ellememoir
I felt ashamed
and inadequate.
We faced the biggest
decision of our
relationship:
abortion
Already a mother of two at 29,
Emma Beddington decided on a termination. But what
happened when she fell pregnant yet again?
I didn’t really think I was pregnant when
I took the test in the basement of a gloomy
bar in Paris. It was my partner, Tom*, who
suggested I might be, after the nausea that
had bothered me over Christmas failed
to disappear with the last of the mince
pies. It seemed a laughable, appalling
idea. I plucked up the courage to ask for
a pregnancy test in a forbidding pharmacy,
went off to do the test, and came back to
drink a coffee and watch the result develop.
I did it on my own – a little time alone with
my body, my thoughts. Two lines.
* name has been changed
Paris was full of mistakes. We shouldn’t
have been there in the first place, but Tom
had been forced to make a snap decision
about a move for work. It was just weeks
after my mother had been killed in an
accident. We thought a fresh start might
help. We shouldn’t have. We shouldn’t have
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chosen the stuffy, chic area we were living
in without friends or family nearby.
I certainly shouldn’t have got pregnant.
I was 29, with two tiny boys already and
no desire for another child, ever.
Staring at the two blue lines wasn’t
making either of them go away and, in
any case, I couldn’t shake off a sense of
elation along with the horror. I didn’t want
another child. I was still on maternity
leave from my job as a lawyer and had
always intended to return to work. Yet
I was conditioned to look at that positive
as exactly that: a positive. I called my best
friend and told her, giggling with the
shock. Then I went home and carried on
as if nothing had happened. For a week.
When I finally told Tom, I was sick with
nerves, as if sharing it with him would
make it real. He was as ambivalent as
I was. The thought of a child didn’t alarm
him, but the timing, circumstances and,
frankly, my mental fragility did. He knew
how I had struggled after our eldest son
was born, knew I had fought off depression
and bulimia in my early twenties. So soon
after my mother’s death, in a strange
country, another child would be madness.
I spent the next few days barely coping,
debilitatingly nauseated. Without ever
quite discussing it, we put the wheels in
motion for a termination, telling ourselves
we were ‘keeping our options open’. The
word ‘abortion’ was hard to articulate.
I had always been stridently pro-choice,
but now that choice had become ➤

personal the topic seemed shrouded in
ambiguity. I felt embarrassed to be in
a situation that I could have avoided with
basic common sense and unclear how
I wanted to deal with it. We went to the GP,
who looked at us – grey with fatigue – and
gave me the paperwork for a termination.
Almost wanting to be past the cut-off
date so I wouldn’t need to make a decision,
I went alone for an ultrasound. The
technician, who either didn’t realise, or
didn’t care, that my notes read ‘unwanted
pregnancy’, angled the screen towards me
to show me the foetus, pointing out blood
vessels, the umbilical cord and the bright
white pulsing heart. I came out reeling,
convinced that I couldn’t go through with
an abortion. When I had last looked at
images like that it had been with total joy.
How could it look the same this time and
be so different? But by the time I reached
home, my momentary certainty was
eroded; I was as confused as ever.
It’s not easy to get an abortion in Paris.
Like everything there, it’s oversubscribed;
those who shout loudest win. Paralysed by
indecision, I relied on Tom to call around,
nag and finally find a slot in a far-flung
clinic. I was unable to commit myself to
the process but didn’t want to stop it either.
I felt ashamed. It was like being thrown
back into adolescence: our stupidity had
put us into a situation we couldn’t sort out
for ourselves. I felt I had abdicated the right
to ask adult questions or be treated with
respect. When, at our first appointment at
the clinic, the anaesthetist told me I should
lose some weight (I was eight and half
stone and 5ft 4in), I didn’t think to protest.
During the week that followed, Tom
and I spent long awkward evenings barely
speaking. Right up to the shower the night
before the termination, ritually scrubbing
myself with the prescribed antibacterial
soap, cutting my nails, planning the metro
route, I didn’t think I would go through
with it. How could I? I loved my children.
Why should this pregnancy be different?
The point of no return came later that
night, faced with a pill that had to be taken
eight hours before the termination.
Looking at the tiny tablet, a wave of self-
knowledge crashed through my defences.
I couldn’t have this baby. We were
ellememoir
grieving, isolated, barely coping. I finally
acknowledged that, even if circumstances
had been different, I didn’t have the
emotional resources to care for another
child. I wanted to be a person who could be
a good mother to three children, but knew
I couldn’t be. The decision, ultimately, was
mine alone; my inadequacy, my selfishness.
I didn’t cry. I just felt crushingly sad.
I took the pill, slept fitfully, and set off
for the hospital in the grey dawn. I put on
the gown and paper shower cap and sat
on the bed, staring at the ceiling, trying
to empty my mind.
When a nurse finally
came, put a needle in
my hand and wheeled
‘When I last looked at an ultrasound
me down to the
basement, I couldn’t
scan, I felt joy. How could it look the
stop shaking. The
abortion was under
same now but be so DIFFERENT?’
general anaesthetic;
after all that soul-searching it took a matter
of seconds. I came round barely 10
minutes later, fuzzy and confused.
I was home within hours, a plaster on
my hand and mild cramps the only sign
that anything had happened. It seemed
unbelievable. I spent an hour in bed, felt
like a fraud, and got up again.
There was no guilt or sadness. It was the
right thing to do. But I was angry with
myself for having allowed it to happen.
I went back to work and pushed myself,
ignoring fatigue and hunger. Six months
later I was seven stone, exhausted, empty.
It wasn’t solely due to the abortion – I was
grieving for my mother and in the midst of
moving countries again – but it played a part.
It took therapy, two months off work and
antidepressants to feel more like myself.
Then it happened again.
Two years later, by now living in Brussels,
I found myself desperate for pretzels and
inexplicably carsick. This time I knew
instantly. I was on the Pill, hadn’t forgotten,
wasn’t on any medication. How on earth
I got pregnant remains a mystery.
I was aghast but entirely clear; I couldn’t
even allow myself the luxury of taking
time to consider my options. I had been so
wretched in the intervening period and we
had only just started to find our feet again.
I knew how damaging another pregnancy
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would be for us. I’m sure the fact that
I had been through the process before
made it easier, too. I told Tom, but instantly
said I was going to have an abortion.
I couldn’t bear to make the pregnancy real
by talking it through with him. I know he
was shocked at the certainty of my decision.
I went to a free clinic in one of the
poorest parts of town. I didn’t feel
I deserved comfort – the desire to make
myself suffer was there once more. In fact,
the clinic staff were warm and caring.
I saw a no-nonsense doctor in her fifties
who gave me a date a week later, a scan
and a sleeping pill. There were no
ultrasound theatricals this time.
When I returned to the clinic, everything
was slow, deliberate and gentle. I accepted
the offer of having a volunteer present
during the procedure for support. A calm,
kind woman held my hand throughout.
Such a short procedure. Although
unpleasant, an abortion isn’t painful.
I remember there was a bird mobile above
my head and how I kept my eyes locked
on it, making sure I didn’t look down.
I remember the compassion of the doctor,
and how pale Tom looked that day. I got
down from the table with only a little help,
and walked away unaided.
That was two years ago, and I’m
sometimes surprised by how faintly these
events seem to have marked me when they
loomed so large at the time. My abiding
sentiment is, in fact, gratitude. I am so
grateful I had the right to make those
choices; grateful other people fought for
my right to decide. Once, I barely thought
about what that freedom means; now
I would never take it for granted again.
And no regrets. They were the right
decisions. As time has passed I have, if
anything, become more convinced of how
right they were. I never wonder about
what might have been. n