Shawna & Ann Interview

Shawna:
Okay, we’re here in the car and I’m interviewing Ann, and looks like we’re going. So Ann, I’m going to go back to my question list here. What parenting name do you use for yourself? Do you identify as a mom?

Ann:
Mom, yeah.

Shawna:
Mom, yeah?

Ann:
Mama.

Shawna:
How come you use that name? What does that mean for you?

Ann:
I mean that’s I guess just what I assumed I would be. I never really thought about it too much. I don’t like “mommy.” I do prefer “mama,” but I don’t know why.

Shawna:
Isn’t that funny? I always … Like, I like “mommy” and “mama,” but when it’s like “mom, mom. Mother.” Have you been pregnant to get the kids you have?

Ann:
No.

Shawna:
No? Do you want to tell me how you got them?

Ann:
So they’re both adopted through open adoption. They have different birth parents. I don’t know. How much do you want me to tell you?

Shawna:
That’s pretty good for now, but I might ask more later. So have you ever been pregnant before?

Ann:
Once, yeah.

Shawna:
Did you have a miscarriage? Abortion?

Ann:
No, I had an abortion.

Shawna:
An abortion? Oh, now I lost my questions, and I lost my train of thought, too. Do you ever talk about that with your kids? Is that something you’ve ever talked about?

Ann:
No, I haven’t talked to the kids about that.

Shawna:
You were saying they’re both adopted, so you talked to them about being adopted?

Ann:
Yeah, but it’s never come up. We’ve talked about why they were placed for adoption, but it’s never really come up … Well I guess it has come up a little bit why I didn’t have a baby. I have a heart condition, so I have an artificial valve and I’m on medicine for that, so that makes pregnancy sort of a mess. So we’ve told them instead of risking my life to have a baby, we went for adoption.

Shawna:
Did you find out that about yourself the first time that you were pregnant, or the first time you were pregnant was before you had the heart condition?

Ann:
I was born with a heart problem.

Shawna:
So the first time …

Ann:
So I always knew, yeah.

Shawna:
Yeah. And so then was there a suggestion that you should terminate your pregnancy when you were pregnant the first time?

Ann:
No.

So I was born with heart defect and had it corrected through surgery and then when I was 16 they put in an artificial valve, and at the time when we had to select which valve I wanted, we discussed how if I chose this one valve, which I chose, it would make pregnancy difficult. And my dad’s an OB/GYN, so we talked a lot about high-risk pregnancy, what that would mean. So at the time when I was 16 I just figured I’d adopt. That was the solution.

Shawna:
Yeah, yeah. So just out of curiosity, so is there something about the valve … Like do we have more blood running through our body when we’re pregnant or something? What makes the valve [crosstalk 00:03:04]?

Ann:
Well so here’s the messed up thing with the medical institution. Later, after the abortion even when we were ready to have kids and I went to doctors and asked about getting pregnant with this, they all were like … I saw three different doctors who told me, “Well we don’t really know. Why don’t you get pregnant and we’ll figure it out.”

Shawna:
Oh. And you’re like, “No thank you.”

Ann:
Right? I don’t want to be your guinea pig. And then later I’ve had doctors tell me well yeah, that puts a lot of stress on the valve and it can make them wear down faster. I’m on blood thinners because of the valve, and that has just a long list of complications for pregnancy, starting with during the first trimester.

Shawna:
Yeah. I was on blood thinner for both of my pregnancies, so I know about that, yeah, yeah.

Ann:
Okay. So you were on Heparin?

Shawna:
Lovenox.

Ann:
Okay. So since I take the oral one, yeah, that causes all sorts of problems in the beginning and so on and so forth. So I was surprised that no one in the medical community thought it was an issue. I thought it was a big issue.

Shawna:
Yeah. So it seems like maybe the pregnancy isn’t the hard part. Maybe it’s the giving birth?

Ann:
Well, so if you get pregnant and you’re on the oral version, it can cause cranial deformities …

Shawna:
Oh, no thank you.

Ann:
… in the first trimester.

Shawna:
So yes. Yikes.

Ann:
Right? So before you even know you’re pregnant. And then from there, yeah, there’s all sorts of risks from being on blood thinners when you’re pregnant, and then the one person I know with this situation who’s had a baby had a fine pregnancy and delivery, and then almost bled to death because her C-section scar wouldn’t stop bleeding. So yeah.

Shawna:
That’s why I had to be on Lovenox instead of some of the others, because it’s supposedly one of the only ones that’s safe. I have a genetic condition that makes it so I get blood clots when I’m pregnant, and it has something to do with my body making more estrogen, but of course I didn’t know that until …

Ann:
Okay, until you were pregnant.

Shawna:
Yeah. And then so I had to be on Lovenox, which is $3,200 a month.

Ann:
Yeah.

Shawna:
Yeah, yeah. It’s kind of …

Ann:
Yeah, I knew about that part too.

Shawna:
And then you have to stop as soon as you are showing any signs of going into labor. You have to get off of it, because otherwise you … Same … your friend; you bleed to death when you give birth.

Ann:
You bleed [crosstalk 00:05:28]. Yeah. Yeah, I mean it’s … Justin and I joke about how he says like, “I’d love to get you knocked up, but I’d really like more for you to be alive to raise the child with me.” It just didn’t seem worth the risk.

Shawna:
My husband makes jokes like that too, because my kids always want another baby, and he’s like, “No. The baby will kill you. Really. For real, it’ll kill your mom.” Yeah. So you had such an interesting story, but you’ve never shared that with your kids? Do you think you would at some point tell them all about these about you?

