For a little background, I’m 23, been in a steady couple for 4 years and I come from a very liberal pro-choice family. I study computer graphics at college, have a part-time job, while my other half works 12 hours per day, on night shift, to support us.

My sister went through abortion last year, although her pregnancy was early enough that only meds were needed to trigger rejection of the embryo. I wasn’t so lucky, as bleeding in the first trimester made me believe I still had my periods. When I finally got to see a doctor, I was nearing my third month of pregnancy. To be completely honest we wanted to keep the child at first. We have several friends who decided to have kids at a young age, and knew we would be ready for parenthood. But my mom’s clear and unbiased advice was the first thing to make us re-think our decision. Money is tight and we would have no one to help us support the child, since both our families are equally living modestly. I suffer from rather severe anxious troubles and would have had to stop taking my meds, which equals lots of troubles. Me getting out of school was out of the question for us, leaving my boyfriend the single support. In front of all those problems, abortion was raised as the best choice.

When I finally managed to get it done I had passed my third month but not too much. They had to insert a special tampon into my cervix to slowly dilate it the day before I had the procedure done, which was not too painful, nothing more than a bad cramp.

On the morning of my abortion my boyfriend took his morning off to come with me. We were both very tired, very nervous, and would giggle like schoolchildren for nothing. I had been explained the procedure several times beforehand, and I had chosen to receive a codein injection prior to it, because I was very scared of the pain. They made me change into one of those ugly hospital gown, then laid down in a two-beds room. Another girl was with me, separated with a curtain. She went first while I tried to relax with my boyfriend. Ten minutes later she came back in the room, crying. That was a bad start!

The lady inserted a needle in my arm for the injection, and led me in the abortion room. I was laid on the chair with classical music playing and a very stupid and ugly painting of a landscape taped to the ceiling. We both burst out in laughter. Quite honestly from that moment it grew quite hazy, thanks to codeine. I felt like floating! The pain was nothing. Just like a menstrual cramp. If I started feeling them more, the nurse would give me more codein. It hardly lasted ten minutes, then I was back in the room where we were given an hour to rest, and cookies and juice. After that I was even able to go eat cakes at the mall with my better half, then back home for a nap.

I bled a lot for the month afterwards, but it might have been linked to the Depo shot I got right after the abortion. I cried a lot before the abortion, but never after. I felt relieved it was finally over, that the stress and endless questionning would finally end. As a couple we felt stronger, closer than we were before. We know as much as anti-choicers claims abortion is a selfish act, it would have been even more selfish to give birth to a child just because we wanted to, without even knowing if we would have been able to properly take care of him/her in the years to come. Mentally there is absolutely no scarring. I did not count months, I did not regret nor wondered how it would have been if we chose to keep it. We are planning to have a child in a year, maybe two. To us, it was nothing but a bad start.