Opinion: Taking back November 5th

I felt like a rebellious teenager as I went to my local pharmacy to buy the morning-after pill. 

My mother had me at 18 years old and while I was 27 years old, the one thing I feared most was getting pregnant. In many people's eyes, I was “ready” to get pregnant. It’s the ripe age when people congratulate you when you announce a pregnancy. I’d been with my partner for four years and we were engaged. I had been at my job for 5 years and he was steadily climbing the corporate ladder. Plus my ornery miniature pinscher made us a little family. 

I remember the day clearly when I realized I might be pregnant. I was driving on the Santa Monica Freeway on the phone with my best friend telling her that I had a slip-up and missed a week of birth control. My friend was 39 weeks pregnant and didn’t know at the time that she was actually in labor while talking to me. I was going on about how that morning I had gone to Walgreens to buy the morning-after pill. 

I missed a week of birth control because of reasons out of my control. There was a shortage of the specific brand that agreed with my hormones. Back then, I was insured by Kaiser Permanente and they would mail me a 3-month supply, but when there was a shortage, they would only mail me one month and I had to go in and request it every month. Due to my undiagnosed ADHD, this minuscule task was so difficult for me to complete monthly. 

I got to the pharmacy 15 minutes before they even opened. I took my dog as emotional support, but in 2013, I still had to face the embarrassment of telling the young man at the counter that I needed Plan B.  I was given the Next Choice one-dose. It’s supposed to be 95% effective if taken within 24 hours. I wondered if its effectiveness increased if I was just within 9 hours. I followed the instructions and with an onset of nausea, I was hopeful it would work.

At multiple points over the next week, my breasts started to feel tender. On the date of my missed period, I took a pregnancy test. Negative. Relief. Three days later, I took another test. You know how they say the only two things in life that are certain are death and taxes? Well, I could’ve also counted on my period to be on time, so being 3 days late I was growing in concern. 

Positive. 

The next morning I went and bought another test. This time a “name brand” one– just in case the generics were giving out false positives. Also positive.

From here– I first had to ask my primary care physician to refer me to get blood drawn for a pregnancy test. Once I received results, they had to refer me to a “woman’s clinic” within Kaiser. They would make the referral to Planned Parenthood– where they outsourced abortion care. It took me 2 days to get an appointment, but I wasted no time. Even without a referral– I frantically called every Planned Parenthood in the Los Angeles region– trying to make the first available appointment as the pregnancy hormone (hCG) was very furiously multiplying inside my body. 

It was 11 years ago on November 5th when I was sitting in my shower, trying to catch my breath in between crying–my tears cascading down my face, collecting shower water as they streamed down my bloodied legs and made their way down the drain. The previous day, I had anxiously rung the doorbell on the black metal gate that protected the entrance to the Planned Parenthood clinic in South Los Angeles. 

It was 9 days from my first positive test to the day in my bathtub. At the appointment where I was given mifepristone, the ultrasound showed a little round black ball. I was told it was a gestational sac. There was no embryo yet and therefore no heartbeat. In my chart she wrote down that I was 6 weeks pregnant. 

“But it’s only been 4 weeks since I was sexually active!” I argued. 

“Yes, but we count your pregnancy from the start of your last period” 

So for two weeks, I was pregnant without being pregnant. Then four weeks growing a sac. It made me think of the thousands of women who have been denied an abortion after the four week mark while just growing a sac. 

This is a particularly difficult year for me to remember the fifth of November, just two years after the Supreme Court overturned a nearly 50-year decision of a woman’s right to an abortion. I know that women who look like me are being deprived of choice and being condemned to a continued cycle of poverty raising children they can’t afford while Republicans want to defend their right to be born while ignoring their needs once they are in this world. 

I am so grateful that Planned Parenthood exists. I am so grateful that we have champions in California who will continue to defend my right to an abortion. But that right is not granted across the country in states that have byzantine abortion laws that restrict people from getting the health care they deserve. 

On November fifth this year, I’m reclaiming my power and using my abortion story as a reminder of all that’s at stake this election. And I’m proud to be able to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris, someone who has and will continue to defend abortion rights and defend women’s rights. I want the fifth of November to hold a new meaning in my life– the date we elected the first female President of the United States. And that I’ll never forget.