A/N: Content Warning: Very pro-choice discussion of realistic abortion options between two women without involving the potential father(s) in the decision. If that could bother you, please skip to the end for a summary or skip the chapter entirely.
We all know that Lori is going to have the baby.
July 20, 2010
When Ellie enters the RV to inventory the everyday medical supplies they keep in the RV to see what needs to be restocked from the towed trailer full of purloined hospital supplies, she hears the quiet sob from the bathroom and hesitates. She looks back outside to do a mental tally of who is visible and who isn't, since not a lot of people use the RV bathroom. With the lack of dumping stations and the water needed to process the plumbing system, folks tend to make due with the little 'camp bathroom' set up behind a strategic tarp.
When she realizes who is missing, she sighs. Lori's been far more tolerable since she read through that poor nurse's journal, but plunging into any emotional distress the woman is having really feels like it should be Rick's domain.
But growing up a Dixon certainly didn't make her a coward, so she goes and taps on the door. "Lori? Are you okay?"
The crying is muffled immediately, and Ellie sighs and backs away from the door, going to start her inventory while the other woman decides if she wants to talk or not. It takes about five minutes and the sound of water running for about a minute before Lori emerges. Ellie doesn't think she's ever seen the woman look so distraught. It's enough to feel a surge of sympathy.
"Can you keep a secret?" Lori asks hesitantly.
That puts Ellie on alert, because secrets never seem to pan out well where she's concerned. "Depends on what it is, to be honest."
"How accurate are home pregnancy tests? The ones we have?" Lori fumbles a capped plastic stick onto the counter, looking like she's about to cry again. Ellie looks at the positive result and suppresses a groan.
"That one should be pretty accurate if you've already missed your period. When was yours due?" Despite a growing sense of unease, Ellie shifts into nurse mode and reaches out to lock the RV door.
Lori swallows hard. "I haven't had one since we evacuated. I had one the week Rick was shot, and that was the last. End of May."
"Were they regular before? Were you using birth control? Sit. We'll go ahead and do the blood test. That iStat machine has some hCG cartridges."
The brunette settles into a seat at the table, offering her arm listlessly as Ellie preps to draw blood. "Like clockwork. I had the patch, but I lost one at the quarry and didn't notice until the change date."
"How long was that?" Ellie lets the iStat do its work, saving the second vial of blood for the other blood work she suspects she'll need to do once the first result arrives.
"Three days."
"When was that?"
"When we first got to the quarry." Lori starts crying softly. "I haven't missed one since. I've checked like three times a day. I can't be pregnant. Not now, and not like that."
Ellie can understand the distress. All the timing adds up to a very messy emotional confrontation of the issue no one talks about, but everyone seems aware of. Somehow, as much as he seems oblivious, Ellie isn't sure even Rick is ignorant of the former relationship between Lori and Shane.
"That'll put you about nine weeks in. This isn't something that can stay secret, Lori, not for long. And we can do an ultrasound to completely confirm that time estimate, but you and I both know the odds of conceiving in the last ten days if you were doing well with the patch are pretty slim."
"Could it stay secret if I ended the pregnancy? They make pills for that, right? Like emergency contraception?"
"The emergency contraception only works within 72 hours of unprotected sex." Ellie checks the iStat, wishing this test didn't take so long to analyze. "There is a two-pill combination that would essentially induce a miscarriage, but we won't find it at any random pharmacy, not in Georgia. I honestly think the only place we could would be a Planned Parenthood office."
"They would probably have one in Savannah, right?" Lori's hugging herself, rocking slightly in her seat.
"As far as I know, they did. There were several around Atlanta." Ellie's familiar with those, because she got all of her gynecological care at one of the Atlanta clinics as a teen and young adult. "The further along you are, the more medication will likely be needed. You might have to take it a couple of times."
"But it would be just like a miscarriage?"
