I recently had my first abortion. I am 21 years old, with a very good job, a very loving boyfriend, and I already have one child. I had my daughter when I was very young (only 15 years old), and I hid it from everyone for about 7 months. I then decided to tell my mother, and right away tried to have an abortion. But, when I went to the clinic, I found they wouldn’t do abortions past 20 weeks. I guess because I was so young and stupid, it didn’t even cross my mind they wouldn’t do it. But time went on, and 2 months later I had a little girl. It is humiliating for people to look at you ‘as the young girl who got knocked up’, especially because I live in a very small town where everyone knows everyone. To make matters even worse, her father just deserted me, wanted nothing more to do with me, so I was all alone. Despite of all the bad talk, I decided to finish high school and try to make something of myself. Luckily, I have a wonderful mother who has helped greatly over the past 5 years with my daughter, and I was able to finish everything I wanted to do.
Now 5 years had passed and I took my birth control every day religiously. I didn’t want to get pregnant again until I was ready. I didn’t want to go through all the pain of trying to raise a child that I really didn’t want. Also, may I add, I have a pretty bad case of scoliosis, and I am very dependent on pain medication. I have only been with 2 men in the past 5 years, and never had a pregnancy scare. I started dating my boyfriend around 8 months ago, and we live alone in our own apartment, and like I said before, I have a very good job, and so does he. He had been with several women before, and never got them pregnant. He was kind of wondering if he was able to have children or not (he is 27). Well guess what. He is able to. I hadn’t even started to get morning sickness yet, and for some reason, I just went out and bought a pregnancy test. Sure enough it was positive. I told my boyfriend immediately and we discussed our options. He told me if I wanted to have it, he would take care of it, and if I wanted to get an abortion, that was fine also. He said it is MY choice.
I decided it was best to have an abortion. I called an abortion clinic about 2 hours from my home, and they wouldn’t do them unless you were at least 6 weeks pregnant. I was right at 6 weeks, and the first appointment they could give me was 3 weeks later, because they only do abortions on certain days. The next 3 weeks was a total nightmare. I was so hateful to everyone, and I suffered from severe morning sickness. I had to get up an extra 30 minutes early just to throw up every morning, so I could still make it to work on time. I would try to eat breakfast, but by the time 11:00 came, I was so hungry it almost made me sick. Every night I would get so hot I felt like I was on fire, and I would throw up at about 3:00 every morning. I hated it. It was so horrible; it was nothing like my first pregnancy. I thought maybe it was because of the pain medication I had to take.
The night before my abortion came, and I was very nervous. I think I slept maybe 2 hours the whole night. May I also add that this is not just an abortion clinic, this is also a clinic that does fertility testing, hysterectomies, and other women’s services. The abortion was scheduled very early on a Monday morning. My boyfriend drove me to the clinic. He kissed me on the cheek when they called my name and that really helped me. The people were so very nice, and the nurse who seen me told me of her abortion. I had an ultrasound and found out I was right at 10 weeks. The doctor came and talked to me before the abortion. He asked me if this was really what I wanted to do, explained the procedure to me, and then told me about how President Bush was trying to make abortion illegal and take our choice away from us. I was ready to get this over with. I went to one room and he examined my cervix to make sure it was stable enough to have the abortion. Then I went to the surgery room and waited for about 5 minutes. Then the nurse inserted an IV into my arm, where she sedated me, and I remember seeing the doctor come in and telling me it was going to be okay. I felt nothing and heard nothing. So it wasn’t like as ‘pro-lifers’ say ‘ripping your insides out’.
I woke up about 20 minutes later in the recovery room with my boyfriend right next to me. It was all over. I felt fine. No cramps, nothing. They gave me infection medication and scheduled my check up for 4 weeks later to make sure everything healed properly. The drive home was fine. I hardly bled; it didn’t even amount to a normal period. I slept all night long, and woke up the next morning and had no morning sickness. No more bleeding, no more anything, I was so loving and nice to everyone again and everything is getting back to normal.
I truly am thankful for the right to make my own decision without someone trying to make it for me, and I am very thankful for the doctors who really care about the well being of their patients. Nobody else knows my life and my body like I do, so therefore, why let someone else make the decision for me. What good does it do people to put up these horrible pictures of aborted fetuses? I understand the reason people think partial birth abortion (just to be doing it) is bad, but at 10 weeks or even at 20 weeks it is perfectly fine, and YOUR choice. How dare these people try to tell you to keep a baby that was conceived in an act of rape or incest, or is going to be terribly deformed, that is truly disgusting. They need to get a real job, and let everyone else live their life.
I will have children when I am ready, and when I can be the mother I am supposed to be. I don’t plan on having another abortion, nor do I plan on considering it a form of ‘birth control’ like some people say. Abortion isn’t the most pleasant thing on earth, but neither is seeing children barefooted with their ribs sticking out from starving to death. So please, make the right choice for yourself and your well-being. Thank you for reading my story.
