Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries
[Content trigger warning: abortion, medical procedure detail]
Can you not feel anything in your body?
This is the question a friend asks, sitting across from me in a low-lit cinema bar on the corner of Niederbarnimstraße, in Berlin’s Friedrichshain district. Half-drunk glasses of beer stand between our elbows. Melted wax from a burning candle is hardening on the table’s pitted wooden surface.
The conversation has turned to motherhood, as it seems to almost without fail now that I am in my mid-thirties, anytime I speak with another woman who is reaching the upper limits of her fertile years. The inescapable question of whether or not we want to have children. And if so, when; and what that might look like.
When it comes to having a child of my own, there are so many unknowns that I find it difficult to identify what I truly want. How can I be sure I want something I’ve never experienced before? There’s no option for a trial period; there aren’t any takebacks. How can I gamble with something so irretractable?
I am attempting to explain this lack of clarity to the friend I am with. She herself is a mother of two, has always known she wanted to have children. And so, the question: But can you not feel anything in your body?
I consider her words. Probe at the numbness within my own chest—trying to test its thickness, the quality of feeling (or lack of feeling). But the emptiness is too dense. I scratch at it, find more nothingness beneath.
I feel nothing.
This hasn’t always been the case. I know that I used to want children—on an intellectual level, if not a somatic one. When I was a child myself, still reliant on my own mother, I always assumed I’d have a baby someday. Perhaps I was too young, too unformed, to imagine a life that diverged from the heteronormative nuclear family modelled by my parents. Perhaps I felt a genuine desire to raise a child. I can’t remember.
The assumption that I would become a mother persisted into adulthood. I coveted the connection between mothers and their babies; fostering a selfish desire to be loved by someone more fiercely than anyone else. As recently as my late twenties, I used to feel a kick of longing whenever I saw small children—or so my partner tells me. This is something else I’ve forgotten. Or buried more likely.
The nothingness I now feel, whenever I consider the question of motherhood, is a relatively recent change. And it’s easy for me to identify what brought about this loss of feeling. But understanding does not restore wanting.
#
I found out I was pregnant at the beginning of November in 2018. One day earlier, I had ridden the U-Bahn down to Berlin’s Freie Universität in Dahlem Dorf, where I handed in my master’s thesis. That evening—in a haze of anticlimactic exhaustion—I went with my partner to a bar around the corner from our apartment to have a celebratory drink. Three sips into my beer, I couldn’t stomach any more. I pushed the glass across the table towards him.
You don’t want it? he asked, surprised.
I shook my head.
I might take a pregnancy test in the morning, I said. Just to be sure.
A test confirmed the telltale signs I’d been willfully ignoring until my thesis was submitted. The headaches and tiredness I’d put down to stress. Nausea, exhaustion, a sensitivity to strong scents. I’d gone off alcohol, and the coffee I usually drank each morning made my stomach churn.
The conversation I had with my partner about what we should do was brief. There were no lists of pros and cons, no agonising over the decision. Neither of us wanted to have a baby at that point in our lives.
Once we agreed to end the pregnancy, the first person I called was my mother. She told me not to worry—that she would take care of the practicalities. While she arranged the appointment at a Marie Stopes clinic (now known as MSI Reproductive Choices), I booked myself a flight back to London.
Because I was still an international student at the time, I was eligible for medical care both in Germany and Britain. Women’s reproductive health (or at least contraception and abortion) is not covered by public insurers in Germany. Meanwhile—in line with a broader trend towards pronatalism in my adoptive country—at least fifty percent (and up to one hundred percent) of the cost for fertility treatments will be reimbursed by those same health insurance companies.
Had I chosen to have a termination in Berlin, it would have cost me between three hundred and six hundred euros: far less than the cost of raising a child, but more than I could afford at the time. By contrast, abortion care remains free to access in the UK.
And besides, I wanted my mother to be there with me.
