Bodies Unfiltered

By Kat K.

Content Warning: Miscarriages/Abortion, Blood, Suicidal Ideation

I have always believed in bodily autonomy. Everyone has the right to do anything with their own body. Lately I have been subconsciously avoiding these beliefs. Bodily autonomy is vital, but what if my body doesn’t feel like mine? 

Columbus, Ohio was covered in snow on January 10th, 2021. Hitting negative temperatures, I struggled to move from under my heated blanket. My bed was my safe space, covered in floral pillows, stuffed animals, and the occasional outfit I decided not to wear. I rolled over and found my boyfriend already left for work. Before I could miss him, my head started spinning and the most intense wave of nausea came over me. I rushed to the bathroom, trying not to wake up my two roommates, Ethan, and Andrew. I couldn’t help it, as soon the door closed I turned and threw up until my stomach hurt. I didn’t even realize I threw up so violently I peed all over our bathroom mat. I felt disgusting, covered in sweat and embarrassment. This was the second week in a row I had been woken up by my body’s discomfort. I continued to ignore the positive pregnancy test from last week.

I went back to my room and added the bathroom mat to my growing pile of dirty laundry. A text from my roommate lit up my phone: “Let’s have a house meeting in 20 minutes.” Terrified, anxious, and alone I responded, “Okay, talk soon, I hope I didn’t do anything wrong!” I was avoiding my roommates; I didn’t know how to act around them or how to not be weird. They didn’t like my boyfriend, he didn’t like them, and I was constantly nauseous from being pregnant. This meeting was the first time I had talked to them in what felt like forever, and I had a feeling the conversation would not be pleasant. I paced around my room, avoiding piles of unwashed laundry covering the hardwood floor. After 20 minutes of picking my nails and rehearsing what I could say, I headed downstairs. 

Our living room was filled with an indescribable amount of mess. Pizza boxes from last week were stacked on the coffee table and empty beer cans lined the floor around it. There was a life-size cutout of Snoop Dogg in the corner alongside a stolen yellow fire hydrant. The living room was attached to the kitchen, which was equally disgusting. Leftover pots of food on the stove paired with dishes stacked a mile high in the sink. I stayed away from this place at all costs. My new college house was a drastic change from my mom’s house, where I found myself going back to often.

I sat down on our lumpy, brown couch as Andrew, with a concerned look, said, “So, we hear you every morning. What is going on dude?” Shit. I don’t know why I thought I could avoid this, but it was happening. The lump in my throat made it impossible to get the words out. I couldn’t look at him, I turned to the floor and quietly said, “I’m pregnant.” Without any hesitation he responded, “I thought so, what are you gonna do?” A question I wish I had thought more about. I had no idea what I was going to do. I didn’t want to be pregnant, I didn’t want a baby right now, but I wanted to avoid the trauma of having an abortion. My depression and anxiety had come back in full force with thoughts of suicide. Maybe I had messed up this life too much to fix it. Maybe my life wasn’t mine anymore.

I told him, “I mean, the only thing I think I can do is have an abortion. There is no way in hell I can have a kid right now. There is no way.” They didn’t say anything. After an uncomfortably long silence where I felt like the whole world was judging me, Ethan said, “Well, if you need any help, let us know.” 

I thanked them and quickly ran back to my room to cry. Ethan and Andrew were my friends, but they couldn’t see me like this. No one can. I was in this alone only because I forced everyone else out. I thought moving out of my mom’s house last August would be the start of creating happy and fun memories, but this was a nightmare. I was a freshman at OSU that couldn’t do any of my classes, had no money, no job, and was crippled by nausea every day of my life. It was finally time to make the decision, I couldn’t have this baby, it was slowly killing me. 

I called Planned Parenthood in Cincinnati, the only one in the state that could help me. They had an opening for next Monday at 10am for a consultation, they had to see me first before I could make the decision about my body. My boyfriend worked on Mondays, and I couldn’t drive because of my nausea, so I texted my mom: “Hey mom, I didn’t want to call and say this because I am so embarrassed and can’t get the words out. I am pregnant but have an appointment with Planned Parenthood on Monday and I need you to take me. Please don’t be mad, I love you so much.”

After several hours of thinking she hated me and was figuring out how to never talk to me again, she texted back. “Honey, of course I can help you, you should’ve told me sooner! I will be there on Monday at 8am to pick you up, everything is going to be okay!” An immediate rush of calm filled my body, my mom knew I was pregnant and that I was having an abortion, but she didn’t hate me. I anxiously waited all weekend for Monday morning, I couldn’t wait to take my body back.

Pregnancy is a miracle for countless people, the joy of creating life is incomparable to many other parts of life. This wasn’t that. This felt like the movie Alien and any day now a slimy parasite would emerge from my stomach and kill everyone I love. I knew this wasn’t the case, but the feeling of having an infant growing inside me felt more like my body being taken over rather than sharing it. I was throwing up constantly, lost almost 10 pounds, and couldn’t keep my head up for longer than 20 minutes. This wasn’t what it was supposed to feel like. 

