I was sixteen when I got with my ex-boyfriend. When we first had sex I was young naïve and drunk. At a party at his house with his friends there I felt pressurised into having sex with him. Being so young I never realised any of this until a while after, I was quite stupid. We always used condoms and he always checked them afterwards and told me that it was okay. It was September 2004 when I was late for my period, never being regular though I assumed it was just because I was stressed, I had just left school, had been working 30 or more hours a week at a shop, sometimes everyday and was about to start college. With all of the commotion of starting at college and meeting new friends I just kept hoping that my period would come and that it wasn’t happening to me. Eventually I got a test and it took me about two weeks to pluck up the courage to do it. I did it at college, so that I didn’t have to leave it lying around home afterwards. When it showed that I was pregnant I sat in the toilet and cried, but not for long I had to put on a brave face and go eat lunch with my friends before my next lesson. I texted my boyfriend and told him that it was positive, he just said what do you want to do. My response was simple, I had no choice I had to have an abortion. I had talked about abortion in R.E. at school and had always been pro-choice. So at the end of October, two days before my 17th birthday I went along to the family planning clinic and booked an abortion for the week later. The doctor wasn’t there that night though so I had to go to another clinic across town to get the form signed. It was humiliating I was terrified of seeing someone there I knew. On Monday the 8th November I went to the hospital on my own. I was to talk to someone and have the form signed by a second doctor. I was told about the procedure, asked over and over again if I wanted to tell my mum, that I should tell my mum, but I simply just sat there and cried and said she would be so ashamed and angry at me. I also saw a friend I had known for seven years there, also having an abortion, this was comforting but embarrassing. I had always been the sensible one.
On the Wednesday I went to the hospital on my own again to take a pill that would kill the foetus. On the Friday I was to spend the day in hospital. I told my parents I was staying at my friends that night so wouldn’t be home after college. I arrived at the hospital and had some pills placed inside me. I was told that if I went to the toilet I was to ring an alarm and a nurse would come and inspect what was in the tray(it was a cardboard tray type thing). I started to get cramps and feel nauseated so I was taken to a room and spent the day shivering in bed with terrible cramps. My boyfriend was there this time and he just told me to stop crying and stop being stupid. I hated him for that. He showed no emotion. The pain was unbearable, I wasn’t allowed a surgical abortion because I was too far gone, 13 weeks I think they said but I thought I was only 9, because it was 9 weeks since the condom had split, I even got the morning after pill and it didn’t work, now I know why. Apparently he didn’t think it mattered when there was a tiny hole in the condom. I was quite adamant that I wasn’t 13 weeks, still not wanting to believe my boyfriend would put me through all that. The nurses had said it would take about six hours for my body to effectively give birth to the foetus. This was at about 11am. At around 2pm I went to the toilet and forgot to use a cardboard tray. I felt two large lumps fall out of my body and when I looked in the toilet it was full of blood. I rang for the nurses and told them what I felt and they said well we can’t fish in the drains for the baby can we? I was shocked at that, even though they were right. They didn’t believe me every time I went to the toilet they told me that nothing was happening, I believed that the foetus and placenta had gone down that toilet. At 9pm there was nothing but a small amount of bleeding and so I left the hospital. I wasn’t given the counselling I was promised or the pill because I signed for myself to be let out. I was told to come back in 2 weeks for a scan, and if I didn’t they would tell my doctor, which I didn’t want.
The following two weeks were a nightmare for me. The next day I went to work, couldn’t ring in sick because I had the keys to let the manager who was covering in. That day I had terrible stomach cramps, was bleeding heavily and just wanted to go to bed and cry. I cried myself to sleep for two weeks, but carried on with college as normal. When I went for that scan after two weeks I was told that there was nothing left inside me that shouldn’t be there and that I could go. Still offered no counselling that I was promised and ever since I have struggled to cope. I eventually split up with that boy 7 months later, he treated me like crap, got mad at me for being upset, I felt I couldn’t grieve, then towards the end he threw it back in my face, I got rid of his ‘baby’. My response was simply that it was a ball of cells and I could never have coped, as mean as it sounds, it’s the truth. I was shown this site by a friend over a year ago when I was having trouble dealing with this and reading other women’s experiences helped me to come to terms with what I had been through. I have let this experience rule my life for nearly 3 years after it happened and I refuse to do it any longer. My getting upset over it has led me to cause problems in my current relationship, but I adore this guy greatly. I often get scared that I will have to go through that again but I am on the pill. I know that if it ever comes to it my boyfriend would be there to support me no matter what I decide, because like me he has a career to think about and neither of us is ready to be a parent. I have just finished my first year at university and passed my A-levels with A’s. I admit I have found it hard to cope but after revisiting this site I realise that there is nothing for me to be ashamed of. I did what was best for me at the time and I would do it again if I had to. I still daren’t tell my family, I heard their views on abortion when my cousin was pregnant and then she lived with us for almost a year. That made me realise even more that I could never devote so much time to another life when I can barely take care of myself now that I’m a carefree student who intends to live life to the full, and not let this experience rule my emotions any longer. We are people and we have a right to live our lives the way we want to, and we should decide ourselves whether we are ready to be parents.
