These days as I watch my son Sal walk around, doing his thing, just being a teenager, my heart swells with pride and I know for sure that nothing else matters. I did it, I saved him, just like my parents saved me, and the fact that I can never return to my old home ever again, doesn’t matter.
It is an interesting feeling, for a refugee, this feeling of being at peace with the decision to escape, to run away, to never return. I made that decision when I was so young, crying my heart out as I sat in my parents’ living room, knowing I was going to lose my baby very soon.
I was so stupid, back then. I hadn’t realised, I wasn’t paying attention to what was going on, I was only a few years older than Sal is now. I had just found a job I was enjoying. News was boring and irrelevant to me. I wasn’t a social activist or a feminist or any of that nonsense, I was interested in having fun and fooling around and enjoying myself. In fact I recall I had been busy planning a little girls’ trip to a nearby city known for its nightlife and casinos when a sharp bout of nausea and fainting prompted a trip to the local clinic- and then the diagnosis. I was pregnant. I recalled a silly drunken hookup with a blurry dude- at the time I didn’t actually think it had happened but of course it had. I couldn’t even remember his name or face.
So I wasn’t completely surprised, I suppose. I don’t remember what I was feeling. The nurse said briskly, “I’m booking your psychologist appointment. You realise they are mandatory now. You have to attend or you risk prosecution. I take it the father is not on the scene?” She said it like she said it a hundred times a day. I was confused. “Psychologist? Why? So I’m not stressed, like my mental health or something? I mean, yeah there’s no father on the scene.”
Oh I was so so foolish. I knew from tv shows and movies that stress was bad for expecting moms.
The nurse had let herself a small smile. “Your stress? Oh no honey. The Fit Motherhood Act- you haven’t heard? It’s to assess if you can be a fit mother. It’s the law now- have you been under a rock?”
The excitement of the newly-discovered pregnancy began to ebb, replaced by a crawling fear. I put my hands on my flat stomach. I recalled hearing something – some headline on my phone flashing by, a colleague mentioning something, protests, but then there were always protests. Fit mothers?
“For my health?” my voice squeaked. I knew already it wasn’t for my health.
“Look it up honey,” said the nurse, moving around making it clear our time was over. “Or get your mom to explain it to you.”
I left the clinic.
Everything after that was a blur. I went to a series of appointments with a psychologist. I signed off papers giving her access to my school and health records. She talked to my parents, called my workplace. I missed an appointment and I got a call within the hour from Public Health reminding me that missing appointments may result in immediate termination, but they were kind to me and had scheduled me in for a make-up session.
Everything happened very fast- within three or four weeks. After all, they are not actual monsters, and the timeframe is quite short, and there are a lot of pregnant women to assess for fitness. And it’s for the good of the women, to not become mothers when they are not ready. Population growth being what it was, the Fit Motherhood Act mandated all pregnant women to attend a series of rigorous psychological assessments as soon as pregnancy was confirmed, which evaluated their past behaviours as well as their probable future states. Then the psychologist pronounced a decision on whether the pregnant woman was fit to become a mother. Those deemed unfit underwent forced terminations.
In some regions, the rates of termination were escalating. Economists were warning about the labour market. But the laws had proven surprisingly popular among many, and they have only gotten more brutal since I left.
It’s ironic, how much more attention I have been paying to what is going on in the politics of my home since I left there, never able to return.
The last psychology session was very brief. I was wearing a very pretty flowy flowery top, a lovely shade of red with little golden flowers sprinkled around the bodice. I was just starting to show, or so I liked to think. I had already started imagining the baby.
The last session wasn’t an actual session. The psychologist just told me the decision. Termination. I would be taken to an abortion site the following day. I can’t remember if I was surprised or shocked or what. I just started begging. “Please- I’m fine- why? I’m healthy-”
She had looked at the papers in front of her, and told me my party life at school was the main reason she was recommending termination. “There’s no knowing the long-term effect of the drugs you took, Lilian” she had said gently. “We can’t risk a baby growing in your body, can we? Not to mention your mental health. You don’t want an unstable mom for an innocent child, do you?”
I cried “But that was years ago! Everybody was doing it since middle school- it was normal! And I’m not unstable- My mom partied at school!”
She had nodded. “Yes, I’m not surprised.”
I was numb until I got home, and then I broke down. I couldn’t stop crying, curled up in a ball in the big armchair in our living room where my dad usually sat. Mom knelt by me, “You’ll hurt the baby, Lilian. Please stop.”
“What does it matter? Didn’t you hear what I told you? They’re going to kill the baby anyway!” I screamed.
Dad was standing with his back to us, his face grey . “Stop being so dramatic Lilian. And you heard what the psychologist told you- it’s for your own good, and I tend to agr-”
“Henry!” snapped Mom, cutting him short.
“It’s not fair!” I gasped. “Clarissa is allowed to carry her child- she did so many drugs – way way more than I ever did! And she slept with a different man every night!”
Mom held up her hand “Stop thinking about Clarissa now, it’s not helping you. Focus.”
Dad grunted. “It’s a different rule for the rich. And this didn’t help.” He drew his hand across his face, pulling the dark skin of his cheeks downward, making that silly face that used to make me laugh when I was a child.
But now I felt I could never laugh, ever again. Cradling my belly I whispered “I don’t want to lose my baby.
Mom hugged me. “Darling, if you’re sure, then you don’t have to. But only if you’re sure.”
“Jane-” began Dad warningly.
Mom shot him another glance. “There are ways to keep the child. There always have been. But you can’t stay with us, you’ll have to leave, before Law Enforcement comes tomorrow.”
The fear in my heart knotted tighter. “What do you mean Mom?”
Mom began speaking very rapidly. “Aunt Emma will take you. She knows people who can take you out of this country, somewhere you can give birth. You’re young and healthy, you’ll be fine. You’ll have to stay there. I’m not sure if or when you can return. We’ll try to come visit you- not right now, we would have to not know where you are, do you understand? Do you want to go?”
I didn’t even pause. I will always be proud of myself for that. I just nodded.
My poor parents. They paid a heavy price of course. I know that now. But at the time, they always told me that they were fine, and besides, everything they endured was worth the pictures I sent them of their beloved grandson, our darling Sal. They couldn’t travel, of course, part of the punishment was that their passports were revoked.
I look at Sal now, this beautiful young creature, and I am so full of happiness and sorrow that I feel amazed that I don’t just shatter into pieces. Our life here has not been easy, but my son has lived, and I am a wonderful mother.