"Essentially, yes. It isn't without risks. I know a lot of holier than thou types like to think miscarriages happen naturally and without risk, but there's a reason gynecologists perform D&Cs for miscarrying women. If you retained any part of the uterine lining, that would be dangerous, and even if I get the equipment needed for an emergency D&C, I've assisted on one. I'd insist on antibiotics, too, just to be completely safe."
Quite honestly, Ellie isn't sure what worries her more, potentially having to perform a D&C on any of the women in their group, or overseeing an unexpected pregnancy. It's time to get really nosy with everyone's birth control status, she thinks.
Lori bows her head even further, even as the machine finishes its work. Ellie looks at it and sighs. "Lori? Is paternity the only reason you don't want the pregnancy?"
That gets the other woman to raise her head, and she shakes her head. "I had a difficult pregnancy with Carl, and he was born by C-section. Being pregnant now, with all the dead around us, with the possibility of being attacked at any time? Is that something you would choose?" Lori flushes with embarrassment. "I know you have Merry, but would you even take a chance now on having a baby?"
Ellie can definitely understand that fear. Hell, she counts her blessings every damned day that Merry is the world's most laid back baby and never frets or squalls like babies are prone to do. Daryl likes to chalk it up to Merry almost always being in contact with a caretaker, like babies used to be in nomadic societies.
"No, I wouldn't." She switches out the cartridges for the general blood work. "And I had a really easy pregnancy. But we won't be unprotected on the road forever."
Ellie was doing her inventory in preparation for probably leaving in three days, if Shane, Daryl, and Jacqui's little trio held to the decision they were discussing after breakfast. No one wants to leave the Greenes in full turmoil since Hershel hasn't reemerged to insist on them leaving, but they can't sit around here forever. They just aren't rushing since Carl does need a little more recovery time.
"It's hard to be hopeful when I just saw my twelve-year-old son operated on for a gunshot wound. Some of the things we saw on the way to the quarry, I keep seeing them in my nightmares."
"The world's always been a dangerous place for children, I hate to say, but I understand. It didn't exactly reinforce my faith to have to operate on Carl, either." Ellie makes notes of the new blood work on a scrap of paper. She'll have to monitor this no matter what Lori eventually decides.
"You aren't trying to talk me out of ending the pregnancy?"
Ellie looks up to meet the bloodshot brown eyes of the woman sitting across from her. "I'm of the opinion that no one should be in the healthcare field if they can't accept the reality that people have to make their medical decisions without influence of someone else's religious beliefs or morality. It's your body, Lori. You're the one who has to support the pregnancy if you keep it and endure the miscarriage if you decide not to. My job is to tell you the potential risks and provide the care you decide you need."
"Could you support a pregnancy, if you needed to? You said you were a pediatric nurse before."
"I did an OB rotation during my clinicals, since you don't specialize at that level, but I'll be honest with you that I got to stand in on two C-sections as an observer only. Could I perform one? Most likely, although I would want to have at least one person trained to assist. Daryl could probably learn. He's got steady hands and a solid medical background as a paramedic."
Considering the fact that cadaver practice is a key part of anatomy at that level, she doesn't think Daryl is going to appreciate being volunteered for the task, but he'll do it if she asks.
Lori is still looking half distraught, so Ellie wraps the two cartridges and the pregnancy stick into a paper towel and places them in a baggie to dispose of later.
"Can you describe your pregnancy issues?" When Lori startles at her voice and frowns, Ellie gives her a reassuring smile. "Some issues don't necessarily reoccur. Why did you have a C-section?"
"Carl was breech. They couldn't get him to turn. But before that, I was anemic, and I had a lot of problems with my blood pressure."
"The anemia I can understand. You're pretty close now, enough that it's something we need to keep an eye on regardless of the pregnancy. Did you develop preeclampsia?" Ellie gets up and retrieves her stethoscope and blood pressure cuff. Lori offers her arm without being asked.
"Yes. About three weeks before Carl was born. They delivered him at 35 weeks."
