In the tenth week of my pregnancy, I went to get an ultrasound. The doctor moved the probe on my stomach, looking visibly nervous. What was a routine test quickly turned into shock: the fetus had no pulse and I needed to terminate the pregnancy.
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That moment felt like hell, but little did I know what was in store for me down the line terminating my pregnancy in Israel's understaffed and under-budgeted public healthcare system.
The mental pain of having an abortion, especially when it's a long-awaited pregnancy, is unbearable. Society has learned to understand more about this pain as a growing number of women open up about their experiences. However, when it comes to the physical aspect that we have to go through when it comes to abortion, there is still a hush-hush.
The hospital presented me with two options on how I could terminate my pregnancy. The first was taking a pill that would induce the abortion and eject the fetus. If a part of the fetus remains in the uterus, a surgical procedure is performed under anesthesia (called hysteroscopy) during which the doctor inserts a narrow telescope with a light and camera at the end into the uterus, locates the remnants of the fetus, and removes them.
The second option was curettage, a surgical procedure under full anesthesia during which the cervix is expanded and the fetus is removed in its entirety.
The hospital told me that if I chose the second option, I would need to wait a month for an appointment, and instead recommended opting for the pill, also because that is the non-invasive option. They also stressed that waiting for a month for the curettage would put me at risk of uterine infections. As a conformist, I decided to take their advice and chose the pill.
The emergency room nurse told me to go to the women's ward at 07:30 a.m. the next morning. She said if I arrived early enough, I would most likely be able to get the procedure done quickly and go home.
That is not what happened.
I sat in the hall and waited for five hours. When I asked whether I could be seen by a doctor, I was told that there were more urgent cases than mine, that it was a stressful holiday period, and that there was a shortage of medical staff. The woman sitting next to me, who came to get the same procedure done, even got screamed at by a nurse as apparently her case "was not urgent."
True, our lives were not in danger, but we had both learned only 24 hours earlier that the life we carried inside us ended. It was a long, mentally difficult wait, during which we had to let go of the dreams we had begun building and come to terms with the loss. We talked, we laughed, we cried, and above all, we supported each other, in a system that did not seem to care about our mental state.
And perhaps we could have forgiven the disgraceful treatment had the medical procedure that we had to undergo – for which we waited for hours – not amount to swallowing a pill as the nurse looked on. It took no more than a couple of minutes.
But, unfortunately, my story does not end there.
Upon swallowing the pill, the nurse told me that I would feel menstruation-like pains. About an hour later, when they saw that I was responding well to the pill, they let me go home.
But the pain I went through at home was not like a period. It felt more like an hour of labor without any breaks. I felt that I could not take it. I felt I was going to die. I was not ready for such pain, it was not described to me this way, and I was not prepared.
A week later, when I arrived at the hospital again, I met other women who were waiting to get the pill. They too were not warned properly. I tried to gently explain to them what awaited them, stressing that this was my personal experience. They contacted me a few days later and thanked me again and again, saying that I helped them feel more equipped.
But for me, the abortion did not end there. The first pill did not do the job, and parts of the fetus remained in the uterus, and so I was given a second one. That did not work either and I was told I had to have a hysteroscopy.
Due to the waiting times, I only got an appointment a month later, which I spent terrified of getting a uterine infection. Throughout this time, I suffered from bleeding, pain, dizziness, and even fainted and had to be taken to the hospital again. My life before all these medical procedures seemed like a distant dream.
In hindsight, I understand that what I should have done is call all the hospitals across the country and go to any place that had an appointment available, even if I had to travel far. Another option would have been to scrape up the required money and go to a private clinic. But at the time, in the whirlpool of pain, I did not realize this.
I found out that the fetus had no pulse in the tenth week of my pregnancy, but only got to say goodbye in the sixteenth. Six whole weeks, that's how long this whole process took. I bid farewell to the fetus with great pain, not just because of the loss, but the difficult medical procedures.
And yes, there were also wonderful nurses and doctors along the way. I will never forget Avital who advised me to listen to a certain singer, saying she might give me strength in the process. I will never forget the surgeon either for distracting me with small talk while the anesthetic was being administered.
But as a rule, the medical staff did not give me the full picture: the chances of success, the risks, the fear of infections, and the physical pain that I would have to go through no matter which way I chose to terminate the pregnancy.
They did not see me, my case, and my specific conditions, but just focused on the size of the fetus and removing it, having given me a general statement that would suit any woman who needs to terminate her pregnancy in the 10th week.
I am not the only one who has gone through this, and there are many others. One can blame the unstable budget for nurses, the difficult medical shifts, and the fact that the medical system has not recovered from the coronavirus pandemic. That is all true. But there is still a serious problem here. My experience shows that public healthcare is on the verge of collapse, but will anyone pay attention?
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