The Beautiful Kind

It may shock some of you, but I prayed the other day. I had one more abortion aftercare sheet lying around from my abortion I wanted to send to some junk mail solicitor, and as I checked the mailbox, I prayed for a realllly good piece of junk mail. You know, something better than an insurance pitch or pre-approved credit card application.

My prayer was answered.

This what was in my box.

I sent them this:

* Be sure and check out the makeover my daughter gave Jesus on the Kiddo page of this blog.

Guess what?

I’m still pregnant!

Aw fuck I’m just messin’ with ya. I’m just half pregnant — sortof pregnant, if you will.

You know how I got an abortion last month? Well, I went in for my check up and I’m still testing positive on the pregnancy test. Sheesh, it’s been over a month now, you’d think the ol’ hormone well would’ve dried up by now.

I told my guy this and he said dryly, “So when is the due date?”

God I hope I don’t have half a baby in there. I have an ultrasound scheduled in a couple weeks. In the meantime, I’ll knit one baby bootie. Just in case.

OK here’s something to lighten the mood a bit. My friend showed me this trick that works well for parties and grade school functions.

Take a pen and draw on your finger, like so.

Stick finger in pants, like so.

Wait, no, more like this, use knuckle.

Ahhh, yes. Now that’s a tadger to be proud of.

Me: You finally got a butt plug up your ass!

Him: Yeah, and I didn’t whine as much about it as you did.

Me: You took it like a Desert Storm Trooper, honey.

Him: Then again, I have a bigger ass than you.

Me: No kidding, I heard you shit babies.

Him: Did I say that? No, I think it’s more like baby legs. My shits look like chubby little baby legs.

Me: Please stop right now.

I woke up on the morning of my scheduled abortion and my beau joked, “Today is your big day!”

Honestly, I was looking forward to it. I had felt like shit for the past month, barely able to function from the nausea and loss of energy, and was eager to get it over with. The clinic actually made me wait a couple weeks longer to get it done, so the egg sac would be big enough to locate. I was going in 8 weeks pregnant.

My man dropped me off and then went to play a few rounds of golf. Just kidding. We passed through security (no protesters again!) and they searched our bags. We sat in the waiting room. He graded papers. I knitted. There were more men there with their partners this time, but at least three of the dudes were sleeping. I heard several different languages being spoken.

I got called in to pay for the procedure ($240), then got sent out to wait again. It wasn’t long before they called me back in along with five other girls. They were all in their early 20’s; four were African-American, one was Eastern European. Herd-like we followed the nurse to a locker room where we all changed into hospital gowns and these awful paper bag slippers. Those slippers were the worst part of the experience.

We were given a Valium and Ibuprofen. Then we were told to go to a waiting room/holding pen, where FUCKING MONTEL WILLIAMS was on TV again, berating some 15 year old for smoking pot (2nd worst part of the experience).

The Eastern European girl was terrified. She mentally latched on to me and said in a tiny broken voice, “Are you scared?”

“No. I’ve been pregnant before and I’ve had a D&C, and this is not as big a deal as people make it out to be.” I was trying to reassure her; hopefully I didn’t trivialize her fear.

“Why you get abortion?” she asked me.

I shrugged. “It’s just not the right time for me. I haven’t been with my partner long enough and we want more time to get to know each other.”

She said, “I’ve never done this before. I don’t believe I am here.”

I felt so bad for her. She was like a little injured bird sitting there hunched over (3rd worst part of the experience). The other girls filed in and had a seat. None of them seemed particularly worried.

Then a chipper volunteer came in, a woman in her mid-4o’s. She introduced herself as Maggie and said, “I will be here to help each of you through it. Yes, it does hurt, but most girls walk out of here thinking it wasn’t as bad as they thought it was going to be. No matter what you’re feeling right now, it’s OK.” Oh good, we have an abortion buddy.

