Because I'm Blessed

Often times we talk about the challenges we face in our jobs. We shed light on the difficulties we face in the world due to our jobs. Sometimes we write about funding and policy. We write about patients' joy and tears, we write about our own tears. I would like to take a moment to acknowledge some of the things in my life that make me thankful to be an abortioneer:

• I feel needed every time I make an appointment for a woman and/or help her figure out how to make the logistics of state laws and clinic schedules work for her needs.

• I sort of get off on the "shock value" of saying exactly where I work and what I do, especially when the shocked individual is someone who annoys me anyway.

• I'm working in a field where I see room for professional growth and I am learning valuable skills every day.

• I learned to speak spanish with some fluidity through work in abortion care.

• I figured out that I have a strong interest in health sciences, when I spent most of my life scared to attempt any academic coarse in the physical/biological sciences.

• I am more in touch with my own body, sexuality, and health because of the knowledge I have gained working in abortion provision.

• I'm thankful for each and every patient because I am constantly learning life lessons from each of those women.

• I like my job, each day I go to work with out dreading the day ahead of me.
  

I'm sure I could find 100 more blessing that are related to or because of my job. Its so important to count our blessings every day, especially when you live a life that is so scrutinized by so many different people.

What are you thankful for?

A woman is a living, growing human being

In our sidebar we link to blogs of people who have had an abortion and want to write about their experience. Here's a new (to me) one: My Journey Through Abortion. The post I'm linking begins like this: "I think I am going to talk about what I have learned."

This is a wonderful, fascinating topic. How the abortion was good for me. Not just, How it sucked less than the alternative; not just, How it didn't really suck any more than getting wisdom teeth out sucks and I'm damn glad that both services exist in safe legal settings. Yes, those are interesting too. But those are already part of the public rhetoric about abortion, and the one that people who've never experienced abortion feel most comfortable joining in. It's wonderful and fascinating when a woman who's had an abortion feels able to say out loud that she is a better person after her abortion -- not in spite of it or in opposition to it or in penance for it, but thanks to it.

She is better after her abortion than she was before it. How remarkable! This exists completely outside the discourse where, no matter what else you believe, abortion must be a loss, and a taking-away -- where mathematically, and thus objectively, and thus morally, she is less than when she was pregnant. (You < You+embryo. More is more. Very baroque.) But women know this isn't true, especially when we are at our healthiest: being "good" doesn't mean saying Yes to every request; it doesn't mean taking on more than you can just-because; it does mean being true to yourself.

In the documentary "The Coat Hanger Project," interviewee Jeannie Ludlow says something remarkable that people don't discuss enough. I'll have to paraphrase: In her experience as a clinic counselor, she says, abortion can be a good thing for women; it allows some women to grow in ways that they otherwise would not have had the chance to grow. This doesn't mean, though, that no women feel wistful about their pregnancy, or that no women think of their embryo or fetus. Of course some of them don't; and some of them do but also feel joyous about returning to non-pregnancy, some of them do but also think of themselves or of their born or future children.

A friend told me about her recent experience with abortion and how it is changing her life already -- from a series of crises and dangerous disregard for self, to a new stream of moments where you face the same old decisions and this time you choose life: your life.

~

I'm willing to bet that some of our patients, if they had a blog or a diary, would express something similar to this blogger's words:

"I have learned that I am not really good at pulling the trigger on moving forward. It is like I am sitting in my car, flat tire, spare in the trunk. And I am too damn lazy to get out, open the trunk, get the jack out, and get to work. It is not because the view from the car is spectacular or because there are good tunes on the radio. It is because I am scared to move forward. I am too focused on the fact that I have a flat tire, and I have forgotten that I can FIX THE FLAT."

Especially when talk turns to second-trimester abortion, so many people seem to imagine women as two-dimensional things. If anyone ever asks you "why did she wait so long?" -- remind them of three things:
1) Health care is expensive, abortion isn't covered, and most people aren't rich.
2) Sometimes biology is sneaky and pregnancy isn't discovered quickly.
3) Women are people: sometimes they're unsure what to do, or they freeze, or panic, or they take time to weigh an important decision. Just like you.

Systemic Breakdown

I often deal with other institutions on behalf of women seeking abortion care. I interact with many different abortion funds or social assistance agencies, when I worked for a fund I helped women deal with medical clinics, I also deal with a myriad of other kinds of institutions in order to help women access safe medical care in both my personal and professional life.

The thing is, usually I am able to figure out how to help a woman get care when someone seeks my help. Sometimes there are legal issues like when a woman is a minor and has to get parental consent or judicial bypass. I have extensive experience in different types of case management, but sometimes I just can't figure it out. The many laws, regulations, dollars, and other barriers between a woman and her abortion are impenetrable. I have spent 3 work days trying to figure how to help a young woman get seen before she is too late to be seen at the clinic where I work. I have been able to raise some money for her from a myriad of places, but the money isn't the issue. There are so many institutions that can work together to stop a woman from accessing safe and simple health care.

It's really frustrating. Today I had to accept that a woman who does not want to be pregnant and should not have to will stay pregnant. This woman has medical issues that warrant abortion, and yet it isn't any easier. The answer doesn't change: she will most likely have to stay pregnant. I don't understand it. Access to health care should not be this disjointed in the United States.

I remember the first time I had to tell someone who was 26+ weeks pregnant with a severely deformed fetus that was incompatible with life that I could not pull all the strings to get her abortion. I felt like my heart might fall to pieces. This happened at least two years ago, and yet I still remember minute details about our interaction.

Accepting that helping everyone is not possible is a really important part of self-care for me. I cannot absorb the world's problems. I try to help people access something that should be available, but when a system of legal, medical, and social service agencies fails someone, I cannot feel personally responsible. I have to find a way to accept it and move on because I can't help everyone.

Thankfully, the work I do usually results in women getting the care they need. Learning how to take time for my spirit to recuperate is really important. I'm constantly trying to balance dedication to my work with self-care. In this emotionally intense line of work, abortioneer burn-out seems only inevitable. What are some of the ways other folks in the abortioneer community deal with this disappointment, when a patient isn't able to get seen or something else emotionally draining happens?