Living Life in the Gray
I am 3-plus years out from a third trimester termination for medical reasons (tfmr). I’m not writing today to re-share that experience, though I’m always ready and willing to share my story with folks who are ready to receive it.
I am writing today to talk about where I am now, what my journey has felt like, my reflections on the anti-choice/forced-birth movement, what it’s been like to see Roe crumble before our eyes and so many states decide they know better than the person holding potential life.
My second pregnancy ended with a decision that no parent wants to make at 36 weeks gestation. This decision was absolutely “gray.” We knew that there was no best or right decision. We had to do the best we could with the information we had at the time, which was limited in its scope.
My fetal diagnosis was “gray.” No one could tell us exactly what my child’s life would look like. Doctors anticipated complications, hospital stays, spinal surgeries. No guarantees after that. Lots of uncertainty, lots of gray.
My early parenthood journey was “gray.” At the time of my tfmr, I had a 3yo. A fabulous, loving, amazing 3yo who was looking forward to becoming a big sibling. Those first few years with her were grief-filled (my father had died while I was pregnant with her), anxiety-filled (I had severe PPA and was later diagnosed with generalized anxiety), and joy-filled. The epitome of gray.
Forced birthers live in the black and white. They are unwilling to sit with the gray. It is an easier way to live, I’d wager. It’s easier to say, “this is always wrong” than to say “this is a complex issue and I cannot know what someone else feels.” The latter is messy, it makes life feel messy. I can almost understand the desire to exist only in your righteousness.
But I choose the gray.
It is really hard to live in the gray. My pregnancy termination, my fetal diagnosis, my early parenthood journey – not black and white. Rare is the decision that is clear-cut. Rare is the issue that is clear-cut. For me, to acknowledge this complexity is to be human. It is to have the full experience of life, to learn and to grow, and to understand that what feels one way to you might feel a different way to someone else.
The end of Roe, the era of Dobbs, has been painful. I have spent much of the last year full of rage, deeply justified rage. Removing a constitutional right has emboldened black-and-white thinking and created new layers of trauma, grief, shame. I do often feel helpless but I am also determined to highlight the damage this causes, the incomplete story this tells. My story, your story, our stories are not talking points. My life is not a talking point.
To impose nearly insurmountable barriers on or deny someone else’s ability to pursue what is right for them, at any stage of pregnancy, is a cruelty. To be told that someone else knows better than we do is enraging. It is a denial of a human right, of our right to parent when and how we want, of our ability to know ourselves.
I choose the gray.
Susan, June 2023