Iended up attending my first-choice university, which was two hours from my home. I spent most of the first semester racking up phone bills talking to Rob. We were miserable without each other, so he enrolled and moved up for second semester.
In April of 1980, during my second year of college, I finally had my day in court with Harvey, the man who hit me with his green Pacer and took my leg from me—and so much more. For the rest of my life I would retain only about two hours of fragmented memories of that weeklong trial. I was told I couldn’t communicate with Harvey because we were adversaries. I sat at the prosecutor’s table between my mom and my lawyer, sneaking peaks at Harvey, who sat at the defendant’s table with his head cast down. My lawyer told me that he had ulcers. I was happy that he was suffering in some way, but I also felt guilty for my happiness. When I took the witness stand, my lawyer lauded me for having never been to therapy. He praised my strength and determination in the face of adversity. This only reinforced that I was doing the right thing by stuffing my feelings. There was a moment when I looked at nearly all the adults in my world from up on that stand and wished they would teach me how to deal with my feelings, instead of teaching me how to stuff them.
In the end, the jury was divided in their understanding of exactly where the accident had happened. My lawyer could tell they were going to be a hung jury, which meant we’d have to go through the whole, painful process again. We ended up settling and I received a tenth of the amount we asked for. Early on in the process of preparing for the trial, my lawyer explained that this trial was really my insurance company suing Harvey’s insurance company, so when we settled, I felt betrayed by Harvey himself. He should have stood up in court and demanded that I be fairly compensated. I had a lifetime of prosthetic legs to buy, years of physical therapy, massage therapy, and acupuncture—as well as doctor appointments—to pay for in my future.
After the trial was over, one juror came up to me and explained that one female juror—ironically, the one my lawyer thought would be most sensitive to my case—thought the accident was my fault. Her opinion had hung the jury.
The moment I heard that she blamed me, though I was physically incapable of running, my body mercifully carried me quickly through the courtroom, down the hall, and into the stairwell. Mary Beth was right behind me, and when we closed the stairwell door, we both screamed and wept in each other’s arms. How could that juror say the accident was my fault? Didn’t I do the right thing by getting out of the car on that snowy day to flag down help? Harvey was the idiot who was driving too fast. Mary Beth kept apologizing, saying she should have made me stay in the car, but she wasn’t the one who I needed to hear from. The trial was over, and Harvey had left the courtroom without talking to me.
Mary Beth and I stayed in the stairwell until we were able to catch our breath. I wiped my nose with the sleeve of my shirt and looked at my sister’s face, which was blotchy and red like mine. Holding her gaze, I knew that the accident was not our fault. Not mine, not hers. But we were united in this suspended guilt/grief state. That green Pacer had changed both of our lives forever. Though we would handle our feelings differently, and the consequences of the accident would be different for each of us, we would be on the same journey in search of healing and freedom from the burden we carried together.
I went back to school when the trial was over and resumed life as though I had not just faced the man whose car had cut off my leg. In early June, I began mysteriously waking up to intense nausea. It sat in my stomach like a bad meal refusing to digest. I grew so frustrated that I resorted to sticking my toothbrush down my throat to get the sickening feeling out of me. I didn’t understand what was happening, and I was embarrassed that my roommate Laurie could hear me throwing up from her bedroom next door to the bathroom. But curiously, I only felt sick in the morning. Maybe I should have guessed what was going on, but after I made myself throw up, I usually felt fine and went about my day like it had never happened.
This was my first experience living away from home outside of the dorms, and I wasn’t sure what I should do about my ongoing sickness. Within a few weeks, the nausea was getting worse and lasting throughout the day. I knew pot was good for nausea, so on a Wednesday afternoon after classes, I asked Laurie for a joint. We lived in a house on top of a well-populated hill overlooking a bay. After classes, we often sat in the two overstuffed chairs facing the picture window to talk about our respective days. That Wednesday, we assumed our usual positions in the rockers overlooking the bay and lit up.
“Colleen, do you think you might be pregnant?” She took a hit and passed the joint to me. A completely different nausea filled me—the queasiness of fear.
“Pregnant?” I blurted out, coughing and sputtering on the smoke I’d just inhaled. “I can’t be pregnant. No way!” For most people, the suggestion of pregnancy as an explanation for my symptoms would have made immediate sense. But for me, the girl who had spent the last two years ignoring her deeper feelings just to get through each day, ignoring hard truths was right in my wheelhouse.
