Abortion

I waited in the hospital while my wife had the abortion, and kept my son company. When my wife walked out of the operating room, it hit me all at once: our child had died in the last hour.

I wondered what they did with our baby. Flushed down a drain? Tossed into a medical waste bag? Ripped into pieces and thrown into the garbage? By now, the baby should have started to look like a baby. And I still don't know if it was a boy or a girl.

We all went to get something to eat on doctor's orders. It was surreal, like we had just watched a movie, and were just going out to get lunch. I was in mild shock the whole time; the whole world kept fading in and out, and it was difficult for me to focus on anything. Soon enough, it was time to go to work, so I went home first. The entire trip home, and to work, was a blur; I felt so ashamed and guilty.

I called my wife later to see how she was doing, and she told me her grandma died last week, too. She didn't know until today, either. When I asked her how she felt about the baby, she said it bothered her, but not as much as her grandma, because she wasn't that attached to the baby. She said if she had felt the baby kick, she would probably be crying now. I was dumbstruck at her honesty, even moreso when I came home and she seemed happier than she has in months.

I'm not having another child with her:

- She's got a heart condition and I don't want to abort another baby, even if she seems to think that she's getting better, or that abortion is not a problem.
- Her reaction to all of this makes me physically ill.
- She's spent the last several months responding to every attempt I've made to prove that I have the money to take care of two kids with "Really? Are you sure?" and a skeptical face, even though I'm the one who's saved her dog twice, paid off her mother's $7000 bank debt, and never once missed a $1000+ monthly payment to her. So we'll do it her way.
- Her mother and sister don't want her to have another baby, and since my wife only yells at people that don't fight back (me and our son), I can expect a reign of terror from her family, one that she won't stop, if we conceive again.
- Last and certainly least, I can get my life back sooner.