Ann:
Well, they know about the … At least [Moss 00:06:05] knows about the valve and all that, and why I don’t want to carry a pregnancy. Yeah, I would tell him about the abortion. I mean especially now that he’s getting older and learning about sex and with his adoption he asks questions about why they didn’t keep him and … I don’t know why she didn’t have an abortion.

Shawna:
When he asks why they didn’t keep him, what do you say? That seems to me like the hardest question in the world, because it’s this person that you love the most in the world, right?

Ann:
Yeah, and the nice thing with open adoption is I can tell him what they told me, which is they knew they couldn’t give him the life that he deserved, and so they wanted him to have stability and have resources and they could not give him that.

Shawna:
And is that something that he has always been able to understand, or did that …

Ann:
Yeah, yeah.

Shawna:
Yeah. Because I mean as a grownup that makes so much sense to me, but I just wondered as a kid …

Ann:
Well and we talk about as he’s gotten older what does that mean? Stability means that you have a home to live in and you know you’ll have it and we don’t have to worry about where we’re going to live and we know we can feed you and provide for you and those sort of things, whereas they were homeless when he was born, so yeah. As he’s gotten older that’s sort of gotten more complex.

Shawna:
Well I think especially now too that our kids see homeless people every day, right? They have a lot better idea of what that means than before, I think.

Ann:
Right, and he … especially having a little sister, too, can imagine what it’s like to have a baby in that situation. Yeah.

Shawna:
So if you were going to talk to him about your abortion, or especially … I mean when your daughter is older, what kinds of things … Because I always feel like that … I mean I know we should talk to our sons about it too, but it feels really important to talk to our daughters. How do you picture talking about it with her? What would you want her to know?

Ann:
That’s a good question. That it’s her body and I don’t believe that it’s this independent being at that age, and that you … I mean just like their parents consider their long-term life when they placed him for adoption, you need to consider the long-term time life of this fetus, and that that’s their decision to make, and that it’s the woman’s decision who’s carrying it to make, and you have to respect that people have to make their own decisions, because it’s different for everybody. Yeah.

Shawna:
When we were talking before, before we started recording, you were saying the thing that your adoption agency had set up for you as parents, and I was really moved by that, because I was trying to understand why someone who might believe in abortion as a good choice might not choose to have an abortion, might choose to place a child, and you told me about what your adoption agency told you about, that your joy is someone else’s …

Ann:
Someone else’s trauma, yeah. And I remember Moss’s birth mom saying that she just didn’t want an abortion. She didn’t know why. She just couldn’t do it, and so this was the path she chose. And I can’t judge that, right? Like that’s her own and it’s not easy. I mean either path is not easy, right? Yeah.

Shawna:
I’m fascinated about all of these things, like I’m trying to decide … I notice so much about how we go back and forth between when it’s a baby and when it’s a fetus, and this idea of fruition and I’m just interested in all of those things and about how other people think about them, because I’m sure that you are really glad that their birth moms didn’t have abortions, right?

Ann:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Right, yeah.

Shawna:
I mean that’s an interesting thing too, because it’s something that you believe in and want protected, but …

Ann:
From meeting both my kids’ birth moms, I have great respect for them as women and individuals, and for them to be able to make their own decisions. Like one of the meetings we had before Moss was born was to talk about sort of what it was going to look like at the hospital, and Justin and I discussed beforehand and then we told her it just seemed absurd that we would put our wishes on her birth, right?

Shawna:
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ann:
Like, this is your show. You get to have whatever birth you want, and if you want to change it a hundred times during it, we’re in no place to tell you otherwise. We want you to be happy and safe, and we told her like here are some things we’ve thought about, but it was all her. We step in afterwards. And so sort of respecting what other people are going through, with letting them have that and it’s not about us, right? I know people who got really upset with their birth plans and …

Shawna:
It didn’t go the way they had …

Ann:
Right, and they want to do this and that, and it was just very clear she needed … We should let her do what she wants to do, because that’s respectful.

Shawna:
And what did she do? How’d it go?

Ann:
We were not in the room. We were in the hallway, and then we came in afterwards …

Shawna:
Were you so nervous? I have never been in that place of waiting for the baby. I’ve only been the one … Yeah.

Ann:
There was like a party. She had so many people there and so there was …

Shawna:
Just like sisters, friends? Everybody?

Ann:
Cousins and … She has this extended family. They’re not actual biological family but-

Shawna:
Yeah. Her chosen family.

Ann:
… it’s like her mom’s best friends and their kids that she grew up with, and so everybody was in the hallway kind of goofing around and …

Shawna:
It’s like Gwyneth Paltrow or something. Wow.

Ann:
And then we heard a baby crying and …

Shawna:
And you’re like, “Oh, oh, oh.”

Ann:
That’s it. And so-

Shawna:
Did you already have a name for him?

Ann:
We did. We talked them about it, yeah. And so we went in and got to hold him and …

Shawna:
So everybody’s still there and then you guys come in. Are people being cool to you? Or is there any weirdness?

Ann:
They were amazing, and we talked to some of them before she went into labor, like a week before, and kind of connected with people on Facebook and everybody was like, “You’re the parents. Thank you for letting us be part of this.”

Shawna:
Wow. This is such a beautiful, modern story. I love this so much.

