In the tenth week of pregnancy, I went for a routine examination at the gynecologist.
The doctor walked around with the device on his stomach and moved uncomfortably.
After a minute that seemed like an eternity he said - "Something is not right", and later announced - "The heartbeat has stopped, you need to have an abortion".
If I thought hell was breaking loose at that moment, I didn't know what weeks were waiting for me.
When a woman undergoes an abortion, she must be pregnant if she has waited a long time, the mental pain is unbearable.
In recent years, women have begun to talk about the pain and society has learned to understand that it is a loss for everything, but there is still silence around the physical medical procedure, which women have to go through.
When I went to the hospital to terminate my pregnancy, I was presented with two options.
The first option is taking pills that contract the uterus and eject the fetus.
If there is a remnant of the fetus in the uterus, a surgical procedure is performed under anesthesia called "hysteroscopy", in which a camera is inserted into the uterus, the location of the remnant is identified and it is removed.
The second option is curettage - a surgical operation under anesthesia, in which the cervix is expanded and the fetus is removed in its entirety.
At the hospital, they pointed out to me that if I choose scraping I will have to wait a month for an appointment, while recommending to choose pills to avoid surgical intervention.
On top of that, I read that doctors recommend not staying in the current position for a long time for fear of uterine infections.
I am a conformist person, so I listened to the doctors and chose the first option.
A nurse in the emergency room told me to come to the women's department the next day at seven thirty in the morning.
The nurse claimed that if I arrived before the morning round of doctors in the ward I could go through the procedure quickly and be released home.
It was not so.
For five hours I sat in the ward corridor and waited.
When I tried to check if the process could be speeded up, I was told that there are more urgent cases than mine, that this is a stressful holiday period where there is a shortage of medical staff.
One of the nurses stepped up and shouted at a patient in the same situation as mine: "But your case is not urgent!".
"Life ended inside me."
Illustration, photo: GettyImages
True, our lives were not in danger, but we both discovered twenty-four hours earlier that life inside us had ended.
It was a long, mentally difficult wait, during which we collected the dream we had spun in our minds and let go of it.
We talked, laughed, cried, supported each other in a system that did not see the mental state we were in.
Perhaps it would have been possible to accept the disgraceful treatment if the entire medical procedure, for which we had to wait for a long time, did not amount to sitting in front of a nurse watching us take the pills.
A simple activity that does not exceed a few minutes.
However, unfortunately the settlement was far from over.
Upon receiving the pills, the nurse explained to me that I would feel menstrual pains.
After about an hour, when they saw that I was responding well to the pills, I was released to my home.
The pains I experienced at home were not period pains.
If I had to imagine them to be something, it would be a long, fully opened labor that lasted for an hour, without a break.
I felt that I could not bear it, that I was going to die.
I was not ready for these pains, no one described them like that.
A week later, when I arrived for a check-up at the hospital, I encountered other women who were waiting to receive the pills.
They weren't prepared for it either.
I tried to explain gently, emphasizing that this is my "private experience", what the feeling is after taking it.
They came to me a few days later, thanked me again and again, said that thanks to me they were more mature for the procedure.
My abortion process did not end with receiving one dose of pills.
The ultrasound examination detected a remnant in the uterus and I was asked to receive another dose.
However, even after a second dose, the residue remained and I had to undergo a surgical procedure.
As mentioned, "hysteroscopy".
I waited a month for the surgical procedure due to a lack of queues, fearing uterine infections.
For most of the waiting time I suffered from bleeding and pain, accompanied by dizziness, when once I collapsed and had to go to the hospital again.
My normal life until the surgical procedure was like a dream.
In retrospect, I realize that I should have called all the hospitals across the country and gone to a place where there was an appointment available, even if I had to travel far.
Another option - scrape up the required money and go to private medicine.
I did not know how to do this in the whirlwind of pain and in retrospect I regret it very much.
I discovered that there was no pulse at week ten, but I said goodbye to the fetus definitively only at week 16. Six whole weeks of the abortion process.
My normal life was like a dream.
Illustration, photo: GettyImages
I said goodbye to the fetus with a great feeling of pain and not only because of the severe loss, but because of the medical process that accompanied it.
True, there were also wonderful sisters along the way, I will never forget Avital who recommended that I listen to a certain singer, claiming that she might give me strength in the process.
I will never forget the surgeon who talked to me about a lot of nonsense, as long as I don't think about the anesthetic seeping into me.
But in general, the medical team did not show me the full picture - chances of success, the risks, the physical pain that will accompany me in any way I choose to say goodbye to the pregnancy.
The medical team did not look at me, my medical case, my conditions such as the size of the fetus, the gestational sac, the last time I gave birth - but gave me a generic statement suitable for any woman who needs to terminate a pregnancy at the tenth week.
I'm not the only one who went through this, like many others.
One can blame the shaky budget given to the brothers and sisters, the difficult shifts of the doctors, the fact that the medical system has not recovered from the corona crisis.
This is true, but there is still a serious flaw here.
This case proved to me again - public medicine is collapsing, but will anyone pay attention to it?
were we wrong
We will fix it!
If you found an error in the article, we would appreciate it if you shared it with us