Eastern European bird girl started to cry, and Maggie went and sat next to her and held her hand. Fucking Montel Williams blabbed away in the background.

“Now tell me,” Maggie said, leaning forward earnestly, “What’s your name, and what are you going to do for birth control?”

Three of the African-American girls had the same first name, let’s say LaTonya. LaTonya1 one said she wanted to get her tubes ties. She had one kid and was 21. Um, good luck with that.

LaTonya2 wanted to get a Nuva Ring. “Good!” Maggie approved.

I piped up. “Doesn’t that cause blood clots or something?”

“Yeah, right!” Maggie pshawed.

“Well my friend went into the ER one time with a blood clot in her brain and she was using the Nuva Ring. She almost died.”

“Well the blood clot was caused by something else, not her birth control,” Maggie decided dismissively. (I have no doubt my friend will be commenting on this post.)

Brandy wanted to get an IDU. “An IUD?” Maggie offered.

I said, “What’s the difference between an IUD with hormones and without?”

Maggie said, “The one with hormones works better.”

I said, “But I heard that can cause spotting for months at a time and make you break out.”

“Where do you get your information?” she asked sneering a bit.

“I do a lot of research and that’s what my gynecologist told me,” I answered.

LaTonya3 said she wanted to get her tubes tied, too. She was 24 and had two kids. I told her she’d probably need to ask around to find a doctor who would do it, that I had a friend who was young and wanted a vasectomy and it took him seeing three doctors to find one who would snip him kidless at age 24.

Then it was my turn. I told Maggie I planned on using condoms and spermicide, that I had been on the pill for 15 years and went off it to take a break. “And now look where you are!” she exclaimed triumphantly. Um, good point.

“But I don’t think it’s healthy to ingest artificial hormones for years and years, it’s kind of unnatural.”

“Well do you know what they call women who use condoms and spermicide for birth control?” Maggie said, then gave a pregnant (HA!) pause before announcing smugly, “Mothers!”

I shot back, “But this way the man shares in the birth control and for that matter, why the hell can’t the man take a pill and deal with weight gain and break outs and mood swings?!”

Everyone laughed. Maggie declared, “Well that’s not going to happen. You should just go back on the pill.”

Poor terrified Eastern European bird woman didn’t even get a turn to say what she was going to use (I’m guessing she’ll never let a dick near her again and I found myself trying to imagine her having sex in the first place) because the nurse called her name. Maggie went with her.

This left the rest of us to chat among ourselves. LaTonya2 said she had been there the year before for an abortion, and that her sister just came last week and paid $1000 because she was 5 months along. We were all horrified by this, and one girl said, “That far along? You should just have it!”

“My sister be trippin’,” LaTonya2 explained.

Another girl said people were telling her to consider adoption. She sputtered in disbelief. “I ain’t carrying a baby nine months and then giving it away!”

Another told of how she came last week for her pre-appointment, but she had left her ID at home and had to go back and get it. The abortion protesters cheered and clapped, and she assured them, “Don’t worry, I’ll be back.”

Next they called my name. YESSSSS. I didn’t want to wait around.

I went into the exam room and got up on the table. The nurse prepped the supplies, and I asked, “Is my doctor male or female?”

“Female,” she replied.

PHEW. I knew they had four or five doctors and one of them was some dude who had been doing it for 30 years, and while that’s all well and good, I just didn’t want some old guy doing my abortion.

The doctor came in and she was totally cool and young and pretty. Pill pusher Maggie came in and stood by my head and held my hand. They asked if I had any questions and I said, “Does it really take only two minutes?”

They said yep.

“Just tell me everything you’re doing.”

I assumed the position with my feet in the stirrups and the doctor put a speculum in my vagina to get access to my cervix. I don’t think the valium had really kicked in yet, but I knew they were going to inject a local anaesthetic into my cervix. (They offer an IV sedation for extra, but I didn’t want that.)

I offered to donate the material they gathered to science, but they told me there wasn’t enough there at this stage. It would just be discarded.

