keep your politics off my body

Yesterday was my follow-up appointment with my doc concerning my D&C. We hit the four week mark on Saturday. Today, of course, marks five weeks since we heard no heartbeat, five weeks since that moment of horror in the doctor's office, five weeks of this nightmare that will never go away.

I must say, I love my obstetrician. She's been fantastic throughout the process. She told me point-blank to ask for whatever I needed the next time I get pregnant. Once you've lost one baby, you freak out that you'll lose each one thereafter. My OB understands the neuroses of those women in the miscarriage club, and she's guaranteed weekly sonograms and an early anatomy screening at 13-14 weeks for our next baby. I can even just walk in to get a sonogram. In fact, she said she'd be disappointed not to see me often; the shock of my later miscarriage affected her too and frequent sonograms would ease her mind as well. Sweet, right?

I don't often get political on here, but given what I've been through the past month, I have to say something about the proposed Georgia law which could very well prohibit women from being able to receive a D&C after a miscarriage. The law basically states that a woman must carry a fetus until birth, despite the circumstances.

We chose to have a D&C instead of a natural miscarriage because that is what my doctor highly suggested. She said that a miscarriage at 14 weeks would be painful, very bloody, and last a long time. She said 20-40% of women who miscarry naturally need to have a D&C anyway due to hemorrhaging. Not to mention there is the emotional trauma of passing a 4-inch long fetus into the toilet. A natural miscarriage can also take a while to even begin, with some women carrying the dead fetus for 6 weeks or more.

I'm sorry, Terry England, but as a woman, I should have the right to decide between a D&C and a natural miscarriage. If my baby had survived further than 14 weeks, we would have discovered its fatal brain defect at the 20-week ultrasound. At that point, we would have needed to make the decision between aborting at that point or trying to carry the baby to turn, waiting at any moment for the baby to spontaneously pass away either inside me or soon after birth. Terry England, as a woman, I should have the right to make the decision to abort a baby that could not survive past birth.

You, Terry England, have no right to decide what is best for me or my family. You are not a doctor nor a woman. You apparently have no experience with miscarriage or pregnancy since your only plane of reference is to compare women to farm animals.

Oh yeah, I wish I was making that up.

This article does a much better job than me of explaining the situation and a woman's reaction to it. She so clearly writes with the rage I'm feeling right now.