Monday morning arrived and my mom’s car headlights lit up my room through the window. I put on the largest coat I could find, coffee-stained sweatpants, and grabbed a grocery bag for the car ride just in case I threw up. The drive was two hours of anxious sweating, my mom reminding me that everything will be okay, and trying not to throw up all over my mom’s cloth seats. As we drove around the Planned Parenthood to find the parking lot, there were three older men standing on the sidewalk outside with signs saying, “Abortion is MURDER,” accompanied with weirdly edited pictures of fetuses. I couldn’t hold back my tears. I knew they were wrong, abortion is healthcare not murder. Yet seeing people like that, so passionate about hurting others, made me not want to live in this world anymore. We parked in the underground lot and walked through the front doors, where two police officers approached us. They broke the news that since COVID, no one was allowed to accompany patients. I had to go in by myself. My mom went back to the car, and I was escorted by the officer to the front desk, where they gave me a stack of paperwork to fill out and made me put a card on file. 

I sat in the waiting room for five painful hours. My phone died half an hour into waiting and all I could do was stare at the filled-out paperwork that only took me 20 minutes to do. I waited, and waited, and muffled my cries into my coat. Once my name was called, the nurse took me back to a room and asked me to hop up onto the table. She began the ultrasound and asked if I wanted to see the baby. Hearing her say that sent me into a panic. I was not pregnant, there was no way, yet this woman was looking at my uterus and telling me there was a 10-week-old fetus in there. I quickly told her no thank you and she left the room. Before I could leave and schedule the second appointment, the actual abortion appointment, I had to meet with an “educator.” I was told that their job is to make sure that you are fully informed on what your options are when it comes to pregnancy. I was sitting in a small room with gray walls and no windows. I felt trapped both internally and externally. I looked around for a trash can and jumped to grab the small black one placed under the table. I was throwing up as the educator entered the room, my discomfort on full display. She continued to question my decision for half an hour, not educating me on the process, but attempting to educate me on why I shouldn’t do this. As a people pleaser, it was nearly impossible to keep looking at her and saying, “Yes, I want this abortion, regardless of what information you will tell me right now.” 

Being in this space made me feel like my pregnancy was more real than I was. I didn’t want to come back for my last appointment, but that is the reason they made you. They want to make sure you are confident in your decision, which is understandable. What I can’t understand is why it felt so wrong. I always thought my body is my body, and I am allowed to make decisions that affect it. My body was no longer my body, and the guilt of having an abortion had manifested into despising the staff that was trying to help me. 

The next day my mom and I made the same journey down to Planned Parenthood. Today I would have the abortion. Since I was right at 10-weeks they said I could still do the pill abortion, rather than surgical. I took one of the pills and sat in the waiting room for half an hour until they cleared me to leave. They instructed me to take a second pill a few days later to complete the process. I had already begun to feel freer and more like myself. 

A few days passed and my symptoms remained the same, I was vomiting, couldn’t sleep and could barely keep my head up. I took the second pill and waited, they said there should be a solid amount of bleeding and if there isn’t to give them a call. I waited and continued to wait but nothing happened. I bled a little, but not nearly enough as they said I should. I thought, maybe it would take a little longer to work, so I decided to give it a few more days before I called. 

The day before I was planning on calling, I woke up to the most indescribable cramping feeling in my lower abdomen. I stood up to go grab my pain medication and fell over to the floor. The pain was so unbearable that I couldn’t move. I curled into a ball on the cold, hardwood floor, terrified. My boyfriend wasn’t home, and I was scared to talk to my roommates, so I thought about calling 911. My hips began to ache, and I kept putting my face into pillows to muffle my pained screams. I begged for this pain to be over. I am not religious, but I prayed to God that this pain would end, either by some miracle or by killing me. After what felt like forever but was nearly two hours, I laid on my back and felt a rush of blood come out of me. I looked down, this wasn’t just a blood clot. I picked up the 10-week-old fetus, but it just looked like a sack of flesh and blood. I cried. Every emotion poured out of me. I had my body back, but at what cost? 

I am the biggest believer in bodily autonomy, but pregnancy changes what it means for me. Getting to choose what happens to my body is the ultimate control, but making that choice was devastating. Abortion isn’t murder, it’s freedom. It’s a choice that is nearly impossible to make and leaves many women traumatized or filled with guilt. Some feel guilt for having an abortion while others feel guilty for ever doubting the right to decide what happens to their body. There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t think about being pregnant and the pain I felt, physically and emotionally. If I lived in a perfect world where I could financially and emotionally support my child, then my decision may have differed. But I was broke, mentally unstable, and confident that I made the right decision, as horrific as it was.