Ann:
Yeah. I mean we’ve been so lucky with both the birth families. Like Ruby’s birth mom’s wedding was just this open adoption fairy tale, so see her have this beautiful wedding and her son and her parents were there and they consider Moss to be part of their family and all of us, and …

Shawna:
Isn’t it so wonderful, all the … without the secrets. I have aunts on both sides who secretly were pregnant and then placed babies … And they weren’t even really that young. Like they were in their early twenties, but they weren’t allowed to even make the choice to go ahead and raise the children on their own, which I actually think they maybe would have done, because that … And two of them didn’t go on to have other children, and I think that it’s from that trauma.

Ann:
They were too traumatized. Yeah.

Shawna:
Yeah, and I just think what a difference … I mean 50 years, but still, what a beautiful difference that all these people get to live in.

Ann:
Yeah. Yeah, we tell Moss like, “Look at all the people who love you.” And to us, it’s not threatening. No matter what Moss is into, he has so many relatives he will find someone who can connect with him. Like at the wedding he was joking about how he’s got four families, because he has Justin’s family and my family, and his birth family and Ruby’s birth family.

Shawna:
That’s amazing.

Ann:
How awesome is that, right? Like he’s got a ton of people who love him.

Shawna:
That’s beautiful.

Ann:
Yeah. To really have good relationships you have to respect people. Respect they can make decisions for themselves.

Shawna:
And that comes all back to this, right?

Ann:
Yeah.

Shawna:
That it’s these different choices. And that’s what I wanted to be able to hear you talk about, because I really want that to be the focus when I’m talking in the book, getting the choice part out there, and it’s like we act like the choice is see the pregnancy through to the end or have an abortion, but I feel like you’re describing so many more choices along the way.

Ann:
Yeah. Well and that’s part of the choice of like how you want to make a family, and I mean when I had an abortion, I was dating Justin and we talked … We had just started dating, but we talked about keeping it, and it probably would have worked out okay. Like I’m still with him, you know? But it would have been a different life, and I’m glad for the choice we made, but that’s … He and I trusted each other enough, and he wanted to keep it, I think.

Ann:
He was ready. Well, he told me so. But he trusted me when I was like, “Oh hell no, and here’s … “

Shawna:
And here’s some real concrete reasons why this is not a good idea, yeah.

Ann:
Right. And also I mean besides all the medical stuff, I just knew I wasn’t ready. And that’s how you build a good relationship, right? You respect each other and trust each other.

Shawna:
I was talking about the same thing today, because my first pregnancy was also with my husband, and my kids know that and they bring it up from time to time. They’re like, “Oh, well if hadn’t of had that abortion then, then you wouldn’t have us,” and I say, “That’s right. We’d have one kid who was in high school. We’d probably still live in an apartment on Capitol Hill.” And I was like, “And that would probably be fine. Great. Good. Whatever.”

Shawna:
And I think that it is hard for them, a little bit, to understand. Like it’s easier if I explain the choice in these dramatic terms, like … You know when you were talking about the birth moms and their situation. They could understand that, like, “Oh, if I were a teenager,” “Oh, if I were living homeless,” or, “Oh, these things.” But they know I was a married person, I had a job and all these things.

Shawna:
And I’m their mother. I’m obviously a good mother, but all I fall back on is, “I wasn’t ready yet. I was waiting for you,” you know? You were the eggs that we were waiting to have.

Ann:
Yeah. And yeah, I mean the timing, just you have to make your decision. But right? Everything’s like that.

Shawna:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ann:
I mean Justin and I talk about how if we had met each other at a different time … And actually the friend who fixed us up tried to for a year.

Shawna:
Oh, that’s funny.

Ann:
Right?

Shawna:
Yeah, and you were just like,” No. I’m doing something else right now.” Yeah.

Ann:
Yeah. We just couldn’t be bothered. And I think if we had met sooner, there was a good chance it wouldn’t have worked. He had just gotten out of this really long, serious relationship and …

Shawna:
Yeah. So he needed to get back on his feet. Yeah.

Ann:
Yeah. So it is what it is.

Shawna:
That’s a very sweet love story.

Ann:
Yeah.

Shawna:
Yeah.

Ann:
We ignored her for a year and then we finally got together. Yeah. I mean I think about like we didn’t have our house, we wouldn’t have Full Tilt. We wouldn’t have adopted our kids. Right?

Shawna:
Yeah. All of the things had to fall in place in a certain way.

Ann:
Yeah. Yeah. So how did you … Can I ask you [crosstalk 00:18:30]?

Shawna:
Yeah, yeah. You can ask me a question. Yeah.

Ann:
How did you bring it up for the first time with your kids? The abortion.

Shawna:
Oh, so we were … It’s funny, because I guess … I don’t know. I mean it’s like I felt like we talked about it in front of them. My kids are funny. They jump in and jump out of conversations. So like some things they can’t be bothered. It’s not really interesting to them, they don’t really care, whatever. And other things, like just like right on it. “What are you talking about?” You know? But they’re not that way all the time.

Shawna:
But anyway, Shout Your Abortion was having this huge party, and I really wanted to go because it was the weekend of my birthday, and I think Beezus was 11? I think it was when she was 11. I don’t know if it was that long ago. But anyway, so I wanted to take them to this party, but if we were going to go to a Shout Your Abortion, then I needed to be really clear that they understand exactly what was going down.

Shawna:
And so then I told them and it was so funny, because … Minnow has always been the kind of person you could just tell her anything and she just sort of sees its place in the world. And so like I told her and she’s like, “Oh, okay. Sometimes people decide not to finish out a pregnancy. Okay. That’s cool.” And she was maybe four at the time, and it just wasn’t a problem at all for her.

