The spermicide stung.
A suppository, which dissolved on the inside, the bullet shaped insert created a sudsy barrier to the cervix.
The birth control of choice in the back end of the 1980s for a late-twenty something to whom the pill was entirely too deliberate and required a schedule of intent. Planned unpregnancy was unacceptable to the morally ambiguous.
The conception, therefore, was never expected.
Waking on up on day 49 in the context of a cycle which rarely deviated from 33, swollen, doubled over in cramping pain, crawling the length of the second floor apartment to vomit into the toilet and then the call to mother was also not to be predicted.
Being asked as soon as she arrived if there were any possibility of pregnancy was the moment of clarity, like the climax in a Woody Allen movie. Maybe because the topic of deliberate fornication had not, up until that point, ever been insinuated let alone confronted head on.
Starkly deliberate, almost methodical, was the manner in which mother and daughter prepared to travel to the lab to obtain the pregnancy test. The trip was entirely without drama, outside of what the situation inherently bore.
Sitting for the blood draw, followed by a need to urinate and the discovery of brown spotting indicating flow made the day shorter and the issue apparently self resolving. The test was negative.
The aftermath proved protracted. This potential mother had to face decades later the very likely reality that, in spite of one test result, what had since been revealed about the lability of hormone levels before and after a conception failed suggested that, for probably less than three weeks in the late 80s, the daughter had been with child.
Nobody survives abortion.
The woman experiences – unless drugged – visceral, cramping pain and nausea. The conceived embryo bears disengagement from the warmth of the womb and a perilous trip down the vagina at the hand of either muscular contraction or mechanical suction. But, once completed, the process leaves a wake.
Thought waves. Turbulent speculation. Transient recollection. Lifelong wonder.
Whether spontaneously induced, by the body, or provoked by surgical procedure the abortion separates the giver of life from life. How can this enmity not persist until time becomes eternity?
The awareness that life was, and then was not, plants its own seed. A name. Features, on a face. Hands. Feet. Grasping to assign place, a certain purgatory, allowing imagination to become a branding memory and remembrance to burn its own birth.
The sting, of death.
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Copyright 5/13/22 Ruth Ann Scanzillo. All rights those of the author, whose story it is and whose name appears above this line. No copying, in part or whole (including translation). Sharing by direct blog link, exclusively – no RSSING. Thank you for being trustworthy.
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Google tells me conciseness develops at week 28, I used to think it was more like 2 years! ❤
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“Conciseness”? I’m not familiar…….? I mean, in the context of creative writing, I would gather you reference whether I am able to speak concisely but is that the context in which YOU are making the reference, OF?
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My spelling is dreadful, I meant consciousness! You’re perfectly concise! I drifted off thinking about cut off dates, both legally and morally, I heard it was being reconsidered – since life can be more viable earlier nowadays than when the laws were last looked at – not to mention the whole pro-life people, bit complex xx
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Aha. That changes the debate landscape, completely! Well, science is currently also in public debate via YouTube regarding consciousness surviving after bodily death, as well, so the whole notion of consciousness – it’s source, where it is “housed”…..is wide open for discussion. Perhaps some might argue, albeit without any known basis for validity, that the spirit or soul embodies the fetus at the moment the umbilical cord is cut; still others would defend that the spirit is present from conception, via life itself. How we as laypeople could ever know is the real issue, as we remain subject to the scientific authorities and mystics alike for the answer. But, because we cannot know with certainty, I say err on the side of caution and protect from the moment of conception. Nature itself takes care of the rest, via miscarriage of unviable fetuses. I suppose logic suggests that, since some fetuses become unviable after the moment of conception, being sloughed off BY the body, not all conceptions house spirits – else, why would the Creator voluntarily dispense with some rather than none?
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p.s. yet, merely because the body is rendered capable of dispensing of unviable fetuses, and does so nearly as often as it allows the fetus to develop fully to birth, I say we let nature literally take its own course and stop interfering for our own, selfish reasons.
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Its a complex thing, especially since no one agrees on anything!
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(and, now, we’ll see if my response posts…..)
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Oh, I guess it didn’t. Let me try again. I think the reason no one agrees is because there is so much that is not known, and cannot yet be, about conception and life and soul and spirit (and, consciousness). For THAT reason, I believe we should err on the side of caution. Respect what cannot yet be known.
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Yes, God might have it in for us all!!! 😮
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I sent the link to a friend who has 5 adult children, so I bet she will share your article with them, RA. Your article brings the death of a life to our lives….make sense?
Your blogs are brilliant.
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Thank you, Judy, both for the share and the supportive comment. I entered this same reply as a general comment, so it may appear as a duplicate; still learning to navigate the template!
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Thank you, Judy, both for the share and the supportive comment. I am compelled to write. Gratified that others like you read and respond. ❤ you!
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