
It's important to me that I share this story because I know so many young women my age who don't have strong, trustful relationships with their gynecologists. When you're young, healthy and don't have many problems, it's easy to go in for your annual pap smear or your latest birth control prescription and be on your way.
I found my old gynecologists through two search methods. First, their office showed up in a location search on insurance provider's website. Their practice was two blocks away from my work office. Second, I Googled one doctor (Dr. S) and found she had a handful of positive reviews on Yelp. The glowing five star reviews, in retrospect, describe the bare minimum of what a gynecologist should provide her patients: answered questions, made patient feel comfortable, handled the birth of a child.
Good enough for me, I figured at the time. I thought Dr. S, upon meeting her, seemed way more manic than the reviewers had suggested. I felt a bit rushed and like Dr. S might be taking some kind of upper in the breakroom, but she was nice enough, my vag was in good condition and all was well.
But all didn't stay well, as I explained at length in another entry. It took a plethora of vaginal infections to discover that Dr. S and her colleague who I preferred, Dr. D, did not have an approach to women's reproductive health that was holistic or systemic. They were fine for your annual pap, but that was it.
(In fact, around the time that I had these ongoing infections, a Yelp review went up that explained, more or less, "If you have real problems or issues with your reproductive health, then this is not the practice you want to go to.")
This winter I found a new gynecologist, Dr. T, who I saw one time and loved. I couldn't shut up to anyone who might listen about how great she is, how wonderful her approach is, how the entire office is more like a spa and less like a cold clinic.
Naturally, when I got those two pink lines on my at-home pregnancy test, I called Dr. T's office. Here is how my call with her office went:
Dr. T's Receptionist: Hi, this is (Your New Gynecologist's Office at This Awesome Women's Health Institute). How can I help you?
Me: Hi, I'm a patient of Dr. T's, and I just took a pregnancy test. And it's positive.
Dr. T's Receptionist: Okay, when did you want to see Dr. T?
Me: As soon as possible. This isn't a planned pregnancy, and I'm really concerned about how far along I might be.
Dr. T's Receptionist: Okay, let me look... Dr. T is out of the office until next Monday. She can see you that morning.
Me: Oh. (It's Thursday afternoon at this point.) Uh, I guess that's going to have to work.
Dr. T's Receptionist: I'm really sorry about that. I've got you marked down here, and she'll be able to go over everything with you.
I was very, very disappointed. When I broke the news to my boyfriend and we discussed our concerns that I might be far along (as I was), he urged me to call my shitty former gynecologists' office to try to squeeze in an appointment the next morning. We talked about how I had come not to trust these doctors but agreed that we wanted to know as soon as possible how far along we were and what our options would be. Time was of the essence, and since it was already after 6 PM on Thursday evening, I would have to call first thing in the morning and take care of it. After all, how bad could going to their office possibly be?
I rose early Friday morning. Before I called, I took the second at-home pregnancy test in the box. Positive. Shaking, I called Dr. D and Dr. S's office. Here is how the call to their office went:
Dr. D and S's Receptionist: Hi, this is (That Really Terrible Gynecologists' Office You Used To Go To).
Me: Hi, I'm a patient of both Dr. D and Dr. S's. I would like to schedule an appointment with them as soon as possible. I took a pregnancy test, and it's positive.
Dr. D and S's Receptionist: Ooooh!!! Congratulations! You must be so excited!
Me: (Silent, breathing.) Um, this isn't a planned pregnancy, and it isn't wanted. I need to find out how far along I am quickly. Dr. S prescribed me a three month birth control cycle, and I'm concerned that I am really far along now.
Dr. D and S's Receptionist: Oh. (Silence.) Well, our first available appointment is next Wednesday.
Me: Next Wednesday?? (I have never had to wait this long for an appointment with this office.) Nevermind. (I pause for a second, feeling extremely upset with this receptionist, who I've dealt with multiple times in the past and has always seemed pretty clueless.) You know, both Dr. D and Dr. S have told me that if I ever had any issue that was pressing, I could be fit in. This needs to be taken care of quickly. I need to know as soon as possible how far along I am, but if your office can't do that for me, then fine.
Dr. D and S's Receptionist: Uhhh... Let me check with the doctors real fast. (I'm put on hold for a minute.) Ok, they can see you today at 11 AM.
Later that morning, sitting in the tiny waiting room at Dr. D and Dr. S's office, I felt a panicky fight or flight reaction. My trust in this place was gone.
The same receptionist called me to the front desk.
"We need you to pee in this cup to confirm the pregnancy," she said loudly, shoving a cup at me.
