Face The Music

Delete

Today was the big day: my abortion! I had an extended weekend off of school, and I planned everything out with dance. We had a short weekend break before nationals. I drove into the downtown area, following the directions of my gps to the local Planned Parenthood. I felt a little uncomfortable. I'd never been to a part of town that looked like...this before. Garbage and homeless people were everywhere.

I was so excited when my gps finally said, "arrived," but that excitement quickly turned into frustration.

"Street parking? Are you serious?" I said to myself.

I huffed and found a spot down the street. But once I got out of my car, that wasn't even the end of my misery. As soon as I got near the entrance, I got swarmed by a bunch of crazy, pro birth protesters. They had signs, noise makers, and were holding up pictures of unborn babies.

"Don't go in there! Your baby wants to live!" one of them shouted at me.

"Deni! Help!" I heard.

I looked and saw Hudson stuck in between all the protesters. He was reaching his hand out to me. I quickly tried to shove some of those people out of the way. I grabbed Hudson's hand and yanked him forward.

"You're making a big mistake!" yelled a woman, literally so close to my face that I could smell the coffee she was drinking on her breath.

"Brush your damn teeth, ho! Don't you know that drinking coffee like that causes staining?" I said back to her, thinking of the ten million times my mom said the same thing to me. Not the part about being a ho, just the part about brushing after drinking coffee.

"Here, come with me," said a woman in a vest who grabbed my arm.

I saw that she had a uniform on from the clinic. It said "escort." Hallelujah. She led us inside the doors.

"Thank you so much," I said to her.

"You're very welcome," she said, walking back outside.

We walked up to the reception desk and the receptionist gave me a warm smile.

"Hi. Denali Andrews. Here to delete my fetus," I said.

"Okay. I've got you right here on my computer. I'll just get you some paperwork and someone will be out for you shortly," she said.

I took the clipboard she handed me and filled it out while sitting next to Hudson. There were people of all different ages in the waiting room. Some were really young, like me. I filled out the forms and gave them back to the receptionist, then sat back down with Hudson.

"Hey, just so you know, you don't have to be there while they're sucking it out," I said to him.

"It's whatever you want me to do. We got in this together, and we're getting out of this together," he said.

I sighed. "Glad we're finally getting this out of the way so things can go back to normal."

"Me too, girly. Me too," he said.

"Denali?" said a nurse.

I got up and we followed her down the hall. Hudson was right by my side. The nurse asked me some questions, took my vitals, and then a few minutes later, ultrasound tech came in, which I was really confused about. I didn't know why they weren't just going to lean me back and take it out.

"This will help us determine which type of procedure you'll be having," the tech said after I asked.

I was getting even more frustrated when she told me the ultrasound wasn't going to be abdominal, but transvaginal. This was getting more annoying by the minute. First I had to park my brand new car on a street corner in a bad part of town, then I nearly got stabbed in the foot with a used needle lying on the ground, then I got swarmed by protestors, and now I was getting an ultrasound? An ultrasound up my freaking cooch, no less? This was ridiculous.