Seven Weeks and Six Days

Week six. There is a natural disaster occurring, tsunamis of morning queasiness Monday through Friday, Tuesday's lunch on my favorite pants, denial dances on the weekends. It was Sunday. One word, two syllables causes a tornado of emotions, hurricanes of tears hit my hands and pours to the floor, my heart sinks and drowns. How many casualties will there be? Fact: I account for thirteen percent of the population but thirty-seven percent of all abortions. Saturday. With my hoodie sheltering my identity, I enter the building. Protestors, shouting this is murder, hand me pamphlets that I ball up and throw away, sign my name and wait. Blood samples and pee tests. Ultrasound pictures, nurses ask do I want to be sleep or awake? Counselor asks how will I feel on Sunday? Floods of tears drench my shirt, uncertainty and guilt gets caught in my throat. It’s time. Fact: I am five times more likely to get an abortion than white women. I remain stoic. But in the inside, I tremble like a newborn antelope fearing the new world. I weep like a lioness losing her cub. The nurses strap my legs to the paddles. My heart beats and I swore if you looked closely, you could see it protruding out my chest, my mind races and I swore I saw galaxies and landed on Saturn, I stare out at the strawberry colored walls and I remembered how far along the nurse said I was. I couldn't muster the nerve to look at the ultrasound screen. Fact: Sixty-nine percent of pregnancies of black women are unintended compared to fifty percent of hispanic women and forty percent of white women. Seven weeks and six days.