On the day of my appointment, I walked from Warren Street underground station to the abortion clinic, flanked by my mother and a friend. As we neared the entrance to the Georgian town house, they guided me into the road—sidestepping a young woman who was standing in the middle of the pavement. A pro-life protester. Graphic photographs were plastered across the sign clutched at her chest. I softened my gaze until the images blurred into patches of bright colour.
The clinic’s waiting room was busy: two teenagers, a couple in their thirties, an older woman on her own. At the reception desk, I was told it might be some time before the doctor could see me. I assured my escort I would be alright on my own—so my friend went to a cafe around the corner while my mother started some early Christmas shopping. After filling out a few forms I was instructed to go upstairs and wait there instead.
Eventually, a tired-looking doctor called me into a consultation room. She asked how I was feeling. Measured my blood pressure. Told me to lie down on the examination table and lift up my shirt. The screen was positioned away from my face as she performed an ultrasound. My chest tightened as she told me I was 8 weeks and 3 days pregnant. Somehow the specificity made it more real. I watched the doctor take an ultrasound image from the printer tray and slip it inside my file. Although she tried to hold the picture out of sight, a corner remained visible—sticking out from the cardboard folder containing my patient notes. A triangle of monochrome blotches.
Once she had completed the physical examination, the doctor said she had a few questions for me. The first thing she asked was this: Why do you want to have an abortion?
I found the question strange.
I didn’t want to have an abortion. What I wanted was to transition from a state of being pregnant, to a state of no longer being pregnant. An abortion was the unfortunate route that would get me there.
Because I don’t want to have a child right now, I responded.
The doctor paused, pen hovering above the folder in her lap.
I’m afraid that’s not a good enough reason, she said.
I felt colour flush my cheeks as my heart beat faster. A thought flashed into my head: Why is it that, so often, I don’t want to is not considered a ‘good enough’ reason when it comes to women and their bodily autonomy? I swallowed the rage.
I’m not in a financially stable position at the moment, I said. I’m just finishing up a master’s degree and I haven’t found a job yet.
The doctor sighed out a breath, visibly impatient.
There’s government help for that, she responded.
Now I began to panic. My composure started to crack. I could feel sweat running down my spine, soaking through the armpits of my long-sleeved t-shirt. I hadn’t known this was a test—one that I could fail.
I opened and closed my mouth a few times, but no sound came out.
Look, the doctor said, there’s a specific phrase that you have to say for me to be able to sign off on this abortion.
I paused for a moment.
Because… having a baby will be damaging to my mental health, I said (my tone more question than statement).
Yes. That’s the one, the doctor replied—giving me a stern look.
She went on to talk me through the various treatment options: medical abortion or suction aspiration. She explained that the abortion pills had a ninety-seven percent success rate, while the suction aspiration procedure was more effective. I asked which would hurt less, earning myself another disparaging glance.
After deciding on a medical abortion (it sounded less invasive) I was sent back to the front desk to arrange a date for the termination. The receptionist handed me an appointment card with all the details. As an afterthought, she passed a brown paper bag over the counter. I accepted this without checking its contents.
Back outside on the street I opened the bag. It was filled with condoms.
A week later I found myself in another clinic, closer to my parents’ home. There, I was given the pills that would induce a miscarriage. In a different consultation room, one of the doctors watched me swallow the first tablet. She instructed me to take the other pill once I was back at home.
The blood started flowing within a couple of hours. I lay on the sofa, hot water bottle pressed to my aching abdomen. Watched all three films in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, back-to-back, as my womb emptied itself. I scooped blood clots the size of fresh apricots from the ultra-thick pads lining my underwear and flushed them down the toilet. The doctor told me I might bleed heavily for three or four days. But the blood slowed overnight. By the following morning, only spotting remained.
I felt sad and exhausted and relieved it was over. I knew I had made the right decision.
As part of my treatment I was given two pregnancy tests: one to take four weeks after the abortion, and (if the first delivered a positive result) another to take a week later. I was told not to worry—that pregnancy hormones can linger in the bloodstream for a few weeks or more. But I should come back for a follow up appointment, if both of the tests came back positive.
