Abortion, Planned Parenthood, and the Child We Couldn’t Keep

Photo by Markus Winkler on Pexels

2020 was a year of grief, chaos, and hard truths. I was a Production Supervisor on a Netflix animated special. She was a Marketing Coordinator at Disney. We were both career-driven, ambitious, and trying to keep life together while COVID was challenging the world in ways many of us didn’t see coming.

Then my grandmother died. Though I managed to fly into my home state, Michigan, to see her, I didn’t even get to see her before she passed because of COVID hospital restrictions. The grief hit me hard, and in my confusion later on, I cheated on my girlfriend. I came clean to her, and we tried to rebuild. I started my journey in therapy and other avenues of support — revamped my relationship with intimacy and sex — that would eventually change who I was forever.

In an effort to re-connect we took a trip to Santa Barbara. In a moment of closeness, we had unprotected sex. She planned to take Plan B — and she did — but five weeks later, she started feeling sick. That morning, sitting in her apartment, I watched her take a pregnancy test. When she came out, she told me she was pregnant.

I was shocked. My first words were, “I’ll own up to my responsibility. I’ll be a father. The best father I can be.” But she said, “I can’t have a kid right now.” Her career, her goals, her life — they mattered. I respected that. We went to Planned Parenthood together. Five weeks pregnant. The abortion pill. The choice was hers, her body and hers alone.

COVID made the process isolating, but I stayed with her through it all. I made tea as needed, massaged her pain spots whenever she needed, held her, kissed her forehead, even helped her in the bathroom as the pregnancy passed. I watched her go through the abortion, realizing it was like a very painful miscarriage. Even though I wasn’t carrying the child, I grieved — for her, for me, and for the life we almost had. I felt even sadder that she was the one bearing the physical brunt of it all.

Photo credit: 21st Century Church

After her recovery, we walked (we went for walks together a lot anyway around the neighborhood as a ritual at the end of the day to bond), we cried, and wondered who that child might have been. She comes from a conservative Chinese family, I’m Black, and I don’t think her parents ever knew — if they did it would probably affirm stereotypes they had about black men. Maybe her sisters did. We never shared the story publicly, but privately, it reshaped us both forever.

We eventually parted ways in mid-2021 because she wanted monogamy, and I realized I wanted an unconventional, non-monogamous life, anchor/primary partner, and marriage. That understanding couldn’t have come if we had stayed together in a traditional path.

2020 taught me about grief, love, and choice. Sometimes the most compassionate thing you can do — for yourself and for someone else — is to respect the decision that is a woman’s to make. My story isn’t about regret; it’s about compassion, honesty, and the hard realities of life and relationships.

Comments

Join the conversation — create a free account to comment.

Join the conversation

Loading comments…