The 2024 Election
tw: abortion
I woke up on election day 2016 filled with hope and suspense. I was 12-weeks pregnant with my first child, and we had just taken the prenatal testing and I was anxiously waiting to hear if we were having a boy or a girl. “Wouldn’t it be so cool if we found out we were having a girl the same day we elect our first female President?” I said to my then-husband, and probably several other people throughout the day. It was a sentiment I felt in my bones.
I even wore a blue and white striped dress and put red ribbons in my hair— and got donuts for the office. Electing Donald Trump still seemed like an unlikely possibility that morning.
By my car ride home at 7pm that evening, my world had shifted on its axis. I still hadn’t heard from my doctor about my testing results, but it was becoming increasingly clear that Trump was now going to be our President. I came home to find the election coverage on our projector screen, and my usually stoic then-husband, was almost catatonic watching the red states flicker on our screen. “How could this happen?” he kept saying. I went to bed early and cried myself to sleep. How could we raise a little girl in Donald Trump’s world. “He’s just one guy” my then-husband tried to comfort me. “How bad can it be?”
The next day we finally got a call from our doctor that something was wrong with the fetus. We had a specialty ultrasound scheduled that day and my doctor assured me I’d know more soon. We went to the specialty doctor who explained what was happening. We left the doctor’s office with an understanding that terminating the pregnancy was the best option. After several heartbreaking days, that was what we decided— all while the TV screens blared in the background a preview of the chaos Trump would bring.
I remember sitting in a doctor’s office waiting for a procedure where they had to stick a ten-inch needle through my body without anesthesia and hearing a reporter talk about how committed Trump was to overturning Roe V Wade. That was the first time it hit me that if my pregnancy had occurred six months later, it may have had a very different outcome.
Now 8 years later, I *know* that pregnancy would have had a very different outcome. My daughter would have died instantly, I might have died, and my son certainly wouldn’t exist.
That’s what people mean when they say lives are on the line this election.
The past eight years have felt like some alternate universe that I desperately want to wake up from. I did eventually become a mother to an incredible son, but I also woke up politically, had my marriage end, and have seen my industry bought and sold by tech bros for used parts.
I’ve canvassed, phone banked, had hard conversations, and have tried to educate where I can. I’ve even cut people out of my life where I know we will find no common ground when it comes to this. I have people in my life and family who claim to be “not-political,” and will tell me to not talk about this, “I don’t want to hear it, it doesn’t affect me.” Well guess what, it has really affected me and a lot of other people I know and care about.
A vote for Trump is a vote for a racist and rapist who will do anything for power. He does not care about you, or fighting for anyone or anything other than himself. That has been proven time and time again… and yet, the race is close.
We don’t know who is going to win tomorrow, and we probably won’t even have an answer until later in the week. There are moments I get excited about the possibility of having our first female president— one who is also an amazing prosecutor (for the right things), supports LGBT+ rights, Black and South-Asian, represents a blended family, married to a mensch, a Cali girl, has a ridiculous and loud laugh— simply put, Kamala Harris is the President America needs and deserves right now. But when you balance what’s at stake, I won’t let myself get clouded by naive hope again.
If you are reading this, please make sure you voted, and please reach out to at least one person today (preferably in a swing state) to make sure they voted.
And if you’re like me and in a state of suspense, please do something good for yourself tomorrow.
I don’t want to cry myself to sleep tomorrow night and wonder if there’s anything more I could have done. So please, please, please… don’t let me down again, America.