“So what birth control do you use?” she asked, looking me right in the eyes.
“The rhythm method. We’re just really careful. I heard Mom and Dad used the rhythm method.” I looked down at the joint, not really seeing it.
“Yeah, and how many kids did they have?” she said, laughing. I swallowed the lump in my throat as I thought of the six of us, results of the rhythm method. I felt my face flush and my stomach sink to the floor as I realized I could actually be pregnant. I handed the joint back to Laurie before taking another hit.
Everything in me contracted. NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!
“Oh my God. I have to call Rob.” I got up out of my chair and went to the phone and dialed, desperately pleading inside for him to answer. He picked up after the third ring, and I begged him to come over right away. “I’ll explain when you get here.”
I went back to the living room to sit with Laurie. “Colleen, I think you should call Planned Parenthood and make an appointment for a pregnancy test,” Laurie said. She took another hit and then snuffed out the joint. This was all happening so fast, but I knew she was right. Laurie got up, found the phone book, and dialed the number. I made an appointment and then waited, sitting in the chair and looking out to the water and the seagulls, a rising terror growing in my heart about what my future would hold now.
Rob arrived about a half hour later. I ran up to him, panicky and trembling. It didn’t help that I was mildly stoned. I grabbed his arms and looked up into his face. “I might be …” I could hardly say the word “pregnant.” I buried my face in the crook of his neck and began to sob. He wrapped his arms around me and shushed and comforted me with his gentle voice, while inwardly I reproached myself.
How could I have let this happen? I’m so stupid.
What will Mom say? Oh God, I can’t tell Mom.
If I can’t tell Mom, what do I do?
She thinks I’m a good Catholic girl.
Rob led me up to my room, and we lay on the bed, with me curled against his chest. I cried, fretted, and worried. I had no idea what to do. “Colleen, baby, everything will be okay. Let’s just wait and see what they say at your appointment tomorrow. Who knows, maybe you just have the flu,” he reassured me.
The next day, Rob and I had to skip our morning classes to make my ten a.m. appointment. Planned Parenthood was downtown, about four miles away, so Rob insisted we take a taxi; we didn’t know the buses well, and he knew I couldn’t comfortably walk that far. I appreciated the extravagance.
I was asked to give a urine sample. As I sat on the toilet, I was trembling so much that I peed more on my hand than into the cup. Saying a silent prayer—something I’d vowed not to do when I was in the hospital—I held the cup in my hand. It was still warm from my pee. Please don’t let me be pregnant. Please. I went to the exam room, sat in the chair, and wrung my clammy hands. Please don’t let me be pregnant. Please …
As usual, God failed me. A tall, stocky, middle-aged nurse bustled into the room with my test results, all business. “Well, it looks like you’re pregnant. What do you want to do?” I sat on my hands to avoid wringing them any further and looked at the floor in shame. What was I going to do? I had no idea. There was no precedent for this in my world. I didn’t know anyone who’d gotten pregnant outside of marriage. I’m such a bad person. I’m worse than bad, I ruminated.
“Can I get my boyfriend?”
She looked at her watch and sighed. “Yeah, sure.”
I walked out to the lobby, my legs hardly holding me up. I saw Rob’s face immediately and beckoned him to me. He rose quickly and scurried over.
“I’m pregnant,” I whispered, catching him up before we walked into the room. Rob nodded, grabbed my hand, and gave it a supportive squeeze. I sat down in the one available chair, and Rob stood beside me, holding on to my shoulder. We waited for the nurse to stop writing down her notes. After what felt like an eternity, she looked up at us over the top of her glasses.
“So, do you two have a plan for this pregnancy?”
Rob and I looked at each other. “No, we don’t,” Rob answered softly.
“Well, you basically have three choices. You can proceed with the pregnancy and have the baby, you can give the baby up for adoption, or you can terminate the pregnancy.”
I looked at her hands and noticed she was wearing a wedding ring. Does she have children? I wondered. She must think I’m awful, getting pregnant without being married. She must think I’m the scum of the earth.
