I would've named her Amelia

by Sofía Villafaña

I always thought that when I had my first kid, I’d name them after my grandfather. I always assumed that I’d have boys. I believed that I knew these things about myself. I never thought about how I would have a baby, because I’m a girl, I thought there was no other way. I never thought about how those abortion jokes I made as a teenager would haunt me more than my dead grandparents. 

When I had Amelia, I knew that something in me had changed. Something fundamental. Maybe a part of my frontal love developed. Maybe I smoked too much weed and entered another plane of existence. There was no question on whether or not I would actually have her. I knew the moment I jokingly took the test–when my boobs had grown a full cup size–that I had to make an easy but difficult choice. Easy in the sense that I knew it was the right choice for me, no other option was an option. Hard in the way you never expect it to be. 

I remember calling my mom. Because when I asked Mr. 32 for help, he made a bigger joke of me than I thought possible. He might as well have left me on read, it would’ve been better than what he actually said. So, I had to call her. Because I was supposed to be starting my MFA soon, I had no money, no job, and no savings. I had worked jobs that paid for shit while I was in college, to pay for my weed addiction and whatever weekend drinking I did. And the occasional emergency cab when I was too drunk to find the subway home. 

“Estás mintiendo,” she said. She was feet away from my dad. My dad who had fought another round against his newest competitor, cancer and chemo. She tried. She tried so hard to convince me to make a decision she would’ve preferred. I was days away from the rest of my life, and my mom wanted me to press pause. 

The procedure was expensive. They don’t tell you about that in the states that it is legal to get an abortion. It costs a third of what my 19 tattoos cost, and I think that’s on the low end. First, I take a pill by mouth at the doctor’s office, a pill that will stop the growth. There is no going back after this moment. Then, hours later, I peed and poured myself a glass of water because I had memorized the rules on the paper they had given me. Pee first, because I won’t be able to get up for the next 6-8 hours. Water and tylenol nearby for cramps. I put on a night time pad, one of those extra long and extra thick ones. I laid in my bed, my dog sniffing at my knee and I pushed 4 pills up my vagina. I cried myself to sleep, trembling and shaking, though it was August so it wasn’t from cold but from fear of what will come tomorrow. 

I slept in the next day and sat in bed an extra hour, squeezing my legs together to hold in my pee, because I knew there’d be a mess waiting for me on the thick and long pad. I was right. I couldn’t really tell what was there, but the sight made me cry that echoed and bounced off the walls of my small bathroom. I played music, turned on the tv, anything to mask the sound of my pain because I knew there would be no one who would come when I called. 

I named her Amelia almost two months later. I named her to give her a life on paper, one I couldn’t give her in the world. I named her because there will be no one else to have her, but me. No one else gets to claim her, or love her, or have her, or know her. She’s a piece of me that I get to carry to all my milestones. She’s a part of my past and future, she’s shown me things I can’t ever explain. She showed me that I can’t handle a pregnancy, not when my antidepressants and antipsychotics are keeping me from slitting my wrists. She showed me I can and will prevail. She showed me that I can do hard things, things that would’ve killed someone as weak as Mr. 32, and still make something beautiful of myself.