Shawna:

Beezus was just horrified. She just thought this was the most horrible thing she could hear of, and she’s like, “I’ll go, but I just … I would never do that. I think that’s the worst thing you could do and it’s just horrible.” And so we get there, and she’s like having the time of her life. She meets [inaudible 00:20:10], she meets the people in TacocaT. She’s just running all over the place and I see her talking to all these people, and I walk up on this conversation and she’s like, “Well, I don’t think this is a decision I’d like to make for myself, but I think it’s wonderful that you all made this … “

Shawna:
And it was like oh my god. Just four hours at home you were crying about this horrible thing that I had done, and then we’ve talked a lot about it since, and she feels like her perception of it was colored a lot by the media. She feels like so many of the shows that she loved, all the teenage shows like they all have teen mothers, and she feels like she had a real heavy message from that. And I thought that was really interesting, that the things that she watched in the media would affect her more than the things that she would have heard in her own home.

Shawna:
So that was interesting-

Ann:
Well you see those stories.

Shawna:
Yes, the [crosstalk 00:21:04], right?

Ann:
Yeah.

Shawna:
And then the other thing that I always ask her about is I think that she came out at nine, and so she just can’t picture herself getting accidentally pregnant. Like the people that we know, other lesbian families that we know, they all had to go out of their way to arrange this thing. So it’s like she can still kind of be like this idea of, “Oh, that’s so careless. You straight people just going around getting pregnant.” And there’s like kind of a little bit of judgment to it?

Ann:
Yeah. And I think there’s … I mean I know I felt a jealousy of you can just go get drunk and have sex and have a baby. Like screw you. I’d write essays and pay money if …

Shawna:
And have people look at your picture and choose the right glasses, yeah.

Ann:
Right, [crosstalk 00:21:53]. Yeah, yeah. So when we adopted Moss, part of the process is the seminar, and so one of the first things you do is you go to this two-day seminar and they tell you everything, and one of the first things that they do there is this grieving activity, where you grieve the child you’re not going to have. And they have you fill out this worksheet. Yeah, you write down like how many miscarriages you’ve had and failed infertility and-

Shawna:
But some people had had some children? Or nobody there has ever …

Ann:
No. No one in our group had had children.

Shawna:
Because you could. You could …

Ann:
Well, so the second time around we didn’t have to do the seminar, so maybe that’s it.

Shawna:
That seems really painful. Just hearing about the seminar’s painful to me.

Ann:
It was horribly awkward. So there was four couples when we did it, and two of the couples were straight couples who had gone through the wringer, like miscarriages-

Shawna:
Yeah. Tried every kinds of things, yes.

Ann:
… infertility. Everything. And then there was two men and then Justin and I, and so the two straight couples are just bawling and going through this horrible thing, and the two men were like, “We never really thought [crosstalk 00:23:07]- “

Shawna:
“Here we are. We just signed up. Give us a kid.”

Ann:
And Justin and I were kind of the same, so when I met him I was like, “I’m not having a baby, just so you know. If we’re going to do this, it’ll be adoption.” And it was so interesting. Like we were giggling and making jokes and these poor people are going through …

Shawna:
Yes, they’re reliving all their …

Ann:
Right, yeah. I mean I’m grateful that I didn’t have to go through that, but it was interesting, yeah. Like we couldn’t get … Well, we did get accidentally pregnant. I wasn’t infertile, but it wasn’t, I guess, a huge problem for me to have an abortion.

Shawna:
Yeah. It’s interesting that you say that, too, because that’s the other person that I’m envisioning that I’d like to talk to. I would like to talk to someone who had to have an abortion.

Ann:
Who maybe didn’t want to.

Shawna:
Didn’t want to, yeah. Because that’s another thing, is like all the people that I know that have had abortions, maybe you had other thoughts or like you were saying, maybe Justin would have … maybe he would like to … But still, I’m all about him. Like yup, no problem. Yeah. So I would like to talk to someone who it wasn’t a choice for them.

Ann:
Yeah. Like they had a medical reason they had to, or …

Shawna:
Yes, exactly, like there was something going on that the pregnancy wasn’t viable for whatever reason.

Ann:

Yeah. And that’s different. I mean that’s a lot of people who are ready for the pregnancy, right?

Shawna:
Yeah, yeah. Or same as the people you just described, like had to try, try, try, try.

Ann:
Right, yeah. Yeah, I mean there was one couple that they had a nursery set up and … Right? Yeah.

Shawna:
That’s so hard. It’s so painful. So you were talking about some great sex ed books you have. So if there were a book about abortion, is it something you could picture yourself checking out from the library, reading to your kids? Is that something you think that would be interesting to them, or …

Ann:
Yeah, yeah. I mean with Moss we definitely want him to know kind of as much as he can, and we’re very open and want to set that sort of atmosphere. And I don’t have any reason to not tell him about my abortion.

Shawna:
But it’s just never come up.

Ann:
It’s never really come up, yeah. But yeah, and Ruby’s going to be a woman one day, and so she definitely needs to know. I mean that’s a whole other … I’m terrified to raise a daughter.

Shawna:
Oh, see, I think it’s so wonderful. I love it so much.

Ann:
I’m glad I get to, but it’s terrifying. Yeah. I don’t know. Like my mom had an abortion, I found out, when I had mine, when I was like 10.

Shawna:
Oh wow.