Rob and I couldn’t respond. I just sat there. The swirls in the tile floor swam in front of me as tears welled in my eyes. I couldn’t believe this was happening. What would Mom do? What would people think of me? How could I possibly handle this? I’d hardly adjusted to a new vision of my life as an amputee. I could barely see what my future would look like as I made my way through it with only one leg. Even if I closed my eyes tightly and concentrated hard—which I did while the nurse and Rob stood by waiting—I couldn’t summon in this moment my childhood vision of my life as a mother.
The nurse’s voice softened and so did her eyes. “You have some time to think about this. Here’s the number of an ob-gyn who can help you with whatever decision you make.” Then she narrowed her focus on me, and her voice carried the admonishing tone of a Catholic nun. “And I strongly suggest you also talk to the doctor about birth control.”
“How much does an abortion cost?” Rob asked the nurse. I jerked my head up and looked at him, stunned. My face flushed in embarrassment. How could he ask such a bold and loaded question so casually?
“About three hundred dollars,” the nurse answered matter-of-factly.
What was this? A business deal? Didn’t my feelings or opinions matter? My breathing became shallow. I felt a pit in my stomach and dread in my heart.
“Well, thank you very much,” Rob said, taking the piece of paper from the nurse.
We all stood up, and I grabbed Rob’s hand. We paid for the office visit, and Rob called for a taxi to take us back to my house. As we waited outside, I was too afraid to say anything. Rob was quiet, too, which unnerved me further. He started rubbing my back softly, like we were in this together, but it sounded like he’d already made his decision. I wanted him to leave me alone, so I walked around the corner of the building, not wanting him to notice my tears, which were flowing heavily.
Goddamn it! Hadn’t my body betrayed me enough? Hadn’t I been through enough? How could God let this happen to me? After the accident, everyone told me God doesn’t give us more than we can handle. Well, I couldn’t handle this! This was way too much for me. I couldn’t be pregnant. I couldn’t carry a child for nine months. I hardly knew how to get through each day. People thought I was handling my amputation well, but I wasn’t. They had no idea.
After walking tentatively around the corner, Rob said, “Colleen, we can’t have this baby.” His voice was soft and low.
“Goddamn it, I know!” I yelled, taking a few steps away from him. How could he be so quick to want to throw this away, while I still couldn’t believe it was even true? I didn’t want to deal with this at all. My love for Rob was so deep it was like breathing to me. We’d been together two years; I wanted nothing more than to marry him, plan a family, do all this the right way, but by now I also knew Rob wasn’t cut out for it. I trusted Rob’s deep love for me, but he was a free spirit. He had places to go, literally, and he was a solo traveler. Though I had a huge place in his heart, he could live without me. I wasn’t sure I could live without him. He’d helped me redefine myself after I lost my leg, and I believed if I lost him, I’d be losing another part of myself. But I knew, too, he wanted this baby to go away so he wouldn’t be forced to stay with me. He needed to know he could leave whenever he wanted and not be tied down to a family. I looked at him now and saw how much he’d given me. I could feel the familiar need to protect others from my suffering. I couldn’t indulge the anger I felt. Instead, I needed to consider what to do. The choice would not be easy; the risk of loss would be great no matter what I did. What was I most willing to lose—Rob or myself? And wouldn’t I lose a piece of myself no matter what I decided?
The taxi arrived, and we both got in, distant and silent. I stared out the window as we drove home, wishing it would rain. Hard. I couldn’t appreciate the flowers or the sun glistening off the water in the bay. I wanted to crawl into bed, listen to the steady beat of the rain on the roof, and hear it echo the pounding of my heart.
After my accident, I had been exalted as a survivor. Peers and adults looked to me as a shining example of how beautifully one can rise above a tragic turn of events. What I considered basic survival everyone else viewed as admirable. What would they think of me now? I knew I couldn’t take a chance on a baby right now, not when I was still figuring out my life—not only as a college student, but also as an amputee. The pregnancy alone could do me in. I’d been warned that if I gained weight, my prosthetic leg wouldn’t fit me any longer. How would I walk if that happened? How could I even bend over and put it on to begin with? But on the other hand, how could I have an abortion? As far from God as I felt, a huge part of me was as Catholic as I’d ever been.
The particular timing of the pregnancy was terrible for other reasons besides the fact that I wasn’t ready to become a mother. I was scheduled to return home that weekend to attend my brother Matthew’s high school graduation. I had already made arrangements to take the Greyhound bus to Seattle, and while I was dreading the thought of a stuffy two-hour bus ride, I dreaded even more seeing my family.