Sure enough, the whole thing took about two minutes. I felt my cervix being stabbed and/or a sharp pain about five times, and it did fucking hurt (4th worst part of the experience), but I had a death grip on Maggie’s hand. As soon as they injected my cervix I felt the medicine go straight to my head, whoosh, and I got a little zooty then. I mean I could feel things and ask questions, but some of the words came out wrong.

“Boy am I glad you’re here!” I gasped to Maggie, who looked down at me kindly. I couldn’t believe she took time out of her day to help women out like this. I felt grateful for her presence, even if she did seem more concerned about preventing future pregnancies than a woman’s health and well-being.

The doctor widened my cervix and inserted an - I kid you not - hand held turkey baster, and sucked out the unwanted contents of my uterus. No whirring machine, no scraping instruments. “The dentist is worse than this!” I said between winces, and “Hell I’ve had a baby, I can handle this!” I was a brave girl.

The doctor pulled away and said all chipper, “That’s it.”

“That’s it?!” I exclaimed. I did it.

Then I asked my bravest question yet. “Can I see what you sucked out of me?”

I had looked online beforehand and had seen all the gruesome bloody shots and mutilated body parts, but I wanted to see it for myself, with my own eyes. I was seriously dreading looking, but wanted to bear witness. I was expecting a pan full of blood, some stuff that looked like raw liver, and maybe a gross little alien bubbling in the gore croaking out, “Mama?”

“Sure!” the doctor said, and she came around the sheet draped over my legs and showed me the little plastic tupperware container that held the abortion. And do you know what it looked like? Half a cup of egg whites with some brown bits in it. It wasn’t even bloody.

“That’s it?!” I exclaimed in astonishment.

“That’s it!” She swirled it around so I could see better. I looked harder, expecting to see at least a leg or something.

“But where’s the fetus?!” This was blowing my mind.

“Right now it’s too small to see with the naked eye,” the doctor explained. “What you’re seeing is mostly the egg sac.”

“And this is what it normally looks like?”

“At 8 weeks, sure.”

“Well HELL! If THIS is what they put on those abortion signs, people would be thinking ‘omelette,’ not ‘baby killer‘!”

I thanked them for their help, put on my maxi-pad, and the nurse walked me to the recovery room. I was still stunned, but read my book. A couple other women were also in the recovery room in reclining chairs looking exhausted.

A nurse came by and offered me a heating pad, Sierra Mist and cookies. Nice!

I hung out in the spa for about 15 minutes, then went and got dressed and discarded those fucking awful paper bag slippers. They sent me home with a bag of antibiotics and three months worth of birth control pills. (I’m not supposed to put anything in my vagina for a week. OK, maybe THIS was the worst part of the experience.)

I came out to the waiting room and my guy looked up at me with concern. “Boy do I have a surprise to tell you,” I said in amazement. His eyes widened. He was getting a little wary of my “surprises.”

We were there for a total of two hours. I thought I’d be down for the count at least for the day, but I felt fine. Afterwards we had sushi and went shopping. My guy wanted to stop in at Sports Authority to look at exercise equipment, and I said, “I’m not really comfortable going into a sports store.”

His reply to that? “Well, I’m not really comfortable going to abortion clinics, so come on.”

Dunno if it was psychological, but I felt instantly better. That evening I got my taste for coffee and booze back. I finally started cleaning the house after neglecting it for days.

And hey, here is what one pro-life website has to say about the aftereffects abortion:

Abortion procedures vary according to the stage of pregnancy. Each procedure is painful for both the mother and her unborn baby. After an abortion, many women experience one or more of the following consequences, some of which may take several years to surface.

Physical:
- Excessive bleeding, may require blood transfusions.
- Perforated uterus or damage to other organs.
- Chronic and acute infections.
- Intense pain.
- Incomplete removal of baby or placenta.
- High fever, convulsions, shock, coma.
- Increase in miscarriages, ectopic (tubal) pregnancies, premature births, and stillbirths.
- Irregular pap smears; breast cancer.
- Infertility.
- Death.

