When Penélope was born we were living in a short term sublet and didn’t have employment, project-funding, savings or inheritance to rely on. What we did have was access to, and understanding, of the Danish social welfare system. And with some creative bookkeeping we managed to get Andrea qualified for a Danish maternity leave (write to me, Adriano, if you have questions about this). This maternity leave was crucial for choosing to bring the pregnancy to term.
Two years earlier Andrea had aborted a pregnancy because it felt impossible to imagine how we would support ourselves and a baby, without making the reproduction of a closed family unit the script of our lives. We could have gotten minimum wage jobs in cafes or supermarkets, to complement our sporadic freelance gigs, to pay rent and provide for ourselves and a baby. But this choreography would have steadily nudged us towards isolation.
I see the decision to abort as “classed” in three ways. The first is about citizenship, rights and privilege: as a Spanish citizen Andrea had access to free and legal abortion. The second is as sticky as it is simple and common: we didn’t have the money–and our parents neither–to take on childcare responsibility without withdrawing (partly if not entirely) from artistic practice; this (still) matters, even also in northern Europe. The third issue is more personal: postponing the event that had stulted the class mobility of my parents and of their parents and of their parents’ parents. It was about breaking intergenerational social stuckness.
Abortion was then an ambivalent choice. On one hand there is the privilege of free healthcare and the freedom to choose. At the same time it is painful to stop a healthy pregnancy, when you would like to take care of a child. It is also something that was much harder on Andrea’s body than on my body. The pregnancy had already cued in all kinds of hormones, which made her physically confused. After a long walk in Madrid, Andrea took the pill. And we went to paint ceramics.
After the abortion, and before the birth, Andrea had a miscarriage. We learned that of all recognised pregnancies more than 15 %–roughly one in six–ends in miscarriage. It is said to be a “natural” process caused because of genetic issues, which means that the baby could not have survived outside the uterus. It can however be very rough physically and emotionally to go through, and it is largely an invisible fact. Another invisible aspect of womxns health.
After the miscarriage, which came after the abortion, there was a pregnancy brought to term. And by then enough freelance income to qualify for maternity leave, a leave which gave us the confidence to take on the responsibility and a leave which we related to as funding for our Co-habitations in Spain.