Three and a half weeks after his weekend visit I found myself craving McDonald’s french fries all the time, exhausted, and with a migraine that wouldn’t go away. I was about a week late for my period, but had my typical PMS symptoms (besides the french fry craving) so I didn’t worry a lot. One night, I was particularly worried and I went to bed praying for a sign one way or the other. When I woke up in the morning the morning sickness began. Over the 5 days between the start of the morning sickness and the abortion, I was extremely ill. The migraine, the nausea, and the exhaustion escalated to the point where it was a challenge to get out of bed. My girl friends tried to tell me that these feeling were from worry and grief and fear about the abortion, but I knew that it was from the pregnancy.

I contacted a close friend that I trust and told her that I was pregnant. She showed up and whisked me away to the student health center to confirm what I already knew. The doctor that I met with there was very supportive and gave me my options and numbers for abortion clinics and adoption agencies. My friend and I went home and made a list of pros and cons to the abortion and considered the other options. The pro list for the abortion came out to be much longer and I made an appointment with a clinic in our town.

Because I knew the weekend that I conceived and it had only been 4 weeks since my boyfriend’s visit I chose to do the medical abortion.

The clinic was extremely stressful and scary. Young girls were white as sheets going in to the clinic and even whiter coming out. Protestors took pictures of my friend and me and the license plate of our car. Their signs, yelling, and pictures didn’t make me want to change my mind but rather made me angry and violent. My friend wrapped me in her arms and hurried me into the clinic away from the protestors.

I took a pill at the clinic to terminate the pregnancy and was given a bag of things to take when I got home to remove the lining of my uterus and antibiotics to prevent infection. At the prescribed time after the termination (I was already feeling better), I started the removal of my lining of my uterus. Shortly after the cramps began, my friend picked me up and took me to her house to watch movies and make sure that everything went fine.

I had some cramping through the night, but the worst of it lasted about 3 hours. When I woke up in the morning I knew for certain that I was no longer pregnant. For the first time in about 3 weeks I wasn’t sick. I was so relieved and happy.

The doctor at the student health center suggested that my boyfriend and I light a candle at the one year anniversary and also gave me other suggestions to help get through any possible grief over the procedure. My boyfriend used these suggestions because he took the abortion harder than I did. I have never felt any sadness, grief, regret, or any other emotion besides relief. I know that someday I may be in a position to be happy about being ill for 9 months in order to bring a life into this world, but graduate school was not that time.