I haven’t taken so much as an Advil, and I stopped bleeding the next day.

I want to hear from other women who have had abortions. What was it like for you? Did you look at what came out of you? Please post comments (you can use an alias) or email me at love [at] thebeautifulkind . com

Makes my abortion seem pretty trivial in comparison, doesn’t it?

Stay tuned for the exciting climax of Abortion Week tomorrow!

I will write

All.

About.

My.

Awesome.

Abortion.

The short of it: they’re fucking nuts.

Check out the Army of God site for proof.

I didn’t run into any at my pre-abortion appointment (I hear they gather at the clinics on Fridays and Saturdays during better weather, and I went on a Tuesday and it was gloomy and cold), but when I went with a friend 15 years ago, they were out in full force and completely freaky and disturbing. I wonder how effective they really are - how many pregnant women change their mind and have the baby instead, when confronted with gang bangers screaming bible verses.

A friend of mine shared this experience with me:

I recently accompanied an African-American friend of mine for her abortion. The anti-abortion activists, for some reason, believed I was the potential mother and she was the friend. Of course it was the little white girl who was pregnant, not the bodacious black one with child-bearing hips and a volcanic bootie shake.

She lost the knob to reposition her car seat and had to look for it while these possessed, white, wide-eyed freaks surrounded by their toddlers and preschoolers approached, serenading me with crackly voices. “Jesus loves your unborn son or daughter. Jesus will show you the way.”

Some twangy, out-of-tune stringed instrument, a banjo?, played a distorted Kumbaya tune, and the background to their concrete stage consisted of larger-than-adult-sized pictures depicting fetuses that never developed skin, had dislocated limbs, their bodies traumatized from their grand exit.

A woman with long, curly red hair, holding a baby who faced those grotesque signs yelled out at me. Their voices were disturbingly in unison, all about Jesus. I wanted to shout out “What’s Jesus doing for the mothers and babies dying in Africa of AIDS? What’s Jesus doing for the parents of babies in East St. Louis?” I didn’t. I pictured the burning crucifix in the movie Carrie. I pictured the psychopathic antagonist in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I saw the white coats of doctors who perform abortions stained with blood from bullets. “Jesus will show you the way!” the wide-eyed freaks shouted. “You will regret this the rest of your life!”

It doesn’t matter what the issue is. I never want to be on their side.

I went to see the Body Worlds exhibit at the St. Louis Science Center the other day. Talk about Heebie Jeebies! I had to keep reminding myself that I was surrounded by dead bodies - they looked fake to me, like huge Visible Man models.

Naturally there is a lot of controversy surrounding the exhibit. One example:

In an ethical analysis, Thomas Hibbs, Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Culture at Baylor University, compares cadaver displays to pornography in that they reduce the subject to “the manipulation of body parts stripped of any larger human significance.”

Um, I thought pornography was anything people get off on. Guess Hibbs finds the exhibit arousing. I have to admit it was interesting to see all the cocks and balls stripped of their skin (hey, they’re ALL cut!) and pepperoni nipples and little muscle buttholes. Seriously, I haven’t seen that much cock since the last orgy I attended.

The most curious thing was how they had the fetuses curtained off from the rest of the exhibit. I guess they think people can handle seeing a man holding his own skin or people in elaborate dance poses sliced into three chunks, but fetuses in jars might be a bit too much for the general public to stand.

Margaret Cho wrote a fabulous post about this very topic a couple years ago. An excerpt:

There are few women’s bodies in the exhibit of hundreds of specimens. When the corpses are female, they are active participants in the exchange of womanhood. There is a large barrier put up between the main exhibit concealing the small aisle focusing on the uterus and fetal development. A large disclaimer is placed next to the entrance, explaining that the corpses on display, pregnant women and their embryos, in different stages of development, were all people who had died of natural causes or accidents. It fell just short of saying, “No women or children were killed for educational purposes.”

