If You Have the Baby, You Can’t Be the Baby
Through art, Lacie transforms pain into power, sharing her deeply personal story of abortion and reclaiming her narrative while challenging patriarchal norms.
By Lacie
In the middle of my first year at university, I found out I was pregnant. On 21 of July 2021, I laid with my feet in stirrups on a hospital bed whilst a male doctor inserted rods into my vagina to dilate my cervix in preparation for my surgical abortion. It was the most intense pain I have ever experienced in my life; I threw up my own stomach bile 3 times from the pain. For the 18 weeks I was pregnant, I cried countless times, threw up after nearly every meal, went up a cup size, and consumed every abortifacient I could.
When I woke up from surgery, I was given a cup of summer fruit squash and a slice of toast, buttered. Before I left the clinic I was told to get in touch if I needed any emotional support for the guilt I would inevitably feel. The car ride home was spent sitting in blood that had leaked through several layers of clothing and into the car seats, but I didn't care, because my body was mine again and I could continue the degree I started.
A few days later, I began to lactate. I felt horrible; I felt dirty. My whole life, my body has been reduced to a porn category, but as the milk dripped I transformed from the ‘virgin’ to the ‘whore’. I was a ‘milf’, I had ‘mommy milkers’, my body was a fetish. I wanted to grab a knife and mutilate my chest beyond recognition. The shame and embarrassment I felt about lactating led me to create this sculpture. I wanted to shed light on lactation because I never even knew it was possible after an abortion. I wanted to alleviate the shame from any other women who could be struggling with the same thing.
This piece was exhibited for my final year degree show, an anthropomorphic dollhouse with bay window tits and a doorway cunt. The house is hidden inside a small room and protected by a curtain reading ‘if you have the baby, you can't be the baby’. A title inspired by the 1987 film ‘Overboard’, and a phrase I felt summed up the piece well. I thought my only option was to become a teen mum; my life was nearly ruined and my childhood nearly taken. I was terrified of being plunged into selfless motherhood.
The dollhouse is sat on a plinth with the doors cracked open, slicing the vagina in two and spreading the legs apart. When the doors are closed, the arms are positioned to ‘hand express’. This piece served as an allegory for a mother’s milk—mothers are told to be very aware of what they eat whilst being pregnant, so I wanted to create the milk with objects submerged in it to symbolise this production of milk and what milk my body made would look like—a physical manifestation of my personality. I wanted the house to look chaotic. What cannot be pictured is the multiple different music boxes playing simultaneously to overwhelm and overstimulate the viewer. When creating the made up milk substance, i couldn't help but see the resemblance between this and throw-up, especially a baby's vomit after drinking milk.
To attempt to tell the audience that this is breastmilk from an abortion I opted to present the 'milk' as lumpy, gone off, rancid milk. My breastmilk would never be drunk, and so the only option it has is to expire.
For the entirety of our childhood, young girls are socialised to hate everything about themselves and other women. When I was really little I used to love pink—everything pink, all the time, no matter what. I feel I have regressed back into this girl in recent years, perhaps trying to cling to the past. The time between being a small girl parading in pink dresses and a woman parading in bigger pink dresses was an era of self loathing and overcompensation—I hated pink, I hated lace, I hated anything 'girly', I wanted to be taken seriously, please! Everything that women have popularised is publicly ridiculed and demoted—makeup, fashion, fandoms, sewing, women’s work. It's very interesting to me that we are taught to hate pink whilst gifts from family consist of a resounding flood of pink. This duplicity is a breeding ground for self hatred that only grows more during adolescence.
I love the rich history behind 'women's work’ and sewing circles as an act of rebellion. I feel so empowered carrying on the same art forms women before me created and bonded over with little to no recognition. I am so proud of myself for putting my own needs first and committing the ultimate sin in our society—“one does not abort his victory”.
I had two ultrasounds, a Dilapan induction, and a surgical abortion: dilation and evacuation. There were 25 calls back-and-forth between me and doctors about why I wanted an abortion. The sheer volume of calls felt like an attempt at making the process so difficult for me that id hopefully give up and give in and have the fucking baby. I exhibited my art in buildings I thought I'd never see again because I'd be sitting at home nursing a baby I resented for ruining my body and my life.
I resist shutting up and accepting my role as a woman.