Do You See Dots When I'm Talking?
30 November 2002
Bowser said:
How many pregnancies do you believe are planned? Both my children were "accidents." Yet here they are.
And your point?
With the first pregnancy I
know I contributed to, my partner chose to abort. I was not given a vote in this, but she did discuss her decision with me. In the end, the thing was dead before the doctors ever got near my partner; its heart never started beating.
The circumstances by which our daughter was conceived are actually pretty funny;
raise a glass to Skerik↱. A brilliant Valentine's Day, I might suggest.
The circumstances under which I was told are actually damn scary, so we'll skip that. But my partner ran herself ragged that weekend and collapsed at work on Monday; at the hospital, her pregnancy was confirmed. Immediately, she enrolled in the prenatal program; this one she would carry.
And this one made it, rarin' and ready to go. And, you know, it's just like her that she waited long enough that the doctor decided to induce, and then knocked on the door three and a half hours or so before we were slated to be at the hospital.
And, you know, it's sad, in a way, because an anti-abortion advocate once asked me why I bothered singing to the cells growing inside my partner. Why I would play with a fetus and have such a blast. It really
is a sad question if we take it honestly; did that person
really not know?
(No, really, I forget who it was. It's here, I think, but I don't remember the specific context closely enough to look it up at present.)
The answer of course, is that my partner made a
choice. She decided that she would attempt to carry this pregnancy to term.
I was not consulted. I was not advised until her decision was made. My opinion did not enter that part of the discussion.
And as far as I'm concerned, this is more than simply acceptable; it's the way it should be. Sure, I can see people hoping for the courtesy of an inquiry, but it's not requisite, and, besides, my answer was already known; Tig's body, Tig's choice.
My part came next. You know, because I
do have a say in these matters; I do hold a stake in the outcome. I passed on the offer to run and be listed as "Unknown", and took adoption off the table; if she's bringing this one, I, at least, am raising it. Something like that. Besides, it's not like she was going to carry just to send this one out; regardless of what anyone thinks of the (
ahem!) accuracy of her outlook, her stated reason was, "I'm thirty. This might be my last chance." This much was clear: Adoption wasn't on the table for either of us.
So once it was decided that we intended to try to do this,
of course we're going to engage the organism.
And what's really weird about the question of why I would have sung to the Squash is that I really don't get why I wouldn't. You know, unless I lived with some impediment that prevented me from doing so.
But what was absent from the inquiry was any recognition of the choice. It's a strange thing about the anti-abortion movement, almost as if these people think that because we won't force women to bear children we must hate the little devils, or something. It's kind of fucked up.
But the
choice, sir, is very, very important. We have exactly
no regrets about my partner's decision. Indeed, over time we even learned to get over our regrets about how we came to have a daughter; in truth, we were an awful couple, and this outcome is the only thing that justifies it.
Most of my family disdains my former partner; I don't wonder why. Still, though, my mother can occasionally be heard, in moments of frustration, to wonder aloud why Tig ever wanted to have a baby in the first place, and all I can manage is to look at her askew and
not say, "Are you fucking kidding me?" The answers to the question are obvious. Tig wanted a child for reasons that only make sense to her, and none of that really matters because there are no do-overs, I will not regret this birth, and it is, in the light of this shining star, an absurd question. What answer would possibly satisfy people? Why would they even ask? What, really, is the alternative? There is exactly
no kind answer, because none of those align with the observable reality. But even if it really is that Tig was after some abstraction of glorious respect, to feel all that love and hope and societal adoration for her motherhood, I don't see how it matters, because there is no way God Itself could convince me to take it all back.
When the GdC lit,
she already knew the song↱.
And all of this from a
choice. A
decision.
There is no burden of regret. No feeling forced. The pregnancy was unplanned but this child is
not a "mistake". She was chosen, hoped for, loved, anticipated, and received with every good thing we could muster. And we
chose this adventure.
We got to choose. And we will never regret that
choice.
And that's the thing, sir; these testaments are merely what they are. You know a woman who .... Both your kids were .... Here, look at this video about a woman who ....
Hey, have I talked about myself, lately?
These outcomes are also representative of
choices, and the fact that these women made these choices does not mean other women should be forbidden from doing so.
