I prefer a quiet life

Except in the hour of need, a binface stepped up.

Literally anyone who's ever read the book

I feel like anything I'd read, including a great many medical sources, feminist sources, and the actual instructions given with the medication, didn't prepare me at all for what to expect, and in fact, I feel like it was minimized by a lot. I went into it expecting "extra rough period cramp" type of pain. Several articles (and the advice given by with the meds) advised to put on a comfort show and have some food that I enjoy; take some over the counter pain meds. It was easily the worst pain I've felt in my life. I had an abdominal surgery a few months ago, I've broken a few bones, I cut the tip of my finger off last year, and none of these, even a teensy bit, compared to the mildest pain I experienced during my abortion.

I was completely blindsided. I almost caved and asked to be taken to the hospital, because NOTHING I had read had described anything even close to how bad the pain was. It came in waves, and there would be thirty to forty minute intervals where I couldn't even speak if I wanted to. I curled into a ball and just laid there. I won't lie and say it wasn't traumatic.

My first thought, tbh, was "holy shit, is this what other women's period cramps feel like? Have I just been lucky this whole time?" But a while back, when I still used TikTok, I came across an abortion joke video, and a ton of women in the comments were discussing how painful it was, and how they weren't prepared for it properly because they'd been told to expect much milder pain.

It was about a 9 hour process, for me, and as soon as the pain waned, I was out like a light. I had no residual symptoms the next day, thankfully, but during it I was almost positive that something had to be going wrong, because I hadn't seen anyone anywhere mentioning that it could hurt that bad.

My partner gets flashbacks to it sometimes because I locked my bathroom door behind me when I bolted in there (the meds also gave me instant diarrhea) and then I couldn't stand long enough to unlock it again. He listened to me screaming on the other side of the door for 15 minutes before the pain abated enough for me to stand up and let him in. I bled so much we thought I was hemorrhaging.

I took all the pain meds we had in the house and was in and out of consciousness for 20 hours. I was too weak to walk up my stairs without a break for a week afterwards. I have come out of a surgery that required general anaesthetic in a better condition than I was after my abortion.

My two medical abortions (10 weeks and 11 weeks) were extremely easy. They were easy for me emotionally. I felt nervous beforehand but I felt relief afterwards. While I did experience some pain, it wasn't worse than my typical period cramps or bad food poisoning.

My two births and pregnancies were also extremely different. My firstborn extremely traumatized me. The delivery was wretched, my postpartum was horrible and slow and painful... I just assumed everyone else was lying about their positive delivery stories to save face. Meanwhile, for my twins, the pregnancy was horrible and I wanted to die, but my delivery was basically painless and was done super quickly.

For periods, I used to have cramps so bad I would lose consciousness and black out on the bathroom floor, whereas now, I get some back pain for a few days and get very sleepy.

What this has taught me on a personal level is that anything to do with a woman's reproductive system is incredibly varied, and there is nothing an individual can do to affect it. Someone having an easier time doesn't take away from the trauma of someone else's experience, and someone else having a horrible time doesn't mean that the women who have it easier are lying or covering anything up.

Culturally, we dismiss women's ability to tell their own experiences and relay their own narratives honestly and faithfully. Even after years of trying to deprogram, I still subconsciously do it, and other feminists do too - cultural programming is hard to completely rid yourself of. It's easy for people who haven't had these experiences to listen to the stories that validate their own worldview and dismiss the ones that "don't fit the narrative".