Ann:
And there was just so much shame, and she …

Shawna:
And she was married to your dad, the OB/GYN?

Ann:
Yeah. She didn’t want to have a third kid.

Shawna:
She was just like, “Nope, that’s enough.”

Ann:
Yeah. And they shortly after got divorced, but it was just you don’t talk about it.

Shawna:
No. So she told you … You told her, “Hey mom, I’m going to have an … ” She’s like, “Oh, I had one 20 years ago,” or whatever?

Ann:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So the doctor I was seeing at the time when I had my abortion had actually trained with my dad.

Shawna:
No way. Did he say that when you were … Like, “Oh, I know your dad”?

Ann:
Well yeah. That’s why I was going over it with my doctor, and-

Shawna:
Oh, okay, okay. Okay, he knew that.

Ann:
… and I remember the nurses … I said something about talking to my dad about it, and they were like, “You told your dad you’re having an abortion?” Like, “Well yeah, I’m 30, and he’s an OB/GYN.”

Shawna:
He’s a [crosstalk 00:26:52]. Yeah, yeah.

Ann:
Like why wouldn’t I, right? It’s his field. Yeah.

Shawna:
When you told your dad did he have any advice for you? Like, “Oh, make sure you get this and that.”

Ann:
He said he thought that was a great idea. No.

Shawna:
That is so awesome. How many people’s dads told them that?

Ann:
Well you know, he’s an interesting case. He is a republican through and through. He is sexist, and racist and all the … He loves Trump. Well, I don’t think he loves Trump, but he voted for him. But he is pro-choice.

Shawna:
Isn’t that interesting?

Ann:
And it’s because he … So let’s see. He did his fellowship and his residency … He did his residency when I was born, so mid ’70s. So right after Roe v. Wade. And so he saw women who were hacked up.

Shawna:
Yeah, yeah. He saw the difference, right?

Ann:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. So he is very, very pro-choice.

Shawna:
Because he realizes that abortions happen either way, whether it’s legal or not.

Ann:
Right, because it’s a medical procedure. It needs to happen. It needs to be done safely. And I’ve tried to convince him, you are the person who needs to be talking.

Shawna:
Yes. I’m just thinking the same thing, like your dad should be out on the road.

Ann:
You’re the white old man.

Shawna:

He’s an authority.

Ann:
Who hates the Clintons.

Shawna:
Yeah, there we go. Oh man, that’s really interesting.

Ann:
Yeah. I mean that definitely has always colored my opinion of abortion, because he just sees that it’s absolutely necessary.

Shawna:
Yeah. It’s a medical procedure.

Ann:
Right.

Shawna:
But did he give you any advice, like “Oh, get this kind,” or, “Make sure they give you some Vicodin afterwards” or anything like that?

Ann:
No. I mean because of my heart I had to be in a hospital. Like there was no Planned Parenthood kind of thing for me. So I mean he just kind of went over that stuff. Was like, “Make sure you get antibiotics” and blah, blah, blah.

Shawna:
Did you get to go home the same day?

Ann:
Yeah, I went home later that day. Yeah, I had no insurance. I had really horrible insurance, actually, so it was super expensive.

Shawna:
So you couldn’t get Medicaid to pay for it or anything?

Ann:
Mm-mm (negative). It was like $4,000. Right?

Shawna:
I’m surprised, because I’ve had many long periods of time in my life where I had no insurance but I actually had insurance then and it was completely covered, and that was just such a great thing to get your bill and go like, “Oh, hm.”

Ann:
Right. I had an ovary and tube removed, because I had cysts, and they tied the other tube while they were in there and I paid my $20 co-pay and-

Shawna:
Yes. That seems like, yeah, a reasonable amount.

Ann:
Thanks for coming in. Have a nice night.

Shawna:
A $4,000 abortion. That seems like that’s got to be …

Ann:
Because I had to meet with cardiologists. I had to meet with an internist and the anesthesiologist. Like it was an overnight in-patient, but it had to be done in the hospital. Yeah. Ridiculous.

Shawna:
Yeah. So did you have to like … every month you wrote your little check and sent it off to their payment plan for a long, long-ass time?

Ann:
Yeah. And then as soon as I got a job, got much better insurance. Because the insurance I had at the time did not acknowledge anything below the waist, and this doctor I had who knew my dad, so she was more casual with me, would just bitch and moan about these fucking companies and yeah.

Shawna:
That’s so crazy. I had had two miscarriages, and one of the miscarriages I had I didn’t have insurance when it happened, and so I had a similar thing like that where I had to go to the hospital because I was just gushing blood.

Ann:
Bleeding, yeah.

Shawna:
Yeah. And I end up owing $3,800, and that time I was like “$3,800 and no baby to show for it.”

Ann:
Right?

Shawna:
So you’re the same. You’re like, $4,000. Nothing. Nothing. Oh my goodness. So we talked about a whole bunch of different things and I told you about some of the people that I wanted to talk to. Are there any people that you … or kinds of people that you think that I need to talk to to make sure I’m getting an inclusive picture? I don’t forget anybody or forget anybody’s experience?

Ann:
No, I mean definitely people who like you said had to have an abortion, and then I have friends who will say to me like, “Well you had a medical issue.”

Shawna:
Oh, right, right. So you kind of get a free pass. You’re not some bad abortion lady like me. I’m an abortion-on-demand person.

