In August 2021, I sat in the quiet waiting room of a Melbourne abortion clinic, my eyes cast lazily on the television as it screened the morning news. A text message from Domenic*, the man I shared my pregnancy with, sat unanswered on my phone screen. He was checking in, insistent I let him support me through this. He knew I would be taking the first handful of abortion pills today, and the second tomorrow.
I was reluctant to respond. I didn’t know what to say. I had known Domenic for only a handful of months. We met via Tinder during a brief two-week reprieve from lockdowns, our budding relationship bookended by social isolation, job insecurity and now the stress of an unwanted pregnancy.
We were only just getting to know each other, and an experience as intimate and gruelling as an abortion felt like an impossible thing to invite into our new, casual dynamic. Lockdown restrictions prevented individuals seeking a surgical termination from having a support person, so I had decided to undergo a medical abortion. This involved taking the pills, and miscarrying at home.
It was my first – and only – termination, and the two of us had no idea what to expect.
After I left the clinic, a friend dropped me off at Domenic’s, where on his desk he had laid out a collection of abortion antidotes: period underwear, snacks, a heat pack, additional pain relief. The following day and a half was taxing, and between halted breaths and the bitter throb of near constant cramping, I managed to fall asleep among the mountain of pillows I’d propped up on his bed, cradling my stomach.
When I awoke some three hours later, my womb was quiet and still. I knew the abortion was over. My eyes readjusted to the warm glow of Domenic’s room and the sight of him sitting calmly at the foot of the bed. I caught the faint whiff of a green curry and – for the first time since falling pregnant – I didn’t want to dry retch at the smell of food.
Even now, we refuse to let our abortion collect dust in our relationship’s memory bank. It is hardly a secret: instead we dissect it in depth, even returning to it sometimes if ever we want to reflect on the space it afforded us to grow. A termination forces you to grieve, exhale with relief, fight and feel the intensity of that decision in a timeline that is flattened and urgent. And yet, we fell in love: between internal ultrasounds, bouts of morning sickness and the quiet reality of being un-pregnant again.
We have been together for some years now. Even still, after all of this time, I will never forget the way he looked at me that day. How in the dusk of my abortion, I made out the outline of his shoulders; he smiled at me softly. I smiled back.
As he handed me a bowl of food and placed an extra pillow behind my back, I just knew: this was a person I could do life with. Life, and all its messes. I ate a mouthful of curry and rice as he lay down next to me, the warmth of his body reassuring against mine. Yes, I thought. We can do life together. Later that evening, as he gently held my frame up in the shower, I thought, Of course we can. Because now we know how.
*Name has been changed for privacy reasons
Madison Griffiths is the author of Tissue, out now through Ultimo Press (RRP $34.99)
