In September of 2020 I found out I was expecting a much wanted child. On October 2, 2020 I was admitted to the emergency department with heavy bleeding. I had lost so much blood I began passing out while waiting to be seen, and even during this period of the pandemic there were only a handful of people waiting in the ED waiting area. The doctor who confirmed the miscarriage was so gentle and he treated both me and my husband with intense compassion.
The nurse who was caring for me had been where I was and spent half the night talking with me and my husband about our similar experiences. She spent a lot of energy trying to convince me that the pain would lessen when I held my future child in my arms and that it would all feel worth it when I reached that final goal. She tried to offer me hope in my darkest moment.
Following my discharge from the hospital I followed up with an incredible and inclusive facility in Bangor—The Mabel Wadsworth Center. It was founded by a woman who was friends with my husband’s grandmother. When the staff found out about my experience and my severe hearing impairment, they welcomed my husband in during Covid restrictions so I would feel safe and be able to know what was going on.
When examined it was discovered that I had a blood clot, things were not clearing out the way they should have been, and it was necessary to remove what remained of my former pregnancy to save my life.
Laying on that table, knees in the air, I clutched my husband’s hand with one of mine and held on for dear life to the hand of the woman who would soon after become my primary care provider. The procedure that followed was excruciating as an abortion procedure was used to prevent further blood loss (proof to me that nobody would rely on this for birth control). And the recovery felt like a sunburn in my uterus with intense and overwhelming cramping up my back and down my legs.
Without this procedure, regardless the pain it left me in, I had a very good chance of getting an infection, going septic, and dying. At the very least it would have prevented me from trying to have more children. The recovery time for my miscarriage was 3 months. I bled buckets, but it was better than being dead. And it was better than having to face a future without children.
In the end, I was only able to have one child as complications during my pregnancy and delivery were too likely to occur again and be life threatening. On October 2, 2021, in an ironic twist for a child due on Halloween, we survived 3% odds because the proper care was available when I needed it. My child lived because I was protected under Roe v Wade.
In Maine, even without Roe, I would still have been protected today. But that doesn’t help the people who don’t live in states that retain this crucial right. Overturning Roe v Wade didn’t just remove abortion protections—it removed access to necessary care and family planning procedures, diminished survival odds for expectant parents, and put a whole new generation of uterus-baring individuals at risk of the catastrophic outcomes that existed in a world prior to those protections.
The “Supreme” Court has signed the death certificate for millions, but they think they’ve done a good deed and that is the real crime of religion.
