My Choice

I wanted to give a very personal (not TOO personal, don't panic!) account of my own relationship with my reproductive system and with abortion so here goes....

I always felt that abortion and the access to it, was a very important freedom of choice for women. I am lucky enough (or cursed) with the ability in most areas of my life to be able to see things from many angles and for this reason I do understand that for some people the sanctity of human life, even at it's most minute and fragile is precious and I would suggest, for these people, who feel so strongly about it, that they avoid abortion for themselves. These were my arguments at 13 when I debated in school on the issue but little did I know, sitting at the front of my RE classroom how important that freedom would one day be for me.

Firstly I am 38. I'm not a young thing unable to manage the psychological or physical impact of pregnancy and childbirth. I'm no free-spirited singleton desperate not to tie myself down. I am (sadly) a proper grown up with my own home and a responsible job and I am quite independent thank you with an absolutely lovely partner.

I have 2 children of my own who are growing up at a rate of knots and the baby days are long behind me. The baby days were not easy days for me, I have lost 4 pregnancies that I desperately wanted to continue and the grief of those losses was unique in each case and sometimes profound. I won't go into it here.
The miscarriages happened, I found out after the third, because I have a chromosomal abnormality. I have a balanced tranlocation of chromosomes 7 and 12 (look it up its fascinating stuff). Which means in short, some of my important bits of information are in the wrong place. Which has no ill effects on me but has a potentially massive effect on my childbearing. My daughter has the same abnormality sadly and it's very common, approximately 1 in 400 I believe.

Every time I get pregnant there is a 50% chance that the foetus has an unbalanced number of chromosomes which would result in MASSIVE abnormality. Not a small deformity but something fundamentally wrong, probably with spine and brain. They can't be specific as every translocation results in different problems.
In my last pregnancy I had to wait until 15-18 weeks to have a CVS (my choice)in order to find out if the baby I was carrying had the problem and then, after a 3 week wait, I would have the choice, based on that result, as to whether or not to continue with that pregnancy.

I was very lucky. I was carrying a baby with a balanced translocation, the same as me and there was every chance she would be perfectly healthy. Thankfully I never had to make that choice myself but lets be very clear that choice would have been mine, with my then husband's support and no one elses. Not a man in a suit, not an MP, mine.

My choice would have taken into account the discomfort and pain of continuing a pregnancy that was incredibly unlikely to result in a surviving baby. My choice would have considered the pain of delivering that baby and probably having to take in some horrendous malformation and then watch it die. It would have taken account of the massive life changing impact that the care of that child (should it survive) would have had on everybody including my then young son, my parents, grandparent and other carers. It would have considered the distinct likelihood of having to end my career as a nurse.

I know that it this point many are shouting by now that the situation is entirely different if there is an abnormality. Well yes, at present, in the UK it is. But not all women are so lucky, only just accross a small stretch of water I would have had no such tests and no such choice. And why anyway should my right to choose whether I want to continue to be the vessel for a foetus only apply if the foetus is abnormal? What of all the other considerations of life, money and means?

I have found in the last few years since divorcing that keeping the baby days behind me is not as easy as i would like. As an older woman accessing contraceptives has been incredibly difficult. I won't go into the ins and outs but cuts to community health care are such, in some areas, that if you're over 21 and not eligible for the pill there are only a limited number of trained medical staff who can, for example, put in a coil and getting an appointment can be hard particularly outside working hours.

A few months ago, due to a potentially misplaced, usually reliable contraceptive device I thought I was pregnant. I cannot begin to explain the cold fear this struck in me. I was horrified and for 24 hours hit near breakdown.

I amin a new and very happy relationship with a lovely man and we decided very early on, that more children was not on our agenda. Despite a good career my income as many other's, has shrunk during this recession. My home is too small for the 2 permanent and 2 visiting children, my partner and I. Our income is stretched to the limit, holidays are non-existent and there are very few treats and THEN there is the reality, the awful memory of the extra stress that one of MY pregnancies involves. I knew, in my heart that if I was pregnant I would not go ahead with the pregnancy, I couldn't. I knew that it would be such a difficult choice after losing 4 pregnancies to give one up voluntarily, but I also remembered the pain of losing the babies I had so wanted, the desperation for them to hold on and I knew that to bring a child into the world with anything less than that desperate need would be unfair on us both.

One day my daughter, my beautiful doe eyed 11 year old, may consider pregnancy and the risk of potential miscarriage and abnormality and facing the choices of tests and abortion will be her burden. I have long wondered if medical science will offer her more choices for genetic selection or earlier screening and I have wondered how the knowledge would affect her choice of action should she find herself unexpectedly pregnant, at an earlier age, when not ready and with the knowledge that this will be even more stressful for her than most. In all my years of considering how hard it will be to watch her go through it and how I will support her in this I had never once considered that for her the choices would be less not more. It is my generation's responsibility and my responsibility to make sure that doesn't happen. It can't, surely! How would that be progress?