Ann:
Right. As opposed to just like, “No, I don’t want a baby.” End of story. And that, I think, is important. Like that’s why we have choice, because if you don’t want a baby, you shouldn’t have a baby. I mean I’ve worked in education my whole life. Like don’t have a baby.

Shawna:
Don’t have a baby, yes.

Ann:
Right? And then I would say I’ll connect you with that woman I was talking about who’s had everything, and she can tell you about this idea that adoption is a good alternative. And it’s just traumatic. Not that having an abortion isn’t, but to have to carry and birth a baby and give it to somebody else and see it grow up? I mean that’s … I can’t imagine.

Shawna:
To me it’s such a leap of faith. And I’m not a religious person, and so there’s something about … I can’t imagine … Even looking at your picture and reading your thing, and trusting the-

Ann:
[crosstalk 00:32:25] giving a baby to you, yeah.

Shawna:
Yes. That’s the part that I want to know where someone can feel that kind of confidence that they made the right choice, or is it something they’re always thinking about, or were part of the … I don’t know. I’m really interested to hear about how …

Ann:
Yeah. I think about that too, because I also … like I’m very cautious about what I post on Facebook, especially when Moss was little. Like I don’t want him to see … I’m not going to get on Facebook and complain about my kids, right?

Shawna:
No, never. [crosstalk 00:33:02].

Ann:
Right? Like I don’t want them …

Shawna:
I don’t do that either, anyway.

Ann:
Well, and I don’t want them to ever doubt that this was a good placement. And Ruby’s birth mom and I text a lot, and she’ll say things like, “Well that just shows that she’s in the right place with the right people,” and I think part of it is probably her convincing herself, right?

Shawna:
Herself, right. Like you would never be like, “That’s right, I’m such a better parent than you,” or something. Yeah.

Ann:
Right, right.

Shawna:
Yeah, of course not.

Ann:
Yeah, and I could only imagine how much of that talk she has to do.

Shawna:
Internally, yeah. Uh-huh (affirmative).

Ann:
Yeah. And Moss’s birth mom has … Her narrative, I think, is she’s talked about how she got to give this gift, and this amazing gift.

Shawna:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). It is an amazing gift. Yeah.

Ann:
It is, yeah, absolutely. She actually … When I told her that we were going to go back into the pool to get a sibling, she called me back and said, “Hey, do you want me to have a baby for you?”

Shawna:
Oh wow.

Ann:
Yeah. So we spent a few months talking about it and decided not to. She decided not to, which I think is the right choice.

Shawna:
Just sort of where she was in her life.

Ann:
Yeah. I mean it was the most beautiful offer you could ever give, I think, but I think it would have been too much. It would have been too hard, and I don’t want to micromanage anyone’s …

Shawna:
Yeah, yeah. Pregnancy.

Ann:
… pregnancy. Like I don’t want to do that.

Shawna:
That’s what happened for my dad.

Ann:
Really. Oh, [crosstalk 00:34:33] relative, yeah.

Shawna:
And they kind of knew and there were things that they didn’t necessarily … She was smoking, they didn’t love that. So they offered to pay her some money to stop … Just you don’t want to get involved in that.

Ann:
Yeah. Yeah, I don’t at all.

Shawna:
Because it’s that whole thing about it’s the person’s body, and they [inaudible 00:34:52] autonomy over themselves.

Ann:
Yeah. But when you’re talking about like will you have my baby [crosstalk 00:34:56].

Shawna:
Yes. Yeah, exactly. Ownership. Yes, yes, yes.

Ann:
Yeah. And I didn’t want to get into that, and she also didn’t want to put her body through that, and I think also emotionally didn’t want to go through that. But we talked a lot about what adoption means to her and she says she’s proud that she was able to do this, and it’s this beautiful gift she could give. But I’m sure it still hurts. She hasn’t had any kids since. I don’t know if she will, so yeah. We’ll see.

Shawna:
We’ll see. Yeah. That’s what this whole talking about pregnancy … To me it’s this … It is this “We’ll see” kind of thing. Who knows what the outcome is. It’s fascinating.

Ann:
Yeah. Yeah. When I was teaching it was so interesting. I had so many students who desperately wanted to be pregnant, and it was-

Shawna:
These are twelfth graders? Eleventh, twelfth graders?

Ann:
Yeah.

Shawna:
That’s just so shocking to me, because me and my friends, everyone’s trying to not to get pregnant, right?

Ann:
Oh, right.

Shawna:
And so the idea of high school students wanting to be pregnant … really different to me.

Ann:
We had … and I worked at the alternative school, so it was kids who had been kind of booted out of other schools. So when I first started, we had these four women who … students … who just cussed me out every day. Like if I looked at them funny, they just cussed me out. They had nothing nice to say and I would say like, “How are you doing on the assignment?” And they’d swear at me and I’d run away and …

Shawna:
I was going to ask how did you handle it, what did you do.

Ann:
I just was …

Shawna:
You would just kind of pretend like it didn’t happen and just “Doot do do”?

Ann:
I just said I can’t help you-

Shawna:
Oh, if you don’t … Yeah.

Ann:
… if you don’t want me to talk to you, but okay. And a lot of the kids were there because they had to be because of parole or social services or whatever. And I figured eventually they would either come around we’d figure it out. They didn’t know me, so three of them … there are four of them … three of them got pregnant, and dropped out of school, and the fourth one got pregnant, and then we found out it was fake.

Ann:
She was lying, but her three best friends had gotten pregnant and dropped out of school, and were like … That’s what they were doing. They were going to go have babies, and she was lost. Like what was she going to do?

