Flicker

4

July 17, 1990

Dr. Thompson was just staring at Stevie who was sitting on the bed swinging her legs. Her file was in her hand and Stevie was searching. Searching for something in her eyes. 

"You and your husband tend to get rough during sex don't you?" She questions.

"I mean...yeah, yeah we do. Really rough." Stevie sighs in defeat.

"I can tell, first you end up with a bruised cervix, you come in today and during your pelvic exam, I noticed that you were slightly swollen. I'm going to be blunt with you, you can't do that anymore." Dr. Thompson shakes her head.

"I'm pregnant." Stevie looks down at her lap.

"You are...by the date of the last menstrual cycle I'd say you're somewhere around seven or eight weeks. The cramping you complained about was normal pregnancy cramping. And since you've had no sign of blood, I would say you are definitely not miscarrying. But I would be careful because if he gets aggressive especially around your stomach...it won't be good." She states. 

"Can we...can we see it?" Stevie bites her lip her hand falling to her stomach. 

"We can try...there won't be much there but we can certainly try. I'm just going to have you lay back and put your feet in the stirrups. This isn't going to feel good because you are quite swollen. I have to do an ultrasound this way because you're just too early to see it through your stomach so we need to actually get up there." The doctor explains as Stevie does what she's told. 

She winces when the probe goes in but eventually, the doctor turns the screen of the computer around "There you go." 

"That's a baby?" Stevie asks.

"It is. A very early baby. There are the head and the body." She points out.

"It doesn't look like a baby." Stevie shakes her head.

"It's only about the size of a blueberry." The doctor explains. 

"When's the abortion cut off?" Stevie questions bringing her thumb up to her teeth. 

"Twelve weeks. But I really need you to think about this before you commit to doing something. It can put strains on marriages, it can leave mental scars and it's not the nicest procedure in the world." The Doctor sighs.

"My marriage is already strained. This baby may or may not have been conceived during a fight about something stupid because that's what my husband and I do...we fight about the stupidest things and then we have very wonderful, satisfying, aggressive sex." Stevie explains. 

"It's ultimately going to be up to you," Her doctor explains. 

"What do you do for an abortion?" Stevie asks. 

"Ultimately it's your choice. There are three possible types. Saline Instillation, where we inject a saline solution into your abdomen and uterus. This I'm not going to lie, is substantially painful and requires a 48-hour hospitalization, it induces a miscarriage so you'd lose a lot of blood and there is a chance of infection which is why we hospitalize you. The second option is a vacuum abortion. Painful yes but only slightly. We simply just feed a catheter into the OS, a very small hole in your cervix where sperm travel to get to your uterus. When giving birth, what we normally check to see how far dilated you are. We do have to numb your cervix with a local anesthetic that's the most painful part of it. The final option is a D and C. This is extremely painful, and because of that, what we do is put you under completely. We go in and we dilate your cervix using tools to essentially pry it apart and then I'd go in and I'd slowly remove the pieces of the fetus and then scrape out your uterine lining." The doctor sighs. 

"You'd dismember it." Stevie swallows thickly a sick feeling overcoming her. 

"Yeah, I'd dismember it." Dr. Thompson gives a sad smile. 

"No, no...I don't want children. I have never wanted children but I'm not going to kill a baby." She shakes her head. 

"Well, there is always adoption but you really have to talk about this with your husband. You're in your 40s which means you have about ten-fifteen years until you start menopause. Your chance of having kids after this is there but they're not the greatest. If you guys decide to abort or put up for adoption and down the road when you're closer to your fifties you decide that no, you really want a baby it most likely won't happen. I hate to be realistic with you but that's just how it is. Look, think about it, here are your pictures. I'll let you get dressed. I want you to schedule an appointment for four weeks. Even if you do have an abortion, there's a two week follow up appointment anyway. We can adjust the dates as needed. Have a good day Mrs. Buckingham." The doctor stands up and leaves the room. 

***

When she gets back to her house she just sits in the middle of her bed looking at the ultrasound image and she starts to simply cry. She doesn't want kids. She doesn't want to have to drop everything and go to PTA meetings, she doesn't want to have to take a kid to dance or soccer she likes living her life by the seat of her pants, going and doing whatever she wants, whenever she wants. But what the doctor said really hit her. She was forty-two years old, her childbearing years were coming to an end. Which in all honesty, she hated her cycle. It's always unwelcome-cramps, blood, bloating-but it kind of just hit her that without all of that, she won't be able to have a baby. And just the thought of dismembering a poor innocent creature who hadn't done anything to anyone was making her sick to her stomach. Where she was sitting right now was that she didn't know what she wanted to do but what she definitely did not want to do, is kill an innocent little life.