I returned to Berlin, continued with my life. When the nausea subsided and the headaches cleared up, I took that to mean I was no longer pregnant. But I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that something wasn’t right in my body.
Still, I couldn’t believe that I would be one of the three percent—the chances seemed too fantastically improbable.
Exactly four weeks after I took the abortion pills, I woke up at five in the morning and padded to the toilet. Held a glass beneath the stream of my urine. Dipped the end of a test strip into the warm liquid. One red line appeared instantly. A minute later, this was followed by a second, fainter line.
I tried to remain calm over the next seven days. Tried to ignore the slight swell of my lower abdomen—put it down to bloating. Even when the second test came back positive, I remained in denial. There had been so much blood. How could there be anything left inside my body?
By now it was December. I already had flights booked back to London the following week, to spend Christmas with my family. I called the Warren Street clinic to arrange another appointment the day after I landed.
The clinic’s waiting room was empty when I arrived. Within a few minutes I was lying on an examination table while a different doctor—a man this time—squeezed cool gel onto my exposed skin. He hadn’t bothered to angle the monitor away from my face. I turned my head, not wanting to see what might be there.
Okay, you’re still pregnant, he said.
Immediately, I began to sob. The doctor was clearly alarmed. He offered a few awkward words of comfort, handed over a box of tissues. Said he would give me a moment and bustled out of the room. I was still crying when he returned. Once I had calmed myself enough to speak, he asked: So do you want to continue the pregnancy? Or do you still want to have a termination?
My mouth went slack. Why would I choose to keep a pregnancy I had wanted to end just weeks earlier? How could I live with the guilt of birthing a child I knew I’d tried to abort? Wouldn’t the abortion pills have damaged the foetus in some way? I stared at him in silent disbelief, until I realised his question was genuine.
I’ll continue with the termination, I said.
The doctor sent me back to the front desk to schedule a surgical removal. The earliest appointment the receptionist could find was in January. I did a quick mental calculation. By the time I could have the procedure, I would be sixteen weeks pregnant.
I tried to enjoy the holidays. Walked endless loops around Brockwell Park, letting the cool air numb my body. Swam almost every day at Brixton Recreation Centre—hating how the material of my swimming costume stretched tight across my stomach. I celebrated New Year’s Eve with friends; left as soon as the countdown was over, feeling tired and sick.
Logically I knew that an abortion was still the right decision. None of my material circumstances had changed. But the failure of the pills to end my pregnancy had caused a shift. Not only had the pregnancy progressed: physiological changes I could feel within my body. But this failure opened space for feeling. I couldn’t help but grow attached to the foetus. I perceived it to be scrappy, a fighter—qualities I prize.
And so, the day before my surgery was scheduled, I did something stupid. I typed into the search engine on my phone: what does a foetus look like at sixteen weeks?
A list of results filled the screen. Resources designed to help expectant mothers understand what was happening inside their bodies. Your baby is now the size of an avocado and can produce facial expressions, one gushing article told me. Baby’s beautiful eyes are working too—peekaboo!
I stared at the illustrations on my phone. The cells growing inside my body no longer resembled a strange, alien-like creature; but a perfect, infant-shaped form. Complete with hair, organs, fingers, toes.
I felt the numbness wash over me.
#
I’m sitting on a leather two-seater sofa across from my therapist. I pour myself another glass of water from the jug standing on a low coffee table that separates our feet. Gulp it down in three mouthfuls. Clear my throat and say: I can’t tell if I don’t want children… or if I think I’m not allowed to want children.
We’re discussing my present ambivalence towards motherhood. Although ambivalence is not quite the right word. There are no internal conflicts or contradictory feelings to work through. There are no feelings at all.
That’s an important distinction, she confirms.
I wait—hoping she will go. The silence stretches. What do you think I want? is the question I want to ask. I want my therapist to use her superior powers of perception to tell me what to do. Which, of course, I know she cannot.