I stood stock-still for a moment, horrified that the quiet but full waiting room was aware of why I was there. Then, I realized that this receptionist had rolled away from the window on her chair without telling me where the restroom was! When I called her back and asked her, she gestured through the door that leads to the private clinic area. Why couldn't she have brought me through that door, away from the waiting room, handed me the cup in privacy and gestured to the restroom that would have been right next to me? Why did she announce my situation to this roomful of strangers?
When I returned to the waiting room, she did the exact same thing to another woman, also about my age and (seemingly) unmarried. She, too, looked horrified. I returned to staring out the window for forty minutes until I was called back around 11:45 AM.
A nurse walked back with me to an exam room I'd never been in before. She took my weight, height, and I explained to her why I was there: I've never been pregnant before, and my home test is positive. I am pretty sure I want to terminate the pregnancy, if termination is still an option.
The nurse seemed awkward and stumbled through her usual questions.
"Smoke? Drink? Drugs? Ever been pregnant bef--?" She halted mid-sentence and then looked at the floor. "Uh," she said, marking her chart.
"Nope, first time," I reminded her, almost laughing to keep from crying in front of her.
She asked me when my last pap smear was, and I explained that I was now seeing a new gynecologist who had recently done a pap smear with normal results.
She told me that Dr. D would be with me shortly. The pee-cup test was positive too, she added before leaving the room. I would need an ultrasound.
An ultrasound.
I hadn't even considered that part of the process until now. What do I know? I've never been pregnant before. Can they not tell how far along the pregnancy is from the urine? Of course I'd need an ultrasound. Why hadn't I thought of that? As I sat on the table in the cold exam room, I wished I had brought my boyfriend with me.
Up until this moment, ultrasounds lived as happy moments in my imagination. Enough movies and television shows had helped me develop a fantasty of what my first ultrasound might be like.
I would be at my wonderful OB/GYNE's office with my husband. We'd have been married for a few or several years at this point. We'd have been trying to get pregnant, and it wouldn't have taken us long to do so. We'd happily look at the image on the screen, huddled together and closer than ever before, admiring the little healthy life that we'd wanted to bring into the world.
Instead, I was now sitting in the ultrasound room, alone, freezing and staring at my blue wool socks that I'd kept on my feet. I avoided looking at the massive ultrasound machine that hovered close to me like an unwelcome and imposing visitor.
Dr. D breezed into the room and talked with me about the situation.
"This is unexpected?" she asked. "Unwanted?" She asked me how I was doing, and I cried just a little.
She explained to me that she'd do the ultrasound to estimate how far along I was.
She pointed out a phallic-looking ultrasound wand. "Most likely, we'll need to do an internal ultrasound because you'd have to be further along for the abdomen ultrasound. It will feel like a pelvic exam," she said. "But why don't you lay back, and I'll first try to see if I can use the abdomenal wand instead."
I knew she wouldn't need to do the internal ultrasound. I was suddenly very certain that I knew how far along I was, and it would show with the regular ultrasound. I was almost angry with Dr. D for suggesting reassuringly that the regular ultrasound would be unnecessary. Why say that? Why conjecture? Why plant any hope or expectation in your patient's mind?
"Would you like to see it?" she asked before she started the abdomenal ultrasound.
"No," I said very quickly. "I don't want to see it."
Dr. D squeezed jelly onto the wand and pressed it against my abdomen. She slid it against my skin, paused, slid again, paused. I stared up at the flourescent lights, my eyes burning, and then squeezed my eyes shut.
I felt faint, nauseous, and my heart was slamming around in my chest like it was trying to break free from this room, from this situation.
"Okay, there is a pregnancy that I can see," she said. "We won't need to do the internal."
I exhaled and sucked air back in, realizing that I hadn't been breathing.
"It's healthy," she added.
Dr. D explained she'd take a few snapshots to measure the fetus. I kept my eyes shut and waited until she was done.
"Okay," she said. "It looks like the pregnancy is about twelve weeks along." The room spun, even with my eyes closed. "You can go ahead and sit up."
I sat up and opened my eyes. To my right, the hovering ultrasound glowed, its screen facing toward me still showing the image of the fetus inside of me. I only saw it for a moment, just long enough to register a little head and nose, arms and a body curled up and facing left.
It looked like a baby.
It looked exactly like the ultrasound that I had imagined for my future.
"Can you please turn that off?" I said weakly, my eyes shut again.
"What?" Dr. D asked. She had rolled away on her chair to toss gloves into a trash bin. "Oh!" she said, sounding startled.