That is so dumb. We didn’t need that assurance coming into the Body Worlds show, because we assume that the human beings on parade gladly gave themselves to science for our edification. They are not victimized by our gaze or our curiosity. However, the gender of the specimen changes, and all hell breaks loose.

How awesome is it that I stumbled across a gay blog that featured this Fetus Soldier Christmas ornament?

Ad copy from the site:

Protect our troops - from the womb to the war. What if the fetus you were going to abort would grow up to be a soldier bringing democracy to a godless dictatorship?

Plastic replica of an 11-12 week old fetus holding a firearm in its precious little hand, with an assortment of other military paraphernalia, encased in a translucent plastic ornament, with a patriotic yellow ribbon on top. If only a womb were this safe, attractive and reasonably priced!

Show that you support the “culture of life” by buying and proudly displaying one of these patriotic unborn Americans.

And look! I can buy plastic fetuses cheap at this Archie McPheesque sac(religious) store!

All this talk of abortion reminds me of a girl I dated years ago who was fucking around with two guys and got pregnant.

She told both of them about it and they both gave her money for an abortion.

She got the abortion.

AND a new stereo.

The real kicker is she claimed to have two uteri!

Me: I really, really want a jar of whimsies for Christmas.
Him: I’m not getting you a jar of whimsies.
Me: Oh come ON, all I get for Christmas is an abortion?!
Him: Hey, I’m not even gonna make you pay for half. Plus I got you a sock monkey calendar.
Me (sulkily): But I want a jar of whimsies, too.
Him (exasperated): Why do you want something so FEM?
Me (histrionically): Why do you want me to be GAY?
Him: You ARE gay, you want to stick your tongue up women’s pussies.
Me: Yeah well you’re holding me back, Mr. Straight Guy. I guess I’ll have to eat all the Miracle Whip and stick your baby in the empty jar instead then.
Him: Now THERE’S your whimsy!

Celebrities who are pro-choice:
Christina Aguilera
Jennifer Aniston
Bea Arthur
Ed Asner
Kevin Bacon
Alec Baldwin
William Baldwin
Meredith Baxter
Shari Belafonte
Maria Bello
Polly Bergen
Thora Birch
Amy Brenneman
Betty Buckley
Lynda Carter
Stockard Channing
Margaret Cho
Jill Clayburgh
Kate Clinton
Glenn Close
Cindy Crawford
Sheryl Crow
Alan Cumming
Tyne Daly
Blythe Danner
Kristin Davis
Ossie Davis
Dana Delany
Laura Dern
Ellen DeGeneres
Ani DiFranco
Illeana Douglas
Fran Drescher
Kirsten Dunst
David Eigenberg
Hector Elizondo
Emme
Eve Ensler
Giancarlo Esposito
Melissa Etheridge
Morgan Fairchild
Edie Falco
Frances Fisher
Calista Flockhart
Jane Fonda
Bonnie Franklin
Janeane Garofalo
Indigo Girls
Annabeth Gish
Whoopi Goldberg
Lauren Graham
Maggie Gyllenhaal
LisaGay Hamilton
Ben Harper
Ed Harris
Salma Hayek
Marg Helgenberger
Isabella Hofmann
Helen Hunt
Amy Jo Johnson
Kathryn Joosten
Ashley Judd
Catherine Keener
Carole King
Swoosie Kurt
Christine Lahti
Sanaa Lathan
Sharon Lawrence
Lisa Loeb
Amy Madigan
Natalie Maines
Wendie Malick
Joshua Malina
Camryn Manheim
Frances McDormand
Ewan McGregor
Marilyn McIntyre
Sarah McLachlan
Moby
Demi Moore
Julianne Moore
Alanis Morissette
Kathy Najimy
Mary-Louise Parker
Adrian Pasdar
Pink
Martha Plimpton
Doris Roberts
Paul Rudd
Susan Sarandon
Campbell Scott
Kyra Sedgwick
Martin Sheen
Cybill Shepherd
Sarah Silverman
Fisher Stevens
Gloria Steinem
Julia Stiles
Sharon Stone
Charlize Theron
Uma Thurman
Kathleen Turner
Ted Turner
Sarah Weddington
Audrey Wells
Bradley Whitford
Alfre Woodard
Thom Yorke

