Welcome to them off podcast for twenty five years, the mob, has elevated personal stories to showcase the complexity of the human experience to champion empathy and to an eight conversation as we wait for it. Ruling from the supreme court over the state of rome ii wade. We at the mouth produced this special podcast episode to shine a light on the depth, and here vanity of the issue and remind us that the decisions about our bodies are deeply personal. Moths stories are true personal stories there always about agency and choice. Is the right to have autonomy over your story. Voice and body are paramount to the work we do. Today we have two stories for you about bodily independence and healthcare. Listen

an open heart and an open mind as you do with all moths stories, and you just might find that these stories were happy process. The discussions you might be having with friends and loved ones are first story is from robin ass. She told this anymore main stage in Boston, were. The theme was give me here In life the tomorrow. I was pretty sure about my husband right off the bat. When I met him, I loved how he talked about the things that he loved so much. He would have me come over to his apartment and we'd watch soul, train youtube, clips. Until late in the evening, and he would look at me with these adoring eyes and say it's the happiest place on earth and I was like

There really is it took me no time to know. To spend. The rest of my life with him and he took pretty much no time to realize I wanted to have a child with him and the happily ever after he's, been easy or stole as in love today, as we ve ever been, but the child part has not been so easy. It was, after four years of trying to rounds of in vitro three frozen transfer from those in He chose a miscarriage that we finally got pregnant with our daughter, greece, pearl and we re just ecstatic. The pregnant soup went like a breeze

and before we knew we were at the anatomy scan which happens a little over half way through the pregnancy, and I could not wait. I wanted that profile shot. You know you get the little like side profile that everybody thinks about then ultrasound and Jim wanted to see it too. So he came to the appointment with me and We were having a nice time here, just chattering about why, There we were gonna get luncheon. It took me a little. I notice that the ultrasound technician, the call, was not seen a lot she's gonna, making concern noises and She does there's not a lot of amniotic fluid Want you to rolling your side and I'm going to talk to the doctor. So I do that, hoping that it'll prompt grace to move to a better position and she comes back and tries to scan again and no change.

This has not moved and she says: there's no amniotic fluid and I'm sorry I don't know you don't want to hear an online. It's not ok! and so she leads us down the hallway to go. Talk to the doktor, and I google alone, you no second trimester, master, no amniotic fluid, and what scares me back in the faces, eighty to ninety percent fatal and I'm like It- does not improve when we get into that. There's office. There is a waiting room. You no doctors office that is full of new book. The pictures that my doctor has just delivered most of them

featuring her and they're all smiling, and she comes in not smiling and introduces herself to Jim. My husband is Jane and I'm like not doktor, Meyer Jen, that's not a good sign. She explains the following: our daughters, kidneys are huge, their full a fluid, filled sis. Basically there not working in the way that babies work when they're in the womb is, am gotta fluid travels through the kidneys and infuriated out, goes through and swallowed by them and cycles. And without that cycling their lungs will never develop. They can't breathe. She explains that the prognosis is not good and we burst into tears.

To confirm this. She has scheduled animal emergency. Second ultrasound an hour later, also in the hospital and for now she lets us leave out a side door, so we don't have to go through the waiting room, full of expectant mothers with their full bellies. For all of our sakes, I walk past a half eaten birthday cake on the way out. We get outside and it is then usually warm november day. People are milling everywhere and I cannot believe the earth has not stopped taking their lives with it just stopped in place, and I can't even stop my parents knew that this ultrasound was happening right then, and I can't

not call them and tell them what's happened. So I call on my mom answers within a second and she's like how was it and I'm like not good, and she drops a phone. I can hear her sobbing. My dad picks up a few seconds later and asks what happened, and I do my best to tell him all gems, rubbing my back and silently crying next to me and my dad asked if he can be there with us for the second ultrasound, and we agree, that's where we meet him in the waiting room for the second ultrasound. He gives us each huge hogs and makes jokes about the reading material, and I am so grateful he's their dad, jokes and all and soon were taken back for the second alter sound, and it's about two hours of detailed pictures of our daughter. She shows us the kidneys and the little black dots on them, which are the

fluid filled, fists and she's, as it shows us that there's no black background, which is what embryonic fluid is. So there is not going to be it at profile picture. The doktor comes in and introduces herself as mister gray and my dad cause like graze anatomy and unlike I don't think he's ever seen that show I always loved that he was being humorous in that moment and she asks leave. No, so we explain what we've heard so far and she said that's right. There are two outcomes for your daughter: she'll, either be stillborn having been crushed to death by your because there's no amniotic fluid or she will be born in the wheels will come off. I remember that phrase in the wheels will come off without working lungs.