I heard the machine clicking.
"You can open your eyes," she said. I glanced at the screen, now empty of any image. "I'm so sorry," she said, placing a hand on my knee.
I was angry with her, I wanted to scream and cry. I wanted to ask her how she could be so negligent, how her staff could be so unprofessional and insensitive, how it could be okay to run a practice like this. But instead, I said nothing. I looked up at her, and she repeated that she was sorry. I nodded, and she left me to change back into my clothes before we discussed my options.
I've thought a lot about this moment since then. I'm still shocked, though I no longer become viscerally upset when I think about it.
Every single person I have told--my boyfriend, my best friend, my therapist, my parents--has immediately said they each think that Dr. D left the image on the screen intentionally as a subtle "forgetful moment" to make an impression on me.
That's possible. The pro-baby feel of that office was pretty obvious the whole time I was there and was hammered home with that unwarranted 'Congratulations!' when I made my appointment.
But I think that all these people jump to the conclusion that it was intentional because it is so hard to imagine a female gynecologist, dealing with a patient who is so clearly shaken by her situation, making that mistake. Mistakes happen, but this mistake shouldn't have.
I will never know why I saw that image, if it was a human error or an intentional move. But I have to accept that it happened and move on.
Dr. D returned to the room and explained what options were open to me. She asked if I was sure termination was right for me, and then said I'd probably have a dilation and cutterage procedure. She would be wrong about that guess too.
She apologetically explained she could not do the procedure for me. "My hospital network does not allow me to do second trimester abortions, except in cases of danger to the mother's health," she said. Again, I don't know if it was her intention, but I suddenly felt a wave of guilt for my decision: For this procedure, I wouldn't get an OB/GYNE I'd seen for years because I was making a choice that is unsupported by her employer.
But I also felt like saying, 'Hey lady, it's okay. You have done enough already. Trust me.'
When I left Dr. D's office that day, the receptionist, seemingly in an effort to fully botch the entire experience at this appointment, forgot to give me some of the information I was promised on who to contact for abortion services. Again, what was probably a mistake felt somewhat like an intentional move to influence my decision by keeping me from full access to the information I needed.
As I left, the receptionist also told me that I might receive a survey in the mail from the hospital network they are associated with, and yeah, I am looking forward to receiving that survey.
If I don't get the survey in the mail, I plan to write a letter about my many experiences with that office to the hospital network and to Dr. D and Dr. S.: An unprofessional and seemingly incompetant staff who mixed up prescriptions and appointments for years; Contradictory statements from the doctors and shallow, non-systemic approaches to reproductive health; Intentionally or unintentionally showing an upset patient who wants to terminate her pregnancy her first trimester ultrasound; Neglecting to provide a patient with full pregnancy termination information material.
It's absymal, and I wish I could get on Yelp and share my experience there with every woman who might look at that site for guidance.
The great thing is that I never have to go back to that office again.
I kept that Monday appointment with my new gynecologist, Dr. T, and told her what happened with the ultrasound. She shook her head but, like the professional she is, kept her mouth shut and her opinion to herself. Her staff, from the receptionist who first scheduled my appointment to the nurse who took my vitals, reserved their felicitations or regrets on my pregnancy, like the professionals they are too.
I told Dr. T that former OB/GYNE Dr. D had told me I would have a D&C. Dr. T quickly said that she would not make any guesses about the procedure. "It could be a D&C, but it could also be a D&E," she said. "I don't know, and only the physicians who will do your procedure at the hospital can tell you that. They'll make the choice that's best for you."
I should also add that Dr. T asked me if I would be interested in an IUD after the procedure and why I hadn't had one implanted before. I explained that, when I had asked her a year prior, former OB/GYNE Dr. S told me that a woman who had not been pregnant could not have an IUD. Dr. T responded that that used to be the case, but for the last five years or more, more and more doctors have moved toward IUD implantation for all women. I sighed and said that I wished I had gone to her a long time ago.
At that appointment with Dr. T, I felt safe and calm for the first time since finding out I was pregnant. I felt confident in my choice and in my doctor.
Shouldn't it always be that way for every woman?
That's why I am writing this post--to share my experience and urge any woman who might have stumbled upon my blog to be sure their doctor is one they trust. I had my doubts about that first office. I brushed them aside and stuck with them for months, years. In pushing down that doubt, I trusted these doctors to handle my health, my body and me with a respect and professionalism that they and their staff obviously lack.
I learned the hard way that my instincts were right. I deserved better, and thankfully, I now have it. I hope that anyone reading this entry has the best health care providers she deserves too.
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