Would anyone be able to tell I was pregnant? Would my mom take one look at me and simply know? There was no getting around it. Family obligation dictated I show up, even if I said I felt ill.
Friday came, and I woke up feeling sicker than ever. I had to throw up repeatedly. Each time I slid my toothbrush down my throat, I wished the tiny germ of a fetus would come up with my vomit. Each wave gripped my stomach, and the skin on my torso tingled uncomfortably, like it would if I were hearing fingers on a chalkboard. A ring of cold sweat glistened around the perimeter of my face. I wanted to heave this interloper out of me. I couldn’t stop crying. I skipped classes again that day because I couldn’t muster the energy to walk the half mile to campus. I lay in bed, exhausted in a way I had never experienced, not even in the hospital. I drifted in and out of a light sleep, skimming over dreams that felt so real. I saw myself with long greasy hair and bloodshot eyes surrounded by dark circles, sitting alone on the altar at church, the whole congregation pointing at me, scowling, condemning me to hell. I saw myself weighing over three hundred pounds, full of fat and baby, stuck in the overstuffed chair in the living room, unable to get up, unable to walk because my leg didn’t fit me anymore.
I awoke to my own sobbing.
When Rob came over to take me to the bus station, I was still in bed. He kissed me softly on my eyelids. “Colleen, we have to leave in half an hour or you’ll miss the bus. You haven’t even showered?” I heard the care and concern in his voice. “Here, let me help you get up.” I wanted to resist, but Rob pulled the blankets from me and gently pulled me out of bed. I knew I had to put this crying jag on hold and hurry, but every movement felt heavy, like trying to swim through quicksand. As I showered, fighting the incoming tide of my emotions, which threatened to flood over me, Rob haphazardly packed my things.
I didn’t want to leave Rob, but I couldn’t think of any way to get out of this. In my family, we were always there for one another—no matter what. After a tearful good-bye, I picked up my bag, which was infinitely lighter than my heart, and boarded the bus.
I was late getting to the bus station, and the only seats available were in the back row, near the gas fumes. I stored my bag and sat down near a window. As the bus lurched forward, so did my stomach. I swallowed the bile and lay my head against the cold, sweaty window, wondering if I should tell Mom and simply face her admonishments. Just the thought made my stomach heave again. What would she say? I could imagine her screaming. I could see her yelling at me. But mostly, I could see the disappointment in her eyes. It would be bad enough to admit to Mom I was having sex. Aside from the moment in my hospital room, right after the accident, she and I never talked about it; I just assumed she knew Rob and I made love, but I didn’t know for sure. Good Catholic girls don’t have sex before marriage. She certainly didn’t. But to tell her about a pregnancy, too? I thought about how people must feel in those rags-to-riches stories—how they go from being a nobody to a somebody—like the actress Jean Harlow, who was “discovered” at a drugstore hamburger counter and skyrocketed to stardom. I knew a little of what sudden fame felt like. I knew what it was like to have people’s view of you change. After my accident, I went from being the quiet wallflower of the family to the admirable survivor. I didn’t want to fall from grace. People would scorn me. They would be so deeply disappointed in me. No one would understand that I secretly lived a numb existence and that being with Rob was the only thing that even touched on a sense of vitality or reality for me.
On the ride into Seattle, gas fumes and fear rolled into a toxic ball in my stomach. The bus pulled into the station, and I could see Mom waiting outside and my youngest brother, David, standing beside her. I dreaded the thought of meeting Mom’s eyes, certain she would be able to tell I was pregnant just by looking at me. I grabbed my bag from the overhead compartment and walked down the aisle, willing myself forward. I took the three steps off the bus one by one, as I do with all steps because of my prosthetic leg. I looked up and saw Mom waiting near the foot of the stairs, grinning widely. But when she took a closer look at me, she gasped. “Colleen, you look horrible!” she clucked, her motherly concern kicking in. “Are you okay?” She pulled me into her and hugged me tightly. I knew I didn’t deserve her compassion.
“Oh, I just feel sick. I had to sit at the back of the bus, and the fumes got to me.” I hugged her back, wishing she could take this all away from me, wishing I could be a little girl again, sitting on her lap. I stifled the tears; she wouldn’t understand them.
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry. You’ll feel better once we get home.”
