Unwanted Pregnancies Are a Fact of Life

As long as there are unwanted pregnancies, there will be abortions – but why does the responsibility for birth control remain firmly on women’s shoulders? asks author Anna Wood, in this excerpt from her memoir I’ve Had One Too 

I've had One Too Anna Wood Numinous Books

FAST FORWARD TO THE ONE-YEAR MARK AFTER THE ABORTION. I began to spend a lot of time thinking about the circumstances of my pregnancy and how it compared to what it might be like for other women who are trying, or not, to conceive. In the past handful of years, as many of my friends became mothers, it seemed like just as many had struggled to become pregnant. Several couples I knew had spent the GDP of a small island nation on IVF treatments. Some had even considered taking an extended leave to go to South Africa for six weeks where there are top-notch private fertility clinics. Along with the expertise of those doctors, the procedure is a fraction of the cost it is here in the US. 

Listening to these stories, I felt at once great empathy for my friends, and positively treacherous for having had an abortion. I know those women would have given just about anything to get pregnant as easily as I did. I vividly remember a conversation with a friend who’d been having a particularly long and trying road to pregnancy. We were on the phone the night before she was leaving for a backpacking trip in the Tetons. She updated me about where she was at in her fertility journey, I told her stories about my new life in California, and she laughed, thank goodness you didn’t stay with the broker. Can you imagine if you guys had actually had kids together! I was silent for a beat and then went on to comment how happy I was to be away from him. A lie of omission. The first and only friend I hadn’t been honest with. 

There was a knot in my stomach for the rest of our conversation. I wanted so badly to tell her what an amazing mother she’d be. I wanted to tell her how much I wanted to have a child myself, with the right man. I wanted to rage with her against the misfortune that I should have gotten pregnant at a time when she could not. I wanted to explain to her how careful I had been for 17 years, and how unfair it felt to find myself in the situation I did after one careless month. But instead, I kept my mouth shut. Maybe we would get there one day.

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As hard as it is for some women to become pregnant, unintended pregnancies also happen all the time. In 2001, 48% of all pregnancies in the US were unintended. That figure rose to 51% in 2008 and dropped back to 45% in 2011. I was blown away when I read that. Consistently, half of all pregnancies are unintentional. Just let that sink in for a moment. When I first read this statistic, I was so overwhelmed by it that I immediately reached for my phone, who could I tell this crazy thing I just learned? In the end I didn’t call anyone but ruminated on how many lives are upended by this experience. Over time, it gave me a little perspective about my own pregnancy and eased my feeling of guilt with my friends who couldn’t conceive. Clearly, I wasn’t the only one this was happening to, and maybe, I wasn’t to blame.

In the US, there is this feeling that birth control is something we have all figured out. That it is 100% effective, and we all know how to use it correctly, and we all do that all the time. But if the preceding statistic tells us anything, it’s that birth control is not all figured out. Birth control is still considered a woman’s responsibility, but it’s a burden that we don’t always want to carry. Besides which, it doesn’t always work. The pill comes in at 91% effective (99% if taken perfectly, though most women fall short of that), the shot 94% effective, and IUDs and sterilization are still not perfect—both are 99% effective. 

The other staggering number to take into consideration in all of this, is that women tend to live at the intersection of being both sexually active and fertile for a full 30 years. As a woman, you worry about pregnancy from the time of your first sexual encounter until menopause. Your options should you become pregnant—motherhood or abortion—are weighty enough without the added stigma around ending an unplanned and/or unwanted pregnancy.

What toll does that level of subconscious worry take? One time in college, I received a failing grade on a Physics exam. I was devastated, and immediately set up an appointment with the professor to see what we could do about my future in the class. At that point in my life, school was everything, and the thought of not passing a class was unbearable. In the four days I had to wait before our appointment, I was a wreck—anxious, unable to focus, and with absolutely no appetite. When you have that much strain on you, it can become difficult to complete even the simplest tasks. There is a lot I want to do in this life, a lot that I think needs to be done. But how much of the time do we spend preoccupied with the question: what happens if I get pregnant? How much of my energy and focus was caught up with this worry? Women represent 50% of the population. Imagine how much collective headspace we could free up if birth control was not our sole responsibility, and if abortion was not so taboo. 

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As for the broker and I, we responsibly used condoms for the first several months of our relationship—it wasn’t like we threw caution to the wind immediately. But one night, he asked if we could skip it just this once. The conversation came up in bed, as he was getting frisky with me. It made me uneasy. He promised that he knew his body well and that he wouldn’t mess it up. I held off that first night, but as the topic came up again I eventually relented. The first time he pulled out, it was nerve wracking, but it seemed to go well. The next time I was a bit more relaxed about the whole thing, and it was then that he changed the rules of the game—he surprised me at the last second by coming inside me. I ran to the bathroom in a panic. When I returned to the bedroom I rocked back and forth on the edge of the bed, feeling the beginnings of anxiety prickling my skin. I’ve always been quite high strung, the broker in every way my opposite. He grew up in a small beach community and couldn’t be bothered to get upset about nearly anything. This was no different. He rolled onto his side to face me and said, Well baby, I guess we just rolled the dice. I retorted, We? Where was I in this decision? He laughed good-naturedly at my worry and tried to pull me into an embrace.

I can’t recall the latter part of that night. Did I sleep in his arms? My unease about the relationship was growing by then, and I often spent nights at the edge of his king-sized bed, facing the window, sleeplessly staring at the outside light spilling in around the edges of the black-out curtains. The next day I had to take a work trip, and by the time I was on the plane I had decided to take Plan B as soon as we touched down. I texted the broker to let him know. I still have a screenshot of his reply: I know I’m not always as sensitive as you want or need, I’ll work on it. I think I’m not stressed because of everyone I’ve dated I think having a child with you would be the easiest. As in I think we would agree on a lot and have similar values. So yes, I would prefer to continue to get there if we get there but an “oops” with you isn’t the end of times in my mind.” I took the pill and got on with my work.

