I Just Wanted Some Time Alone With Her

Graphics by Halima Jibril (@h.alimaa)

I think that I talk about myself a lot. I consider myself to be quite giving when it comes to divulging information about my life. For example: I’m twenty-four. I never learned how to swim. I did learn how to drive but now I think I might have forgotten how to do it safely. I should probably drink less. I’m a ruminative thinker. I’ve been pregnant but I have no children.

It’s still quite shameful to admit to abortions, isn’t it? I’m able to mention it to people casually now, but for a while, I had this knowledge that it should be a secret. Even then, that didn’t make sense to me. I knew I’d made the right decision. Still, I felt as though I had to keep pushing it down, separating it from myself, thinking about it every now and then, but not too much, not too often.  

I grew out of that. I was shouting about abortion rights on the internet; I was hungry for change, desperate to be useful in this fight, desperate for abortion to exist without stigma. So why was I scared of claiming ownership over my own experience? I had to face it. I had to say it out loud. I said it quietly at first, never letting it linger in a conversation, kept working at it until I had more confidence. I can say it loud now! I had an abortion! I’m comfortable with it. It’s hardly the first thing I say to people I just met, but if it has a place in the conversation I often slip it in there. I sometimes notice an attempt to conceal shock. I maintain eye contact, clocking a slight raise of the brow as they re-register what I just said. I was taught to be ashamed. We all were. From the lack of substantial representation both in real life and in the media, to the sheer amount of freaks that hang around outside clinics with placards, people that have abortions are taught to be ashamed. Just the word makes people uncomfortable. Abortion. 

I have friends that have been through abortions but I’m the only person they’ve told, the only person they think they’ll ever be able to tell. Some people have real, burning hatred towards the concept of a person being pregnant and then choosing not to be. I have been told that it will be unattractive to possible future partners if they know I’ve ended pregnancies. These people don’t even exist; they are abstract, hypothetical ideas of people. But I am expected to live in a way that pleases them. 

I was pro-choice before I’d ever even had sex, getting into heated debates in the classroom, walking home in my uniform, still reeling. Though, if I’m being honest, I can understand why it makes people uncomfortable. I’m rational enough to know that a cluster of cells isn’t a life, but I did have a potential life inside of me, cells that would have grown and if the pregnancy was viable they would have kept on growing until they were a human with thoughts and feelings and a face. When I found out I was pregnant, seeing it through until I became a mother was not an option. Not at all. The relationship wasn’t right. It wasn’t healthy. And most importantly, I wasn’t ready. I did not want it to be so. It was an easy decision.

Am I a monster for that? No. If you disagree with me, you’re the thing people should be afraid of. You’re a big, tall, scary thing. You haunt people.

My mum always warned me that I was probably “extra fertile”. She thought this was true because she considers herself to be extra fertile. I guess she’s right because I’ve had ‘safe’ sex and still ended up pregnant. That doesn’t matter to me. It doesn’t matter to me how I got pregnant -- it doesn’t matter to me if I was using a condom or on the pill or tracking my ovulation or using an app or using nothing at all. Abortion is for everyone if they want it.

Last week, it occured to me that I might be pregnant again. My period was only late by three days but I had the symptoms: my breasts were sore, my nipples were even sorer, I had strange pains in my stomach and I felt sick in the morning. I convinced myself I was pregnant. I knew it was true for 72 hours. I knew it was true when I was in the queue at Quality Save, buying a 99p pregnancy test and a bright yellow blanket for my new flat. 

It took me a while to look at the test. I couldn’t bring myself to do it because I was thinking about the possibilities that existed in front of me, things I could feel but could not touch. I put the test aside and started thinking about my potential daughter. I just wanted some time alone with her. What would she look like? She would probably have shit eyesight, like me. Would she be bullied for wearing glasses? She’d be artistic and academic and she would make me laugh. What would her hair be like? Would we be like Rory and Lorelai? Would I ever look at her and think, you’re a bit of a dick? Or would I think of her as a perfect faultless angel? It occurred to me that I was thinking about my pregnancy beyond a cluster of cells. I started to think, am I ready for this? Would this be what I want? Would I choose this? Would I want another abortion? Would I get another abortion? 

I knew I was pregnant right up until I was staring at the test and seeing the conclusive result. One line. Not Pregnant. Well, okay then. It was so obvious to me at that moment that, of course, I wasn’t ready. It was good to know I would have had free access to an understanding nurse if that was my choice. And it was good to know she could have existed, small and real and alive, if that was my choice.

By Kya Buller

(she/her)

Instagram & Twitter: @kyajbuller

Edited by Paola Duran (@wintrytokyo)