{"id":219157,"date":"2010-01-22T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-22T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rhrealitycheck.org\/blog\/2010\/01\/22\/pregnancy-is-too-complicated-life-begins-at-xxx-just-ask-me-i-know"},"modified":"2010-01-23T10:37:26","modified_gmt":"2010-01-23T15:37:26","slug":"pregnancy-is-too-complicated-for-life-begins-at-x","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/219157","title":{"rendered":"Pregnancy Is Too Complicated for “Life Begins At X”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\n\tThis article is published as part of a series by RH Reality Check <\/em>and our colleagues in observance of the 37th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade.\n\t<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nI was catching up on the live coverage of the America Life League meeting when the clinic called me to offer congratulations.\u00a0 According to them, I was "almost ‘not pregnant’."<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nConsidering what a struggle it had always been for me to get pregnant, I supposed it was only fair that I found it so hard to become unpregnant, too.\u00a0 We spent a full year trying for our first child before we were lucky enough to conceive.\u00a0 So it wasn’t so shocking when it took the same about of time to conceive our second.\u00a0 The shock came later, at our first appointment, when we they couldn’t find a heartbeat.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nWe lost that potential life at 8 weeks 2 days, or just over six weeks after conception.\u00a0 In the time that passed between that loss and the visit that showed us that it was gone, my body had soldiered on in pregnancy even though there was no longer a fetus, with my hcg levels increasing, pregnancy symptoms continuing, and my uterus expanding to a full 12 weeks.\u00a0 Because my body was refusing to miscarry on its own, we had to schedule a D&C to have the "products of conception" removed.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nI was nearly 12 weeks pregnant, and just finishing my first trimester.\u00a0 It was Halloween.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nYour body goes through many different things after a pregnancy is removed, and no two situations are the same.\u00a0 But for those of us with missed miscarriages, we have follow up appointments to make sure our bodies are returning to normal, tracking, among other things, the level of pregnancy hormone in our body to make sure it returns to normal.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nSome offices define "pregnant" as any hcg level over 25.\u00a0 Others, any level over 5.\u00a0 When you are having a successful pregnancy, your level doubles roughly every 48 hours.\u00a0 After a D&C, your body should have a drastic drop, although some don’t.\u00a0 And your levels should decrease in half every 48 hours, although some don’t.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nMine didn’t, and still refuses to.\u00a0 Now, nearly 12 weeks since the surgery, I am at 21.\u00a0 I am still, technically, "pregnant."<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nI think of these timelines when I hear people touting the personhood amendment, or declaring that life begins the moment a sperm fertilizes an egg.\u00a0 They are so definite that that is the moment life that a woman is "pregnant."\u00a0 But when, then, does a woman become "not pregnant?" <\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nWas it when the fetus lost its heartbeat?\u00a0 In that case, I haven’t been pregnant in almost four months.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nWas it when I had the D&C and it was removed?\u00a0 Then I haven’t been pregnant since October.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nOr is it when my body chemically has everything out of my system?\u00a0 If so, then yes, I’m still pregnant even without anything growing inside of me.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nI find it hard to understand how people can be certain that a fertilized egg at that precise moment becomes a life. It hasn’t implanted anywhere where it can grow in order to live.\u00a0 It doesn’t have a heartbeat.\u00a0 It hasn’t become something that can survive without assistance.\u00a0 How does it now develop total rights that surpass even that of the woman carrying it?<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nIf the end of a pregnancy can be this fluid, how can "this is the exact moment that a human begins and has rights?"\u00a0 Pregnancy is far too complicated for that.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article is published as part of a series by RH Reality Check and our colleagues in observance of the 37th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade. I was catching up on the live coverage of the America Life League meeting when the clinic called me to offer congratulations.\u00a0 According to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4263,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-219157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4263"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219157\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}