Shawna:
Yeah. What was she going to … Like I’m wondering what was her plan? When was she going to …

Ann:
I don’t think she got that far.

Shawna:
She was going to pretend to have a miscarriage or something, or …

Ann:
I don’t think she thought that far.

Shawna:
… keep trying to get pregnant?

Ann:
Yeah. Yeah, we had one girl who-

Shawna:
Oh, this is [crosstalk 00:37:37] my heart.

Ann:
… had this horrible, horrible miscarriage, and we … I mean this was the horrible thing. Like behind the scenes, all the teachers would be like, “Phew.” And then she got pregnant again and was so excited. But that’s what their friends were doing and that’s what they wanted to do. So this fourth woman, she ended up just like sitting alone in the back class, and did her work because she had no one to talk to, and did really great and graduated.

Shawna:
That’s a beautiful story. She [inaudible 00:38:11]. Yes, yes.

Ann:
But definitely the norm was not be a good student and graduate. It was have a kid. So yeah, we had a couple kids who had abortions and it was very secretive. Like they told some of the teachers, but we didn’t tell anybody, because their friends would get mad at them.

Shawna:
Yeah. Oh wow.

Ann:
And then I told you about the one who … she placed her baby and she was just totally ridiculed.

Shawna:
So I have to come back around because I’m learning about cultural differences in abortion. Are these predominantly kids of color? These students?

Ann:
Yeah.

Shawna:
Because I feel like that’s a difference that keeps coming up to me too.

Ann:
A lot of latino girls, yeah.

Shawna:
Yeah, yeah, and my African-American friends are saying the same things, like well it’s God’s plan and that’s what young people think too, so then abortion would be disrupting the work of God.

Ann:
Right. Of God, yeah. So it’s a religious thing or … Well, and also one thing I learned was I grew up in an environment where I was going to go to college, just like I was going to go to fourth grade after third grade …

Shawna:
Right, these are the expectations, yeah.

Ann:
… I was going to go to college after high school. No questions. And you do what the people around you do, and that seems realistic. And when the people around you have babies at a young age and that’s what you do, that’s what seems realistic. If you don’t know anyone who’s gone to college, then it’s kind of a crazy dream, right?

Shawna:
Yes. My grandmother was the first person in our family to go to college, and then when she got there, she’s 19 and she hung out in the pool halls and she got pregnant … Yeah, and then she ended up having like seven kids and living in a trailer and being really, really bummed out, because I don’t think that was the life that she would have chosen.

Shawna:
And that goes back to all that same old stuff where I’m super psyched that she had my dad and that I’m alive and all these things, but every time I hear more and more about her and her life, I wonder if she could have had an abortion, maybe that wouldn’t have been the life that she would have chosen, because she sure didn’t seem very happy about it all the times that I saw her. She was pretty miserable.

Ann:
And I’m glad you’re here, but if you weren’t here-

Shawna:
Yeah, you wouldn’t know I wasn’t here. Yeah.

Ann:
You wouldn’t know. Right. Yeah.

Shawna:
So the kids and I, we talk about that a lot, because my two kids look so much alike and they are so much alike, and so I feel like if it had been different eggs, would they sort of be the same kids anyway? Would they … I don’t know. It’s fascinating.

Ann:
Yeah. I mean like I told you that woman almost picked us. I mean any baby you had thrown in my lap I would have raised and loved, right? And you work in childcare.

Shawna:
Yeah. I love every baby too, yeah.

Ann:
You love all the kids, right?

Shawna:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ann:
I mean I was never worried about getting attached to a baby, but now that we’re into it, like I don’t want any other baby besides my babies, right?

Shawna:
Yes, yeah.

Ann:
But I know that logically if it had been a different baby, I would have been okay with that baby, right? You don’t know. And you take them as they are, right?

Shawna:
Yeah. Whether they’re placed with you or whether, yes, whether you made them in your body. Yes, you really do have to take them as they are, because yeah. That is the fact. Oh my goodness. Okay. Is there anything else that I should think about? Do you think I’ve got the whole scoop here?

Ann:
Yeah.

Shawna:
I captured your experience?

Ann:
Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I don’t know.

Shawna:
Okay. Yeah, if we got to the part where we have nothing left to say …

Ann:
All right. Oh, I have one more weird adoption [crosstalk 00:42:15].

Shawna:
Okay, tell me. Tell me.

Ann:
So adoption is expensive.

Shawna:
It’s very expensive.

Ann:
That’s a tax credit where you get a good chunk of money back, and every so often it gets on the chopping block. People want to cut it. The anti-abortion groups fight like crazy to keep this tax credit.

Shawna:
Oh, interesting.

Ann:
So we have this weird … Like I am very pro-choice, but I’m really glad I have that tax credit.

Shawna:
Yeah, because it’s very expensive. Yeah. So do you have to like save all your receipts and then it’s an actual thing, or is it just like you get $1,500 for everybody or whatever?

Ann:
It’s just the year the adoption’s finalized, and yeah, you fill out all your expenses. So we have all the payments to the agency and whatnot, and then you get-

Shawna:
There are court fees too? Do you have to go before a judge and do some-

Ann:
There are lawyer fees, yeah. But-

Shawna:
Did you have to pay hospital expenses for the birth mom?

Ann:
No. So Moss’s birth mom was covered under like a Medicaid …

Shawna:
[inaudible 00:43:25].