She'll never survive and she'll die within minutes, hopefully my arms, my dad thoughts to ask what are the odds for a baby like this and she looked at him and said none and she looks at means, as your baby would be the first if she made it, she then start to explain the laws around abortion and the state of Missouri. Where I live. She says that you have to first sign consents which aren't always easy to schedule, because only certain people can allow you to sign them with them. Then you have to wait. Seventy two hours, I guess,

consider what you're doing you also cannot have an abortion after twenty one week's six days, I'm twenty weeks in six days when this happens and there's an upcoming weekend and the things giving holiday. So we have no time to think about it. We have to decide almost immediately if we want to be able to do this. If we choose to in time, she leaves the room to give us a moment, and we all just burst into tears were all hugging one another and just inconsolable, and I think about it, and I'm just like what choice to be have she's going to die. One hundred percent and if we don't terminate their pregnancy, shall suffer. One hundred percent

Like a gym and I'm like, we have determinate right and he's like. Of course, we do even my dad who's raised catholic agrees. It would be cruel to do anything else. The doctor comes back in and we tell her, we made our decision and she says I didn't want to sway you, but your risk would go up seven times. If you didn't do this now and that's just the risk of being pregnant, she explains that they will have. Somebody call us as soon as possible to get the signed consents scheduled because we're so short on time.

And we're lucky to be able to get in the very next day. Gemini go to a facility where a doctor in scrubbs meets us and takes us back to a conference room, and there are papers laid out before I can even look at them. She and pauses us- and she says these are state mandated forms they're, not medical. They contain judgmental language that is designed to make you feel bad. It is not how we feel about you. I look and I am asked to sign, saying that I have been offered to hear my daughter's heartbeat.

I listened to my daughter's heart beat on a home doppler. Every other day I have a recording on my phone were asked. If we had been offered to hear or to see an altar sound. I had three hours of alter sounds just the day before, and I also had asked for extra ultra sounds because I wanted to see her any time I could. Then I open a packet and on the very first page in bold indented letters, says: human life starts a conception, your ending a separate, unique human life And my grief was interrupted by outrage. Nowhere in this documentation was how much grace with suffer. None of it talked about the increased risks to my health. It was all just biased on one side.

I wanted to light them on fire, but I find them. I had two and that started the seventy two hour clock that was the longest. In my life. It was a slow marching through time where,

My friends seamlessly clear their calendars to invite me over to do jigsaw, puzzles and drink tea with them. My parents came over and they removed every stitch of baby clothing and items out of our home. I took pregnancy approved, sleeping pills. I have Jim harder than I thought possible and hope we could just melt into one person. I cried and cried and cried in the night before the termination. I asked him how he wanted to say goodbye to grace. Why thought about this? I thought about how sure I was about my decision. I knew other people might make a different choice and I did, and there. A part of me that wanted to give birth to her and hold her, but I couldn't Imagine doing anything, but what we

we're doing, because it felt cruel to do anything different. It was so definitive. And I never thought I would have an abortion, but I've never needed to think about it. Jim said he wanted to have a dance party for her are a little filtering and he made a playlist of songs. He'd always wanted her to hear and always wanted to deter about, and so in our pajamas late at night. Our living room lit by candles. We danced with grace. We played right girl, music and throwing stones and laughed at less spend the night together, because we always thought it would have a little different meaning with a newborn.

And when Mick jagger sang bay bear I patted my little baby bump and we sang at it when we slow danced to sitting on the dock of the bay, which Jim has always said, is a perfect song. Just the way that it is, we had to be at the hospital at five in the morning. The next day and in the operating room as the pre anastasia cocktail hit me. I looked at my doctor in the corner and I I was like, I need you to know that I love might hotter, I'm doing because I love my daughter. Nurse rubbed. My arms and I was gently, turned and laid back on the operating table and they put my headphones. Then they told me I wouldn't be asleep, and so we played grace playlist and that's how he said provider.

I'm pregnant again it's a girl again, I'm so excited though I can't wait to see what you like and teach me things I can't get older hands was learning to walk and brighter hair and a teacher about one of my favorites. Brit songs, harvest moon. You really one of my favorite songs, harvest, moon. You really want to grow up in a world where she's, valued, her humanity,

and in her ability to make the best decisions for herself a respected. That robin is an everyday person who has become a storyteller and advocate for reproductive rights and health care access. She has been featured in the washington post AL jazeera, she's been featured in the washington post Al Jazeera and npr is all Things considered among many other news outlets she lived, her entire life in Missouri, where she frequently has living room, pajama, dance parties with her husband, Jim and their little girl Hannah. You can find her story at defending gray stout come gillian. Alt is ethnic, with a story about independence. She told,