I gave David a quick hug, and we headed for the car.
On the half-hour drive home, Mom asked about school. I talked about everything I could think of just to keep the conversation going. I rolled down the window, once again feeling sick.
When we got home, I went to my bedroom to lie down. My room, our house, held so many wonderful memories of growing up. Could I possibly ever recreate this kind of safety and joy for a child? With stark and sudden clarity, I understood that my childhood dream had been thrown out the window when I lost my leg—and that’s why I couldn’t imagine it anymore, no matter how hard I tried. Even if I had six kids, I wouldn’t be like my mom. I would be an amputee mom.
I dozed in and out of a light sleep, unable to keep the nausea at bay. I finally went into the bathroom and tried my toothbrush trick to vomit, but I only gagged loudly. I swallowed and swallowed until there was nothing left to swallow. I tried to be quiet, but the bathroom was next to Mom’s bedroom, and she heard me. I heard her feet scamper to the bathroom doorway. She knocked lightly and spoke to me from the other side of the door.
“Colleen, this doesn’t sound like car sickness. Should I be worried?” She sounded genuinely concerned.
“No, I just don’t feel good, Mom. I’ll go lie back down.”
“Well, we’re supposed to leave in half an hour,” she reminded me. “You should really be getting ready.”
In a panic, I got up off the bathroom floor, wiped my face, and opened the door. Mom’s eyes held a mixture of worry and impatience.
“Do you think you can even go?” she asked.
“I don’t know!” I yelled, not intending to. Of course I didn’t think I could go. But I would.
She looked as shocked at my outburst as I was. “Don’t take that tone with me, Colleen. I’m sorry if you’re not feeling well, but this is Matthew’s graduation.” I was the good girl, not one to yell at my mother. She and I got along well; that was the expectation. The one thing I wanted was to have her help me, but even for as loving as she was, I didn’t believe she could handle this.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I said, hating that I was whining, and feeling bad for snapping at her, for doing anything to erode our relationship. “I’ll hurry and get ready.” I put on my nice pants and a shirt and went back to the bathroom to freshen up. Brushing my teeth and putting on makeup helped me feel a little better. I kept swallowing the bile. I kept swallowing my fear and my urge to fall apart.
My five siblings were downstairs waiting. I hadn’t seen them for about a month. I gave hugs all around, stifling the sadness that crept up.
“What’s the matter, Coll?” asked Mary Beth.
“I got really carsick on the bus ride down.”
Mom cut in, hustling us out the door. “Kids, we need to get to the auditorium. Everyone in the car!”
At the high school, about a half hour into the graduation program, a wave of nausea swept through me, threatening to explode. I had to get to a bathroom NOW. I stood up. “Excuse me, I have to get to the bathroom.” People scurried out of my way. Navigating through the myriad of legs with my clunky prosthetic was tricky. I was slowed down further when I got to the aisle and had to descend the stairs one at a time because of my leg. My stomach lurched. I kept swallowing, cursing my leg for slowing me down. I hurried to the bathroom, got into a stall, locked the door, and threw up into the toilet. Sweat beaded on my forehead, and anger and frustration covered me like a fog.
I knelt on the floor with my head over the bowl and flashed back to my own graduation—how I’d been both on the top of the world, reveling in the admiration of everyone who saw me as a victor in the face of adversity, and battling daily fantasies of ripping the head off of the man who had taken away my leg. Those were confusing days, but not as confusing as this one.
I unrolled some toilet paper and wiped my brow and then my mouth. Then I heard someone come in. “Colleen, are you okay?” It was Maureen.
“I’m better now. I guess this is more than just car sickness.”
“I guess so. Mom’s worried about you. Can you make it through the ceremony?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. But I should sit in an aisle seat, just in case.”
We walked back to our row, and everyone moved down a seat so I could sit on the aisle. I spent the next two hours wiping my sweaty brow and praying to God to take the nausea away. I just needed to get through the ceremony without any more vomit. I did.
Afterward, we headed home, leaving Matthew to go to a party with his friends.
As soon as we got to the house, I went straight to my room and fell into bed. Sleep came quickly. I woke the next morning to another wave of nausea. I was getting tired of this. I lay in bed, hoping to keep it at bay by just lying still. About an hour later, Mom came into my room. She sat down on the bed and felt my forehead.