Ann:
Ruby’s birth … Because it was an emergency C-section. This is my beautiful daughter. She went into labor. She didn’t realize she was going into labor. Her shitty boyfriend told her to take a shower. Her water broke and she started having contractions. Ruby’s foot came out.

Shawna:
Oh my god.

Ann:
Like she kicked her way out.

Shawna:
She was just like, “I’m … ” And is that her personality too?

Ann:
Totally.

Shawna:
Like, “I’m coming out now.”

Ann:
Very much. So it was an emergency C-section. Fortunately the neighbors heard her yelling.

Shawna:
Was she a little bit early too?

Ann:
She was 35 weeks.

Shawna:
Okay, so that’s why she just didn’t know what the heck was going on.

Ann:
Yeah. Well, and her timeline was really fuzzy. [crosstalk 00:44:05] when I’ve talked to her about it she didn’t really have that down. And then she was in the NICU because she had a withdrawal from heroin, so she was in the NICU for almost a month. Oh, what was it? It was $200,000.

Shawna:
Wow.

Ann:
Right?

Shawna:
Yeah. Wow.

Ann:
Birth mom’s mom got it forgiven. The hospital wiped it clean.

Shawna:
I got the chills. That’s so beautiful.

Ann:
Right? But I mean she basically told them … She was like, “Look, this woman’s like a junkie. She’s not going to pay it. You’re not going to get it. So our insurance covered her for some. You’re not going to get anything else.” And they forgave it all. But holy hell. I mean I know people have babies born earlier-

Shawna:
Yeah, yeah. 20 weeks. Yeah.

Ann:
… with more complicated issues, yeah.

Shawna:
All these things. $200,000.

Ann:
Right?

Shawna:
I’m still picturing her in the shower with the foot sticking out. Like I’m going to be hung up on that for quite some time.

Ann:
I know right? [crosstalk 00:45:08] we’re like, “Sign her up for soccer.”

Shawna:
Yeah. Oh my god.

Ann:
It’s very much her personality, though. Like, “If I need to kick my way out, fuck yeah I will.”

Shawna:
In Waldorf … You know Waldorf schools, they always have that interview, you have to talk about the birth story?

Ann:
Oh, really? Yeah.

Shawna:
Because they believe that that has a lot to do with the temperament of the children. And I remember the first time I thought about that, I was like, “Oh, I don’t know about that.” But then since I had both of my children and … Very much their birth stories are very much how they are, so now I’m always curious to hear that about them.

Ann:
That’s funny. Yeah. Moss was born to Three Little Birds by Bob Marley.

Shawna:
And all the people having their nice sweet party.

Ann:
And then the doctor … It was a couple days later. The doctor was meeting with us before the discharge and she has this moment, she was like, “I need to tell you something about the baby but there’s patient confidentiality with the birth mom and so let me figure this out.” And it became a whole big deal, and she came back and was like, “He has THC in his system.”

Shawna:
You’re like, “I kind of figured as … I would be surprised if he … “

Ann:
Have you seen them? Did you look at [inaudible 00:46:14]? We know, thanks.

Shawna:
Oh my god. Whew.

Ann:
If you can have an example of why you should smoke pot during your pregnancy, it’s Moss.

Shawna:
I don’t even know that they test for that when you have a baby.

Ann:
I didn’t know either. I mean I’m kind of oblivious to a lot of that, but …

Shawna:
Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know.

Ann:
I think they do a drug panel. Maybe it was a judgment call on the parents?

Shawna:
That’s what I was wondering too, yeah.

Ann:
Because of how they look and act, yeah. I mean they’re definitely like crunchy Eugene hippie kids.

Shawna:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Maybe it’s just something they do in Eugene.

Ann:
Right. Exactly.

Shawna:
Oh, that’s super funny.

Ann:
But yeah, we were like …

Shawna:
I’m sure it clears out of the baby’s system very quickly.

Ann:
I mean he was super mellow and he slept a lot, so …

Shawna:
I would take that. That sounds wonderful.

Ann:
We were like, “It’s fine.” But we had talked to her beforehand. We knew her drug use. That wasn’t an issue. We had just laughed.

Shawna:
I actually heard a story on NPR about using marijuana during pregnancy, and it was-

Ann:
Yeah. They’re studying it now.

Shawna:
Yeah, it was a super interesting story. And this one woman, she just didn’t feel like she was even going to be able to keep her baby if she didn’t, because she was so ill and she was just losing weight. And it was a really fascinating story.

Ann:
Yeah. Yeah, I mean he … Well and even Ruby was born with heroin and meth in her system, and she’s fine. And I think I’ve heard that with the hard drugs, it’ll kill the fetus, and if it doesn’t they’re fine.

Shawna:
Yeah. I also have a friend who … her son was born addicted to heroin, and he has turned into the most wonderful grown person, and she’s been clean and sober for a long, long time and they’re doing just fine. So I certainly don’t recommend it for people, but yeah.

Ann:
Yeah. Yeah, well, and the studies I’ve read about, they can never separate the environment the kids are raised in from the exposure, so yeah if you clean up or you get the kid out of that environment, then … She’s too smart for her own good, so yeah. I think she’s fine.

Shawna:
Yeah. Oh I can’t wait to see how she turns out then with her foot sticking out. Just love that. Like, “Get me out of here.” Yeah.

Ann:
Yeah. Yeah, I told her pre-school teacher that story and she was like, “Oh. Okay.”

Shawna:
“That explains it.” All right, well I think we’re probably good then. The car’s getting cold. Probably … Okay, I’ll figure out how to turn it off.