Celebrities who are pro-life:
Mel Gibson
Britney Spears

Naturally I have my boo-hoo moments when it comes to terminating my pregnancy, as I’ve got the raging hormones and all, but for the most part after the initial shock weekend, my guy and I have been dealing with it the way we often deal with serious life issues (such as the death of his wife) - we joke about it - the darker, the better. We find the outrageousness therapeutic.

In the comments section last week, Bobbo the Clown suggested that we keep the fetus and make it do barrel rolls and use it as an anal dildo. That might have come off as wildly inappropriate to you, but I for one saw the humor in his way of thinking and found it fitting, given the absurdity of the situation.

“Fetuses” are kind of funny the way “penises” are funny (not sure of the plurals on these). Here is a knit fetus coin purse:

And here are fetus pins:

I thought it would be nice to make a little fetus necklace. I hear it’s about the size of a kidney bean right now. Ask the doctor to save it and I could shellac it and put it on a chain. That way it could always be close to my heart. Furthermore, it would be fun to mass produce them, and give them each a name and story. I could always use fetal models from a pro-life store:

but geez they’re expensive. It’d be WAY too much work to keep producing them with real sperm and egg, though we could set up a lab I suppose. I guess I can make my own out of clay (”oh fetus fetus fetus, I made it out of clay“).

Anyway, I keep thinking of fetuses named Joanie and Stan and so on. Here are a couple examples:

Tiffany was conceived during “break up” sex. Her father left for college to major in chemistry and her mother will stay in town and attend a community college. That is, unless she drops out!

Barney was the product of a drunken act of indiscretion on a pool table after closing time at the bar. His father is the bar owner and his mother is already two states away in Indiana. Go, Hoosier baby!

Proceeds from the sale of the necklaces could go towards opening up another clinic here in Missouri.

So yeah, that’s what I’ve been sitting around thinking. Some of my friends think I’m nuts.

First, I looked online for Missouri abortion services and called the Planned Parenthood clinic in town to make an appointment. I was shocked to find out that, lucky me, it’s the ONLY clinic in the state still giving abortions! For instance, there used to be one in Columbia, but it was shut down due to financial pressure from the state. That means if I lived in Kansas City, I’d have to drive across the state or leave the state to get one. Also, Missouri has a 24 hour rule - you have to talk to a doctor at least 24 hours before you can get your abortion. So you have to make at least two appointments, depending on your circumstance. I could have also crossed the river to Illinois to get a same day abortion. (I found out Connecticut is one of the easiest states in which to get an abortion.)

The woman on the phone asked me which kind of abortion I wanted to have - surgical or medication. Now, medication sounds tempting, but it’s actually more complicated and less effective. You go in to the office and take the first pill, then take the next pill a few days later at home, and it can take several days for you to pass the contents of your uterus. With a surgical abortion, it takes about two minutes. I also had to listen to a recording of a male doctor tiredly reviewing both options and the risks. Oh and they told me not to bring a large bag with me to the clinic, to prevent baby bombs from getting smuggled in.

Thankfully at the clinic there were no protesters around. I’ve heard some pretty crazy things about them - a friend of mine volunteers as an escort walking women into the building. I checked in with the woman in the entrance and went through a locked door. Then I went to the front desk and grabbed a clip board and filled out paperwork. The waiting room was filled with somber, lower income women. Some had a male partner with them, but most had a female friend or relative. The woman next to me spoke Vietnamese. A couple that spoke only Russian had to return later for an interpreter. I waited and turned in my form and paid what I owed for this visit - $130.