"Well, your blood pressure is a little high right now, but considering what you're thinking about, that's to be expected, but I doubt it's an issue as of yet. But having preeclampsia once puts you at higher risk on a later pregnancy. We can combat it, because ironically, blood pressure medication is something I'm fairly familiar with thanks to Merle."
"And with no NICU? They took Carl for the first day and kept him in the NICU, but he responded really well."
"I won't say it'll be easy, and the earlier a baby comes without that level of technology, the more likely we can't provide the care it needs. But preemies were surviving long before modern healthcare, and we at least have a headstart on knowing what they need that our pre-twentieth century ancestors didn't have."
"How long do I have to decide?"
"I'd say no more than three weeks, to be safe. Ovulation isn't necessarily a clockwork thing, so it's possible you conceived later than that estimate. But the only way to really know that would be an ultrasound."
"We have that machine. You used it for Carl."
Ellie lays her equipment aside and reaches out to take Lori's hand, which startles the hell out of the brunette. "I've known women who had ultrasounds done, Lori, and several were not able to terminate the pregnancy after seeing that screen. There's a reason some states require women to sit through an ultrasound before an abortion to shame them into not getting one. It's emotional warfare."
"But you would do one if I asked?"
"It's all your choice. If you want an ultrasound, we'll get one. I could even keep the screen away from you, but that temptation you'll have to look might be overwhelming. If you want to end the pregnancy, and I can obtain the proper medication, I will assist you, as long as it is within the next three weeks. I don't have the skills to safely assist you past that point. And if you want this baby? I will become the best damned midwife possible."
"I need to think about it more." When Ellie lets go of her hand to fetch a bottle of iron tablets and hand them over, Lori takes them and eyes the little bottle. "Will you keep it secret?"
"As long as you don't have any complications, yes. Everyone's health care is private unless I have to reveal something for the sake of the group's safety. Or it ends up public by aspect of what it is, like the treatments I had to oversee here or Rick's health issues being a bit hard to keep under wraps."
"Even from Shane?"
Ellie crosses her arms. "Even from Shane. Or Rick. If you choose to talk to either of them, that is your choice, not mine to force upon you."
The surprise on Lori's face isn't something that astonishes Ellie. The complicated issues surrounding abortion are rarely something a woman expects to get sympathy regarding, especially in a state like Georgia that wraps reproduction so tightly in a religious moral code that Ellie's heard people state that women should give birth to their rapist's baby just to adopt it out. Considering the circumstances of her own birth? There's no way in hell Ellie would ever be one of those moralizers.
The hug she receives is unexpected, but Ellie returns it without hesitation. It isn't a decision she has ever had to face, but she can't imagine making it with no support at all. She resolves to let the still lingering resentment of Lori's bitchiness at the quarry go, because harboring it does no one any good. When Lori pulls away and heads for the RV door, she pauses. "Ellie?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you."
"If you do need to talk, and you don't feel like you can with Rick, come find me."
Lori blinks away tears, gives her a weak smile, and leaves the RV.
It's a possibility that she could take the brunt of any anger either man has, should Lori make the decision without consulting either of them. But even as much as she cares for Shane, she's never let a man's temper force her hand as a nurse before.
She isn't going to start now.
A/N: Lori confides in Ellie about her pregnancy, and Ellie discusses the options available to either end or continue the pregnancy. She gives Lori a timeline where ending the pregnancy would be possible, and how, along with whether or not they could sustain the pregnancy safely after Lori asks her about that possibility. We all know that Lori is going to have the baby.
Ellie's support of Lori will have a ripple effect, and Ellie's thoughts about herself as the product of rape is going to come into play as a warning for the future chapter where the pregnancy comes to light.
I know that abortion is an emotional hot topic for far more reasons than religion. Ellie's portrayal here is how I personally feel any healthcare worker should behave. The false myth of miscarriages being natural landed me in a hellscape situation of having a miscarriage go very badly wrong when religious healthcare providers fail to do their job because a D&C is an "abortion procedure". (Guess what? I damn near needed a hysterectomy instead, and DID need a blood transfusion.)