I’ve had two abortions, one in 1973, one in 1980.
The first was when I was 17, a month before I turned 18. I put off going to a clinic because I was counting from when I thought I was impregnated, not from last menstrual period. So when I finally went it, they had to do a second trimester abortion.
It was expensive (around $500) and since I couldn’t tell my parents, I ended up figuring out how to tap my college fund for the money, which had to be in cash only.
,p> It was in a hospital, down the hall from the maternity clinic. That was bad. And I wasn’t medicated for pain, and it was a saline infusion, and hurt as bad as labor. < br>
My boyfriend was there part time (but then talked his way into a trip with his parents the following week, the scum) and I squeezed his hand during contractions, but he didn’t pay anything toward the abortion.
No one offered contraceptives afterward, but I went on the Pill when I went off to college two months later.
The second was when I got pregnant because I had sex with my husband and hadn’t packed my diaphragm. I was being treated for a gastrointestinal problem, and getting lots of x-rays so I didn’t want to be pregnant. And I felt like we weren’t ready to become parents.
The people running the clinic were nice to me but treated my husband badly, not letting him come back during any part, and it would have been comforting to have him nearby. About a year later, we decided to have children and it took about 6 months to conceive our first child, a son, who was born in late 1981, and about 5 years to conceive our second son, who was born in 1991. (The fertility problems were not linked to either abortion.)
I’ve wondered from time to time “what if” but I know that if I wasn’t able to cope with having a child while married, and at age 25, I really wasn’t able to cope with a child at 17, single, and trying to go to college. I’ve had stronger “what if” questions about the house I bought, or whether I should have gotten an advance care directive on my husband, who passed away about a year ago. I think it’s normal to wonder if you should have made any big life decision differently.
