I finished reading Choice during halftime of the Steelers game last night. (Yep. Books and football. I was a happy lady last night with two of my favorite things!) The book was amazing. The book was eye-opening. The book was easy to read. The book was hard to read. And, no, those two don’t contradict each other. It was easy to read in the fact that any book broken into short stories is easy to read. You’re continuously interested and you have a desire to keep pushing through to see if the next story is more eye-opening or as well-written as the previous one. But, at the same time, it was a hard read.

I’ve never had an abortion. I don’t have plans in my future to have an abortion. I remain pro-choice because I don’t want to be told that even if my life is in danger that I can’t have an abortion. I need to be present for my living children. And so, in the stories that recounted the abortions that these writing women have gone through, I frequently found myself putting down the book and thinking. Really hard. Thinking about what I would have done in that situation. Thinking about how that would have made me feel. Thinking about how that particular story just pushed my own limits and made me realize that there is so little I really take time to consider outside of my own safe little world box.

I also had to put down the book at times because my heart broke for these women, not just in the abortion stories. In all of them, in different ways. And not in a patronizing, pity-laden way. Sometimes it was the broken heart of a birth mother, one I could relate to entirely. Sometimes it was the brokenness that follows a miscarriage, one I can also relate to. Sometimes it was a physical, angry heartbreak for those that were forced to do things that they didn’t want to or shouldn’t have had to do and so on. My poor Husband got an earful as I read this book.

And I learned so much. Oh! These women are all amazing and fabulous writers and just plain awesome. I’m pretty peeved with myself that I didn’t take the time to purchase and read this book until now. (Though the editor in me did find a total of four errors. My head exploded with each one.)

This book pushes the envelope. It forces you to think about the what ifs that no one else wants to talk about. It is less about politics (though, of course, politics are always in our life, no?) and more about what x-choice meant for y-person. The abortion stories are not all the same. The adoption stories are not all the same. The parenting stories are not all the same. Just like in real life.

I’m going to take some time this week and hit on some of my favorite quotes from the book. There are too many to throw into one post. Stay tuned!