“No fever. Colleen, I’m really concerned.” Did her face have a hint of anger, or was I just imagining it? “Could you could be pregnant?” Her eyes were hard and her tone accusatory.
“No, Mom!” I squeaked. “I guess I just have the stomach flu.” I don’t know how I got those words out. I wasn’t used to lying to my mother, but there it was; I had just done it. Lying to my mother was about the biggest thing in the world. Just strike me down dead right now.
“Well, you just rest awhile, and we’ll see how you’re doing later.” She got up and left, leaving me heartsick as well.
I spent the day in bed knowing I had to act sick all day to feign having the flu. I knew I’d give myself away if I got up and acted fine. I spent the day trying to study for my finals, but I was distracted by the decision I had to make. I longed to tell Mom, but I couldn’t imagine saying the words to her. When she was my age, she was pregnant with her second child. Her life had always been my dream, but I knew now I would never have it. A whisper of change blew through my heart, leaving me feeling empty.
If ever there was a supportive family, it was mine, but I couldn’t imagine my family supporting me in this—what I was about to do. I would tarnish the Haggerty name. At our church, we were all seen as Goody Two-shoes. After Dad’s death and my accident, the whole church rallied around us in support. It was hard to admit to myself that I had already made my decision about whether or not I’d keep the baby. Abortion went against everything I had been taught as a Catholic. It was a mortal sin. But as foreign and unthinkable as the decision felt, the path of abortion was a lot easier to imagine than having a baby. If I said yes to an abortion, it would all be over soon. If I said yes to a child, I would be walking into a lifetime of unknowns. I already felt like my life was full of unknowns: Rob, a career, my own ability to function independently, let alone as a single mother with one working leg. How would I support us? How would I finish college? How could I chase my young child away from streets and pool edges, or jump up and stop his tilting chair from toppling over? How could I exercise my greatest instincts as a mother—to protect him, at all costs? The insecurity—my sense of inadequacy—swamped me. I was terrified by the prospect of it all. I didn’t even know how my leg would affect me for the rest of my life, let alone me as a mother. I was determined to live as normal a life as possible, but sometimes, those parameters felt impossibly narrow.
The next morning, I woke up feeling sick, as usual, but also relieved that I was going back to college—and better still, back to Rob. I was not looking forward to the bus ride, but it ended up being easier than I imagined.
When I arrived at the station, Rob was standing outside with a taxi waiting. I fell into his quick embrace, exhausted. He kissed my eyelids gently and opened the door to the taxi. On the drive home, I put my head on his shoulder and surrendered to the relief of being back in his arms and not having to hide my pregnancy from my family anymore. “How did it go?” he asked as he stroked my hair.
“It was hard.” I paused, reflecting on my conversation with Mom the previous day, the guilt washing over me. “Mom asked me if I was pregnant, and …” I choked out the last words, “I lied to her.” Rob knew how close Mom and I were, and he held me tightly.
Back at my house, we finally had a chance to talk about what to do.
We went upstairs to my room for privacy and sat on the edge of my bed. “Rob, I know you don’t want this baby. I don’t want it, either. But I don’t know how to do this.” I looked down at my belly, placed my hands on it. “Isn’t this a baby?” I looked into his eyes, searching for an answer.
He cleared his throat, sat up straight, furrowed his brow, and looked me in the eye. “I don’t think so. Right now, it’s smaller than your thumbnail. It’s just a collection of cells.” He shifted on the bed to face me directly. “Who knows when it’s a baby, but I know it’s not one now,” he said with authority.
We stared at each other for a moment, me wanting to believe him, him wanting to convince me. He did.
We made an appointment to have the procedure done later in the week. We both had finals to study for, but we couldn’t concentrate. The days dragged by, filled with nausea and dread. I felt clammy and lightheaded. Since I had made the decision, I just wanted it over with.
On the day of our appointment, I walked into the doctor’s office knowing this experience would change me forever. I was giving up a huge part of who I was so I could become who I knew I needed to be. So why did I feel so sad and guilty? Would the soul I carried inside me forgive me? Somehow I knew it was a boy. Where would he go once I terminated the pregnancy? My dwindling Catholic sensibility didn’t provide any answers to my questions.