I took a urine test and waited. Before the ultrasound, they asked if I wanted to know if there were twins. I thought that was strange. An incredibly beautiful woman wearing bright orange scrubs performed my ultrasound, sticking a probe up my vagina. I asked her why they asked if I wanted to know if there were twins. She said one time a woman who had every intention of getting an abortion found out she was carrying twins, so she opted to keep them. “Really?!” I exclaimed. “Yeah, if you can’t afford one baby, why would you keep two?” she wondered. I guess twins are extra special.

Anyway, so she picked up on the heartbeat and confirmed there was a little living thing inside me, about 7-8 weeks old. That was weird for me, I kind of figured there was just a lump in there that was making me feel like shit. So after that I went back out to the waiting room, and then got called in again for blood work. Then waited again.

I met with the doctor, who was a cool woman. I asked her various questions (such as 1. Where do rich people go to get abortions? - she didn’t know, 2. Can you just go to a doctor and get one done? - possibly, but probably not, 3. Why is there a 24 hour talk-to-a-doctor rule? - it’s meant to be a roadblock).

Then I met with a counselor, who asked if I wanted to see the ultrasound pic. I was curious, so I said sure. That was the hardest thing about the whole appointment, to see the little blurry paisley. (The 2nd hardest thing was in the waiting room they had a TV going and it was on the Montel Williams show and that red-taloned psychic crone Sylvia Browne was telling him about his past lives - he was a sailor! The 3rd hardest thing was when the nice white trash woman wearing crocs who was there with her daughter chatted me up in the waiting room.)

All that waiting and seeing people only took 2 1/2 hours total, and finally I got to the end of all the tests I had to perform in order to get the abortion. I made an appointment and went home.

That’s right, this week it’s All Abortion, All the Time. If the whole thing skeeves you out, then I recommend you come back the following week for your daily dose of Ask The Slut, Why Am I Not Getting Laid, and odes to porn stars and bondage.

But if you’re curious to know where a woman can get an abortion in Missouri, how much it costs, what a clinic is like, how long does one take, if you can take a pill to end a pregnancy, or what kind of drugs you get, then read on.

Many women who have had an abortion keep it this deep dark secret, a shame that burns in them years later. I thought about keeping it on the down low myself, but decided to treat it like I treat many of the other taboo subjects in our society - open and honestly. Talk about it. Share it. Seems healthier to me.

Have you ever noticed that in all the movies and television shows, a woman who gets unexpectedly pregnant ALWAYS ends up having the baby? (Please tell me if I’m wrong here - for instance, I’ve never seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer - did they ever cover abortion on that show?) Even that 1996 movie Citizen Ruth copped out by having the druggie pregnant mom (she had four kids already) miscarry on the day of her scheduled abortion. Kinda unrealistic, considering that nearly one-third of all U.S. women will have an abortion by the time they’re 45 years old.

The latest movies to take it to full term: Knocked Up (saw it on the weekend I took my pregnancy test), Juno (can’t wait to see it), and that movie with the waitress who bakes pies (looked too chick flick for me).

Stay tuned for a dose of reality: my abortion consultation.

Well, I’ve made my tough decision. Oh come on, you didn’t think I was really going to take a vote on it, did you? I mean, I’m one IQ point shy of genius (that missing IQ point is how I got knocked up in the first place, apparently).

No, I know you knew I’d figure it out with my beau, though all your feedback was amazing food for thought (well, except for the trite “you’re a pathetic excuse for a human being” line - yawn). After a weekend of serious discussion, we’ve decided that the time is not right for this pregnancy, so we’re going to nip it in the bud.

Someone in last week’s comments, appealing to my vegetarianism, suggested I compare the fetus inside me with veal, but I’d sooner compare it to a tapeworm at this point than a 16 week old calf destined for slaughter.