This at a grand slam. Here's to Richard Nixon resigned on august nine, nineteen, seventy four! I know this because a year later, I was lying across the back seat of our station wagon hot ass vinyl seats, drenched in sweat, pretending to be asleep. So my appearance wouldn't talk to me. My father wouldn't turn on the air conditioning because a bother my mother sinuses and she was sitting next to him in the front seat on the radio initially was jump. W jays easy, then public, radio, no one had spoken for the hour or so that we were in the car, except when my mother asked me if I was ok as we got off the highway. I heard the theme song for all things considered

as we pulled into our drive way, the house said that that was the first anniversary of Nixon's resignation. I don't care about that. I wish I were writing. My bike were playing tennis or just lying in the grass looking at the clouds, but there I was in that backseat my face stuck to the seat, sweat running into my eyes. Listening to a story about Nixon, we were on our way home from the hospital where I had an abortion. I was fourteen years old I don't we had sex once and he was my first boyfriend and we weren't allowed to visit each other unless at least one parent was home, but he was persistent and I was curious, and so even though I liked sports more than boy I gave it to try as soon as I miss my period I knew and back then pregnant girls were sent away and if they came back it was either with no baby

or they suddenly had a baby, brother or sister that polite people didn't ask about apparent. When do any of that, but everybody expected me to become a lawyer like I'd announced in second grade, I couldn't be pregnant. I had planned on writing my bike all summer and I was a good kid. I earned honour all all the time I was all city and track and volleyball I played softball for saint Joe part, I made nationals antennas, I played the cello, I couldn't be pregnant.

I was going to ride my bike all that summer and just play in the sun. Until I was blue black and the sun made my hair red, I couldn't start tenth grade with girls whispering and pointing at me. I had to do well at that school to make up for what my sister had done. I had to make my parents happy again. I couldn't be pregnant. I was going to ice skate at ST joe park that summer and I was going to play crack the whip I just couldn't be pregnant in the shower. I tried to will my body to force everything out into the tub. I used in knitting needles who try to pierce my cervix and cause a miscarriage. I'd heard that In poisoned, maybe drainage would end it, but it wouldn't quite kill me one

running after I sneaked to the downstairs bathroom to throw up. My mother met me in the living room. She took me by my shoulders and said: what's wrong? Are you pregnant for the first time her holding me in her arms didn't help? She took me to a doctor out of town, very small soft spoken woman, whose beautiful indian accent carried me to some place. Far away. Maybe she'd say I was too sick, but she confirmed what I already knew over the next few weeks. I tried to will my heart to stop or have a stroke like my aunt. Surely I cried so hard I threw up thinking. Maybe I could convulsed the pregnancy away. We never talked about whether I would have an abortion. We just knew my mother told me the date and then on august eight she told me not to eat after five pm. Nobody talks in the car on the way to the hospital. I gladly

gaped into general anesthesia and I try to stay there, but then we pulled into the driveway my mother got out and opened both back door. So maybe I could catch a breeze and I thought my father had gone in the house with her, but when I finally set up, he was standing right there staring out into the yard. I swung my legs, out of the car, but instead of helping me up, he knelt in front of me. I prayed that he wouldn't talk. Do you like sex? Oh, my god, I gave the only answer to that question from my father. No, don't worry you will you're supposed to like it. I love it, but that's because I'm a grown man- and I love your mother. Oh god, please make stop talking. Please just make him stop one day

You're, older and more mature, you wanna have sex again, but that's my point you're too young to make that decision. I still wanted him to stop, but I settled down when you're ready just tell us and we'll get you some birth control. You got that. I nodded and don't you believe all these little boys talking about? They love you and you so pretty. Don't you fall for that and don't start thinking that you're cute smart beats the hell out of cute every time and you're very bright. We love you you're, going to be okay.

I dont agonize over having had an abortion. Sometimes I wonder how my life would have been if I'd had a kid when I was a kid, but then I think about what a good life I've had. I wasn't capable of raising a child and I wouldn't ask my parents to do it for me at times. I think about laying, in that back see in a puddle of sweat and tears, trying to wish everything away and even though I hated the choices that I had. I'm thankful that I had them. Thank you that was jealousy not jill comes a family of storytellers she's, lived in a lot of places and worked as a criminal

fence, attorney actor writer and dog walker. Her adventures provide plenty of material for stories, This state of Ruby wade not only impacts women who are at the centre of the stories you just heard. It is also a deeply sectional issue that profoundly affect trans non binary and cisgender people across racial. And social spheres rolling back. Movie wade creates a precedent to roll back other civil liberties if you're interested in more stories, showing the importance of these issues through the experiences of those who lived them visit the moth dot org for an extended playlist. We hope you choose to share this episode or listen to it with those around you who may not Otherwise, here these perspectives, that's all this episode of them off podcast. We wish,

you good health and thank you for listening, sir all stinginess as a director, the moss executive producer and a co author of the new york times best selling book how to tell a story, the essential guy to memorable storytelling from them off this episode of the park ass was produced by the mouth. The mouse leadership team includes catherine burns. Sarah haven, Jennifer, hickson, make bulls, Kate, tellers, Jennifer, Birmingham radically k, suzanne rest, Brandon, grant england, ascii aldi, Causa sarah austin dns and Sarah Jane Johnson. Almost stories are true as remembered by storytellers for more about our podcast information on picking your own story and everything else go to our website them off dot org. The moss podcast is presented by pierre acts. The public radio exchange hopping make public radio more public at pierre acts, dot org.