I lay on the table with Rob by my head, stroking my hair as the doctor asked me to put my feet in the awkward stirrups and scoot myself down to the end of the table. He explained the procedure was like vacuuming out my uterus, and all I could imagine was a tube sucking away the tiny speck of a baby. I couldn’t stop curling my five toes. I couldn’t stop crying. If only it didn’t actually sound like a vacuum, I might have been okay. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” I don’t know if I actually said the words aloud. I felt deep remorse and anguish, and all I could do was apologize to the baby that would never be, to my God who I distrusted as much as I wished I could believe in him, and to who I used to be—a virtuous Catholic girl.
There are precious, holy moments in life—not “sweet precious,” but “tender and vulnerable precious”—that need holding. They don’t come around very often, but this was one of those moments. In my hands, I carried a prayer with a desperate plea for forgiveness. I didn’t know how this moment would change the course of my life, but I instinctively knew it would.
The vacuuming didn’t take long. Afterward, the doctor talked to us about birth control and fitted me for a diaphragm. I disliked how it would always remind me of that fateful day when I said no to one life so I could keep having my own.
Back at home, Rob and I quietly and slowly walked up the stairs to my room. I wasn’t nauseated anymore, but now I was sick in a different, more lasting way. I stood at the threshold of my bedroom and looked at my bed, still unmade, and my desk with my homework piled neatly, just as it had been when I left in the morning. I saw my dirty clothes in the hamper and my clean clothes hanging in the closet. None of these things had changed, yet everything looked different. I was reminded of coming home from the hospital after my accident and going to my bedroom for the first time. When I left my bedroom the morning of the accident, I had two legs. I returned two weeks later with only one. I was returning to this bedroom with something missing, too.
After the abortion, I felt like I had lost another body part. I had a gnawing feeling deep in my stomach, around the place a fetus would be, similar to the phantom pain I felt in my missing limb. Rob and I climbed into bed and curled around each other. I quietly sobbed in regret and relief while Rob held me tight.
After my accident, the shroud of my grief had morphed into a hard shell, a protective layer between me and the world. I felt like I always had an invisible suit of armor on. As I lay in Rob’s arms, I felt the armor thicken, protecting me further from the world, from my feelings, from pain.
The following week, I took my finals, wondering what the hell I was doing. Everything had changed now. I knew Rob and I wouldn’t get married now that we had said no to having a child together. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I felt lost. My lousy grades indicated I should drop out of college and figure out where I was headed.
I went home to live with Mom the summer after the abortion. I hadn’t seen her since Matthew’s graduation. We never talked about the flu I had, and I was glad she didn’t bring it up because I was too ashamed to lie again. But still, I was not pleasant to be around. I was depressed, but fighting it. And my hormones, which had started doing their job when I was pregnant, but were then misdirected, were reorienting themselves. I felt perpetually premenstrual and directed all my anger inward. Now that I had had the abortion, I was regretting it terribly. While I knew I couldn’t have gone through with the pregnancy and still maintained my current level of mobility, I was angry with myself for compromising the values and beliefs I’d grown up with—those that I’d once held so personal and dear. From my feelings of selfishness, the deep gnawing in my stomach grew.
Rob lived with his parents that summer, and we continued to see each other, but I could read the writing on the wall. Our relationship was dying a slow death, but neither one of us wanted it to end. In spite of what we knew we had to do, we continued to date. I needed to be near him, to stay connected to the person who had gone through such an intense and life-altering event with me, but his usually delightful sense of humor couldn’t coax me into laughter or keep the depression at bay. Only when we took our walks did I feel at peace. Using my body physically was cathartic, as if I was somehow making up for how I’d shortchanged its potential to bring life into the world. I’d lost enough. And I knew I was losing Rob, too. I would not let my body wither away with everything else.
I didn’t go back to college the next fall. Instead, I found a job at a stock brokerage firm and a cute mother-in-law unit to rent in Seattle. Shortly after Rob helped me move, we finally broke up. I lived alone and without him. I felt lost. Since right after the accident, he had been a major part of my life. Everything I had learned to do on one leg had been with Rob, and usually because of him. He had been my number one cheerleader, my advocate, my shoulder to cry on, my scapegoat. Rob had been my best friend—practically my only friend after high school. I had been so comfortable with him; he never judged me. I didn’t have to worry about what he thought of me. Without him now, everything felt so hard. I was more afraid of what my future held than ever.
I needed to find something to lighten my heavy heart.