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I’ve Had One Too: A Story of Abortion and Healing by Anna Wood is out February 16 2021. Get your copy HERE.

HOLY F*CK: A CALL TO EMBRACE OUR HUMANITY

It’s time to stop using spirituality as an escape—and embrace our humanity, says Alexandra Roxo

In times likes these—where we have somehow managed to elect a president with terrifying beliefs and judgements, where Native people are still fighting to protect the Earth while most everyone else walks around trying to protect money—I feel like it’s so obvious. As a culture and a people we need to get out of our heads and into our feet. Into our wombs, our pussies, and THE EARTH.

We’ve become so focused on “success,” making money, how we climb and grow. All masculine principles. All in the mind. Goal oriented. We barely notice when animals become endangered. We forget to talk about climate change.

It’s not our fault, it’s what we were born into: a consumerist, capitalist culture. When I ask my clients about how much time they spend focusing on their sexual energy or creative energy or with their feet on the ground, it PALES in comparison to how much time is spent in the realm of the computer. Money. Capital. Thought. Even meditation. It’s all up, up, up, into the Cloud.

But the way I see it, we need to go down, down, down! Get back into our bodies. And it turns out spirituality, just like work or booze, can become an escape from the pains and earthy work of being human.

Speaking as somebody who can be a spirituality abuser myself, I think it’s time we stop using it as such. Let me tell you a story about why.

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When I was 13 I had a bad year. 1: I got held down by a bunch of boys and sprayed with red super soaker guns in 30 degree weather while calling me names. I punched one of them and everyone hated me. 2: My bestie’s parents called us out for being gay after she told them we had innocently experimented sexually together and forbade us to be friends anymore. I was DEVASTATED.

So what did I do? I went to church to get SAVED. This was my first bout of checking out of human life by saying: “God I can’t take it down here! Beam me up!” I spoke in tongues, got saved like 100 times. And even wore Abercormbie. (No offense.) My New-Age-psychic-seeing-Angel-lovin-Enya-listening Mom got worried.

Eventually I went back to feeling like I could manage down here. I did theatre, volunteer work/built homes for homeless, wore 4-inch cork wedges to school, flirted with boys, and learned all the dance moves to “Bye Bye Bye.” But my spirituality abuser didn’t go away. I always found some new practice to dive into. Some psychic to look to for the answers.

By age 19 I found myself sitting on a spiritual pedestal feeling like I was “special” and that others “weren’t awake.” While doing an acting exercise in college my teacher called me out in front of the class: “You are using spirituality a mask. It’s keeping you from feeling things and being here. Go back to your seat and come back when you want to be real.” DAMN. I was crushed. But I took her words wisely and went home, cried for about three days, painted, wrote love letters, laughed with friends and gently got down off my spiritual high horse.

It happened again though. Only two years later, after a trauma abroad, I was ready to sign up to be a monastic in a commune in Italy where I had been meditating in caves, sitting on cold stone floors, and wearing communal Cosby sweaters. I renounced sex, alcohol, or anything “of the flesh!” Mom got worried again.

I found my way back to humanity again. But my spiritual extremist rears her head every so often. I see her spending more time reading horoscopes than DOING things that can help. Talking more to other realms than folks in Trader Joe’s. Diving into days of plant medicine ceremonies and shamanic journeys. And avoiding the harsh pains of reality. Any of this sounding familiar?

Alexandra Roxo Holy Fuck Embrace Your Humanity The Numinous

As wonderful as it it to wake at 6am and meditate every day, to read all the articles and check the horoscopes and pull a card from all the decks, I am trying to refrain. In the name of balance.

My aim is to cultivate as much of an EARTH practice as I have a SPIRITUAL one. Which means for every meditation or journey to the spirit realms, I better be doing something here here on Earth. CAUSE I WAS BORN A HUMAN. And the Earth needs me. Head out of phone. Feeling my toes in the dirt. Pussy alive with energy and life force. Does ALL LIFE originate in my brain? NAH, IT’S IN THE PUSS.

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I don’t think it’s enough to just pray and send love and light to Trump, or anyone for that matter. Pray for peace, yes. For love, yes. But I think we also need to get dirt under our nails and be humble and immerse ourselves in what’s happening out on the streets.

And so I urge you, like I urge ME, to embrace your humanity!

Get in the pub and talk to old Latino men and share food and drink with them.

Instead of reading another self-help book (like me!) go to the rally. Sign up to volunteer. Watch documentaries and educate yourself. Go to open mics and comedy clubs in areas that are new to you and mingle with people who aren’t like you.

Let’s look at how much we’re spending on “spiritual” paraphernalia, and re-balance the books! How about a pole dancing class instead? Donations to planned parenthood? Community gardening?

Let’s admit that we don’t know the answers. It’s not fair to all the other folks who have been working tirelessly for years if we pretend we know how to save the world with our ascension ideas. (I mean would you say that to an 85-year-old Native woman? Nah, probs not.)

And remember. If and when we need a strict practice to get us through a hard time, it will ALWAYS be there. You won’t lose it. Because it’s in you! “Spirit” won’t get angry and turn its back on you. I promise.

But for now the world needs YOU and your humanity. Out there. Off the mountain and in the streets.

I love you.

Moon Club co-founder Alexandra Roxo is a filmmaker and intuitive coach living in LA. Read more about her work at www.alexandraroxo.com and follow her love and sex and life woes and victories on Instagram.