“Our choice to terminate was an act of love and protection to our unborn child, our planet, and our own mental health.”
I told my husband on our second date that I wasn’t planning on having children… It came up organically and I figured why not just clear this part up before we go any further?
For 10 years we kept the idea on the table, but we felt strongly that wasn’t the life we wanted. And we didn’t feel comfortable bringing another life into this difficult world when there were so many lives in need of love and care.
After battling anxiety and fear in attempting to prevent a pregnancy, my husband chose to to have a vasectomy. Months into our new life of freedom from fear of pregnancy, we found out on a vacation that I was somehow, pregnant. His sterilisation had “spontaneously reversed itself”, so the doctor said (a less than 1% chance). It felt like our bodies betrayed us.
Two termination attempts later and a second vasectomy surgery under anaesthesia, we found ourselves grieving our unborn child. Never thinking we’d have been in that situation because we “did all the right things”… and yet our bodies beat all sorts of odds, and had us making the difficult choice to stay committed to the life we’d imagined and been building.
Our choice to terminate was an act of love and protection to our unborn child, our planet, and our own mental health. Three years later, I had to have a sterilising surgery in attempted prevention of a genetic cancer.
Currently, we are on sabbatical together, and building our life of freedom that holds room for both grief and joy.
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