Plan B

I swallow hard, surprised by the melancholy that fills me. Side effects include nausea, headache, fatigue, breast tenderness the label spits at me. I place a hand on my stomach and imagine what I am doing to the possible baby inside. It’s not a baby, I tell myself, but I am 24, Neil and I are both grown enough to possibly have a child. Still neither of us have the financial means to do it. It would mean a complete shift in our life. He is in dental school; I’m in graduate school. It would mean I may not graduate and even if I did, how would I support a new baby and start my career while paying off my student loans and Neil in school for 3 more years. It is the right decision for us, but I am unexpectedly sad. 

On the four hour bus ride home from New York to DC, I sit slightly nauseous and slightly melancholy. I imagine a child that could be made of Neil and I and it makes me sad that I am killing it as we speak. It is not a child, I tell myself. Just egg and sperm. But I cannot shake the image I’ve created inside my head. Dark tight curls atop a round face full of cheeks. Is this my one chance and I’m giving it up? I think of the episode of Sex and the City, when Miranda has the same thought and chooses to keep her baby. It is not a baby, I remind myself. You are not financially independent. You can barely afford to feed yourself in New York right now. It is the right decision.

I should be on birth control, but I couldn’t take it anymore. The headaches, the weight gain, the mood swings. I felt like another person altogether. We should have used two condoms, but who really uses two condoms? I should have ensured the condom was on correctly. The “should’s” soak me like the rain soaks the road outside. I am filled with conflicting thoughts of prevention and sadness of letting go of the possibility of a baby. I feel too old to say no and like I should live with the consequences of my actions and yet, at 24 I finally have moved to the city of my dreams and am attending the school of my dreams. Should one unintended mistake change the course of my life? I sit with the questions, heavy in my lap. Hands on my stomach, unable to relax.

The night before, Neil came out of the bathroom and slowly told me the condom broke. I immediately went into action (the intuitive fixer that I am). I called my insurance to see if they covered Plan B. Called the pharmacy around the corner to see if they had it and if I needed a doctor’s note to get it. Decided to go that evening to pick it up. I was a grad student so I could go to my school’s health center to pick it up. It was a matter of hours before the pill was in me and I was on my way like nothing had happened. However, it is 2022 and I still remember the minute details of that day, that incident, those deep feelings of sorrow that filled me after I swallowed the pill.

I am forty-one; it has been eighteen years since I took my first Plan B pill without considering how easy it was for me to get what I needed and make the decision I needed for myself and my life. The conflicting thoughts of those of you who may read this and think I am selfish for making this decision still plague me. Yes, I was selfish, but I wanted to be a proper mom who could take care of her children. I knew I was not going to be at that time. I had just come out of my tumultuous home. I was not in therapy. I had just been diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis. I did not know yet that I had Endometriosis. I did not have a job. I was living off of loaned money; the brokest I’ve ever been in my life. This was not how I wanted to possibly bring a child into this world. Yes, I was mature about it. The privilege I had to make this decision brings tears to my eyes today. I know what it means to have a choice and freedom in deciding what happens inside my uterus. 

The complexity and layered truths of this incident are human, but more than that they are what it means to have freedom. I still wonder if that was my one chance to have a kid and did I wait too long to be stable enough. I still tell myself: it was not a baby; just sperm and egg. I still know I made the right decision even with all the wonderings and reassurances that come up each time the memory rises to the surface.