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When Abortion Is Sacred
Thirteen weeks into my twin pregnancy, I had to make the devastating decision to terminate one baby while remaining pregnant with the other
It was the spring of 2016, the day after my birthday, and the little window finally said “Pregnant.” Excited as we were, it took a few weeks to set up a doctor’s appointment. I hadn’t remembered being so sick, so nauseous, so tired the last time. No matter, I thought, it must be because I’m a bit older.
We turned up for our first appointment at the nine-week mark, and I was nervous. Uncharacteristically so. As we waited for the ultrasound, I sat there clutching myself. “Do you have a big apartment?” the doctor asked casually. “Yes, we moved about a year ago and have much more space,” I answered matter-of-factly—as if it were another typical New York question about whether the trains had been running that day. “Good,” she replied. “Because you’re having twins.”
Panic set in. “But we conceived naturally, we didn’t use IVF. How could this be?” and “We can’t handle twins — we already have two kids with my son and my stepson.” It felt overwhelming. We left the office and aimlessly wandered the streets. My husband looked at me and said, “I love you so much.” And he cried.
We spent the next weeks processing the news. I began to tell people I was expecting, but saved the abundant nature of the pregnancy for those closest to us. One evening, I saw a stranger with twin toddlers on the train and confided in her about my situation. “You can do it,” she assured me, and even offered to help. I slowly started to get my head around it and began to smile when I looked down at my belly. What a wonder, I thought. When I told my 90-year-old grandmother, her joy swallowed my anxiety. “We can do this,” I told my husband. “And I know it will be a boy and a girl.”
Two weeks later, I was driving to work when my phone rang. I pulled over and heard a doctor’s stilted voice. “We have a problem. There is a chromosomal abnormality. You need to do invasive testing. Can you make it in an hour? I’m sending you to a specialist.” My husband was in Europe on a trip he had planned months before. He hadn’t wanted to travel because of how sick this pregnancy had left me — double the…
