Mourning my abortion in desolation

“August 2022 was one of the strangest months of my life. My four and a half year relationship with my ex-partner broke down following several arguments and disagreements and he eventually left home. But despite being very upset, that month arose in me a need for confinement that I had never felt before. It was a very mammalian need: I wanted to be held in my arms all the time, I needed to feel protected.

A few days later I would find out what it was. I realized my period was more than 10 days late. I was convinced it was just stress, but when I started to feel a little nauseous, I got worried. My ex-partner had started to visit me sporadically because in this strange need for affection, I called him to see if there was anything left to repair.

I went to buy the pregnancy test at the pharmacy. The result is positive. “I’m pregnant,” I said, and we immediately started thinking about what we were going to do. We weren’t a good couple: “I think we should have an abortion,” he told me. During that afternoon, he repeated it to me several times. His tone carried serious and serious words.

I was paralyzed: on the one hand I understood him, but on the other, the message came like a wild ball every time he said it to me and it left me empty. A few days later we went to the first ultrasound together. I was very nervous, but I found the courage to lie down on the stretcher and face reality. The doctor showed me the embryo and suddenly he increased the volume on the machine screen. Some heartbeats began to sound. It was obvious that the doctor was expecting a reaction of tenderness or happiness, but instead there was an awkward silence. I didn’t say a word because I was afraid they would find out that abortion was a possibility we were considering. What if the doctor noticed? Could they take me to prison?

After hearing the heartbeat, we got in the car. It was the first time I said that I needed space to make this decision, because this was going to happen to my body and I wanted to think about whether I should take the bus or not. He was still adamant that he should have an abortion, “although it’s sad that we never know which one it will look like.” , he told me. I was frozen and I never forgot this sentence.

During these days, everything became more hostile. He offered to make me lunch while I rested, and when he arrived with the food, I couldn’t eat it because of the nausea and disgust I felt. He got angry. He would lie down next to me to watch violent series at full volume and when I could no longer stand the anxiety of hearing and seeing blood on the screen, I would ask him to please turn down the volume a little. And he got angry again. I didn’t know who this person next to me was.

Every time I woke up, the first thing I thought was that, unfortunately, I was still alive and the possibility of an abortion still existed. I had to get to this point so that, alone and propped up on the pillow, I began to think for the first time about what was really going through my mind to make me feel this way. And suddenly the following words formed in my thoughts: “You have to get through this. »

You know when the thought feels like a certainty, and that was it. I started thinking about the specific things I needed to get out of this state. What happens if I have this child? Materially, you will not lack anything, I was a healthy person, but will I be the mother I want to be? And I realized the answer was no. I wasn’t going to be a happy mother and I didn’t want to give that to anyone, especially to a being who, although very small, was inside me and whom I loved deeply.

It had already been a month and two weeks. We found a Mendoza medical center which was called where abortions were carried out from a gender perspective. I contacted them, they welcomed me, we set a date and they reminded me that I had to bring the first ultrasound to the procedure. I made the appointment and bought two tickets to Argentina.

The loneliness with which I went through this process was a defining factor in everything that made the pain intensify. The psychological and symbolic violence that I experienced from my ex-partner, the desolation, forced me to undergo intensive therapeutic treatment. I had started having suicidal thoughts and urges to harm myself, something that had never happened to me in my life. . He had hit rock bottom after those days in Mendoza.

The medical team at the place where I had the abortion was extremely human and welcoming. The procedure went smoothly and I was even able to feel peace and independence for a few minutes. But as soon as I left the pavilion, the first thing he said to me was that “I hope we don’t have to go through that again,” laughing. Earlier, he had commented, “It’s a shame we can’t walk more,” while, dissociated, I simply nodded and inwardly thought how unreal his words sounded in this sad and vulnerable context.

Then came the physical pain. When we got to where we were staying, he didn’t want me to go buy ibuprofen and I had to beg him. Back in Santiago, I confronted him and told him he was bordering on violent and he became even more angry just because I could think he was violent. He took his things and left, leaving me in the apartment in pain, risk of bleeding and alone.

His figure of abandonment was the key to my fragility during and after all of this.

I think if I hadn’t been so alone, abortion or not, I would have experienced this process in a completely different way. The night he left, I felt terrible pain in my body, but I couldn’t go to the emergency room because How was I going to explain everything without saying that I had an abortion?

The illegality of abortion in Chile ultimately culminated in my desolation. Not only do you have to worry about what your body will experience, but also about not getting caught, buying on the black market and seeking illegal help if something goes wrong. What’s complex is not just that abortion leaves you in a fragile position, The problem is doing it without the possibility of being accompanied if you have the misfortune of being alone, of being raped and, what’s more, in a context of illegality.

That’s what was traumatic for me. I had no doubt when it came time to abort, it was the decision I made safely and with the tools I had. As gave me terror Abort illegally in Chile and get caught, I had to betray myself do it in a legal and safe context. But that meant prolonging my exposure to the loneliness, violence and secrecy that meant leaving the country with no one other than me and my ex-partner able to overcome it. Despite all this, what I was able to do was a privilege.

It’s been a year of digesting all of this. At first, I couldn’t talk about the abortion without starting to cry, I called it “the event”, “the event”, but thanks to therapy, I was able to legitimize what was wrong with me. arrived and from there start the healing and give it a place.

After all of this, I promised myself that if I could help another woman avoid this terror, I was going to do it. I have prepared a personal monetary fund so that whenever I find out that someone needs help to have an abortion in a safe and supported place, I can do it. I started telling it in my close circles. “I don’t care if this woman wants to remain anonymous, or if I can’t pay for the whole trip, I know I can help her with part of it or even accompany her,” he said . “I want it to be with total respect, because I was there, and it’s scary that they know what you’re doing.”

Lately This made me want to join forces with other women to create a collective economic fund and join us. “I think this is the only way to experience this mourning a little more peacefully.”