Labor Day 1963—Monday Memories

Fifty years ago Labor Day was also September 2  and I went into labor—I remembered that today reading Abby Johnson’s account of a medication abortion (mifepristone and misoprostol), her second. She and her husband were getting a divorce, and she was a volunteer at Planned Parenthood, and “chose” this option based on what counseling she received and thought it would be easier than a surgical abortion (she’d already had one of those).  She was lied to about the amount of pain and bleeding she should expect, and she was afraid she would die as she bled and passed clots for hours.  Alone.  She returned to PP later and asked why she hadn’t been warned and was told that the pain and bleeding is played down, or no one would choose it (I suspect that medication abortions are much more lucrative, and don’t require qualified medical people to be on hand).

After 50 years, I’m a little vague on the details, but I do remember that my second pregnancy had been uncomfortable from day one. . . like someone were pressing needles into my abdomen.  In this photo I was about 6 weeks pregnant and not feeling good at all.  I can remember a few weeks before the miscarriage having sudden bleeding, going to the hospital in a taxi accompanied by a nice man (don’t remember his name) who worked down the hall in the communications office (University of Illinois), and he stayed with me in the emergency room being mistaken for my husband. But after a few hours the bleeding stopped and I was sent home only to have it happen again on Labor Day week-end when I was home.

My first clue that something was terribly wrong was that the stabbing needle pain I’d had for three months was completely gone when I woke up in the morning.  I think now the pain ended because the baby was dead and my body was no longer trying to reject it, for whatever reason.  After some hours on the couch, talking on the phone with my sister in Indiana who was an RN and my OB, we decided to go to the hospital.  I don’t remember if I was given drugs or not, but after a few hours of fairly mild labor pains, the nurse came in to check, and then showed me what looked like a bloody softball in the bed pan.  She pressed all over my abdomen to make sure everything was expelled and examined all tissues carefully before sending it to the lab. She hugged me, too.

Like Abby, I bled a lot too with my miscarriage, but was in the hospital, so although I knew I’d lose the baby, I didn’t fear for my life and I wasn’t lying on the bathroom floor covered in blood, urine, feces and vomit, violently ill from powerful drugs that induce a miscarriage. And I wasn’t alone.

For Abby’s account of her “safe, legal, and quick” medication abortion check her story.