A few days later, I relay this conversation to my mother. She is convinced it’s the latter—that I am punishing myself for foregoing a previous chance at motherhood by denying myself the experience at all.
She might be right.
But what if she’s wrong? What if my feelings have changed over the years? Is it not also plausible that—as friends and family members become parents themselves and I have seen the reality of raising a child up close—I’ve simply decided motherhood is not for me?
I don’t know. I can’t know what I want, if I cannot feel.
Without feeling to follow, I fall back on reason. And I can find many more reasons to remain childless than there are to become a parent: from catastrophic climate breakdown to the precarious state of my non-career.
Is there ever a good reason to have a child?
This is a question I ask myself, sitting across from my therapist once again.
Can the decision to have a baby ever be anything other than selfish wish-fulfilment? A child doesn’t ask to be born, I say.
I try to explain, stumbling over my words, that as someone who has spent periods of their life wishing they did not exist, I cannot bear the idea of creating an entirely new consciousness that might one day feel the same.
A pregnant pause.
Do you think you might be projecting? my therapist says.
Another session. Cut flowers in a glass vase, patterned with blotches of purple. I pull a recycled paper tissue from the box beside the water jug. Dab at the tears streaming down my cheeks.
It’s a weird experience for me, I say. Not being able to feel anything. Usually, I experience my emotions in a really physical way—like, I can feel them in my chest.
You say you don’t feel anything, my therapist says.
She pauses, waiting for the penny to drop. But I don’t follow.
And yet you’ve been crying this entire time.
Oh. Yeah.
Is that not a physical emotional response?
I suppose it is.
I suppose, then, I feel sadness. A sadness that leaves no space for wanting.
#
Often narratives around abortion are divided into two simple categories: regret or relief. With women’s access to reproductive rights still limited in many places across the world, and being rolled back in others (the United States, Poland, Nicaragua, and El Salvador) it feels imprudent to try and complicate this discussion. To colour in a black-or-white discourse with shades of grey.
But to call something complex, painful, difficult, is not the same as calling it immoral or wrong. It is not the same as denying women the right to their own bodily autonomy. And of all the women I know who have had an abortion, none of their experiences can be placed on either side of this rigid, neat divide.
One still wonders—more than thirty years after ending the pregnancy—what that child might have been like. Not as a newborn. But sometimes she imagines a toddler.
One believed her partner was unsure whether he wanted children in the future. He didn’t express the certainty of his desire to become a father—not wanting to put any pressure on her. She might have chosen differently if she had known.
One assumed she didn’t have any unresolved feelings towards her abortion. Until, a few years after the procedure, she found out her sibling was going to become a parent. She couldn’t stop crying for three days.
These are just some of the fragments I’ve been told. None of these stories reveal complete relief or wholehearted regret. Abortion can be both desired and difficult. Painful and necessary. Chosen and resented. Devastating and life saving.
Wanted and not wanted. Both, at the same time.
But acknowledging this doesn’t help me to know what I want now.
My mother cautions me: What you really mustn’t do is have a child if you think you might come to regret it one day.
No, of course, I say.
But that’s the trouble with regret. I’ll never know what might bring about this feeling until it is done (or left undone). And while I can live with regretting a missed opportunity to experience motherhood for myself, I don’t think I could bear regretting the existence of another human being. Is it not safer, then, to wrap myself in numbness? To remain un-wanting?
Often I find the process of writing becomes a route. Committing half-formed thoughts into words on a page treads out a pathway within my own consciousness, leading me to somewhere I haven’t been before. But this piece ends exactly where it started.
I ask myself the question: Can you not feel anything in your body?
And still, I cannot. I still feel nothing.
Lilith Pollock is a writer, editor, and photographer, with a background in the history of colonialism and photographic representation. Her creative work has been featured in The Berlin Literary Review and a number of other online publications. Originally from London, she is currently based in Berlin.