Check out these visuals. This is what an 8 week old fetus looks like, according to a pro-life group:

This is what an 8 week old fetus looks like according to a pregnancy website:

Hm, why is the top image a photograph, and the bottom one an illustration? Could it be because the embryo is too fucking small at this point to get a good baby-looking photograph? Here’s another preg site example. Seems like all the photos I found while doing a search for “8 week fetus” were from pro-life sites. I have a hunch that they are not accurately portraying their visuals. I’m thinking they’re showing a fetus pushing 2nd trimester. See?

I’ve always wanted to have an abortion. What I mean by that is I got cheated out of one 15 years ago. Back when I was 20 I got knocked up (I was screwing around with three different guys at the time) but when I went to get an abortion they gave me an ultrasound and told me it was already dead and sent me on my way to have a miscarriage. “Can’t you just suck the dead thing out anyway?” I pleaded, but they refused to do it. I left the clinic furious. Two weeks later, I miscarried in the bathtub of a cheap hotel.

This marks my 4th pregnancy, by the way. First was an accident that ended with a miscarriage (yay), second was on purpose that ended with a miscarriage (wah - I wrote an article about the experience and got it published in a national woman’s rag), third was on purpose that ended with a live birth (yay!)

And now we’re leading up to ….

Abortion Week.

Warning: Don’t read this post if you don’t want details on this movie and you want to find out for yourself how everyone tragically dies in a German bunker at the end of WWII because you were a dunce in history and don’t already know what happens.

The movie Downfall fucking kicked my ass. Even my guy, who breaks out in hives at the thought of an intellectual foreign film or a movie that doesn’t feature at least one cast member from Saturday Night Live was hooked, and hung around until the bitter end. I’m pretty sure this was the first movie he’s ever seen that rated over 90% on Rotten Tomatoes.

I’ve seen so many WWII movies from the Jewish concentration camp perspective, so it was fascinating to peep on the German side. The movie didn’t even mention Jews (and how they were to blame for all bad things) until 1 hour and 11 minutes into the film. There was lots of glorious screaming in German (Hitler was like a wind up toy) and frantic smoking. They made a point to portray Hitler as vegetarian, which I think is curious bullshit.

I thought it was so interesting that the director selectively chose the death/suicides the viewer would witness. He didn’t bother with any close ups on Hitler and Eva Braun’s double whammie (ding! dong! Hitler’s dead!) but focused on the sadder, lesser known demises (pretty much everyone else). I was handling it all well enough, even when they tested poison out on his beloved German Shepherd Blondi (I pretended that she had barked all night and drove everyone crazy).

But man o man, I freaked when Mrs. Goebbels systematically poisoned her six children. I can still envision the tiny little gasping sighs as they crunched down on cyanide… That shit is not cool to watch when you are pregnant, PMSing, have children, or an ounce of compassion in your veins. One of the kid’s seventh birthday was to be the next day. My daughter is seven. I boo hooed myself to sleep that night, let me tell you. My guy tried to console me by holding me in his arms and saying, “They probably would have grown up to be assholes, anyway.”

Just about every day a friend of mine informs me that their workplace has banned my website. This means they won’t be looking at it anymore because the best time to read pointless crap on the internet is when you’re trapped somewhere and getting paid for it.

I always feel a mixture of indignant disappointment and flattery when they break the news to me. Those corporate fucks tightening the noose of freedom and liberty! And they don’t even have the decency to replace my website with, say, colored blocks or meat on a string to chase like they do at the zoo. Cuz the worker/my friend is sure as hell not being stimulated in that stifling environment.

Mark my words, when people get limited to CNN.com, they start having affairs in the workplace and stealing office supplies. That’s right, The Beautiful Kind is good for morale. I’m so glad I get to work on my couch.

I can’t stop watching the latest Salad Fingers episode.

And check out this bizarrely beautiple display of boobies!

Oh wait, maybe not…