I am 22 years old and I had an abortion on January 22, 2008. I was dating my boyfriend for only two months when I found out I was pregnant, although I had a feeling since the moment I conceived that I was pregnant. I was hoping that I was just over-reacting and over worrying, like I tend to do in a lot of situations, but I have never really been carefully about using protection in the past and have never been on birth control, so that was always weighing in the back of my head. I guess you can say is that I have been very fortunate until now.
About a week before I was supposed to start my period I started to feel unusual. My breasts were hurting and I even started to feel slightly nauseous. On the day I was supposed to start my period I started to get cramps so I thought it was going to start at any moment. When it never came the next day I knew I was pregnant. It wasn’t until 5 days later that I took a pregnancy test, and I don’t think the results could have shown up any faster. I felt so many different emotions right after that. And for a moment I actually thought about having that baby. And being pregnant would have been a gift—if I lived in a perfect world.
My whole life I have always known I have wanted to have kids. And I still can’t wait until the day that I start a family. In the “perfect world”, I used to always see, I couldn’t understand why anyone would ever want to terminate a pregnancy. I have always agreed 100% that it was a woman’s right to choose, but I have always frowned upon the idea of aborting a pregnancy and knew it was a choice I was never going to make.
The day I found out I was pregnant I told my boyfriend and he was no where near excited about having a baby. And after I left, I was mad that he didn’t seem to want this baby. (But he knows just how hard it would be, since he is a single father already) After dwelling on his thoughts for awhile I finally woke up and got the vision of this perfect world out of my head. Who was I kidding?! We just started dating, we didn’t even know each other yet, and who knew if we were even going to make it another 3 months. The last thing I wanted to do was to go through a pregnancy by myself, and raise a baby by myself. If we didn’t make it and I had this baby, I finally realized that I wouldn’t be able to support myself and a baby being a waitress. I make just barely enough money for just me and don’t think I would make it with another mouth to feed. I have a lot to accomplish before I have children. I need to do more for me so when I do decide to have kids I will be more emotionally, physically and financially ready to do so. The last thing I want to do is bring a new life into this world and give it a hard life, and I know that is exactly what I would have done if I didn’t have an abortion.
Another thing that was weighing heavily on me was that when I bring a child into this world I want to make sure that both its parents are there for it and being with this guy for only a couple months, I had no idea if he would still be around to care for a baby. Don’t get me wrong, he is a wonderful father to his son, but while I grew up feeling hated every day by my father there was no way I want a child to ever have to grow up going through what I went through, or even having the slightest feeling of that.
I did some research on line and decided to make an appointment with Planned Parenthood to have a medication abortion. I was so scared and so nervous, since I had no idea what to expect. For the week that I waited for my appointment I felt so ashamed of what I was about to do. But all those feelings went away as soon as I stepped through the doors. Everyone in Planned Parenthood took good care of me. They were kind, gentle and friendly and put my mind to ease. The whole experience went so much better and was so much easier than I would have ever expected. I am glad I choose to have a medication abortion. The nurse told me to expect a lot of heavy bleeding and horrible cramps. I had really bad cramps for only about an hour-which made me vomit for almost that hour, but then it was gone. And the bleeding was never bad. In fact I think it was even lighter than my normal periods. And the bleeding lasted for only a couple days. It’s been a week now and I am still spotting, but that could just be from the birth control pills I FINALLY got on. That night I was feeling good and even drove over to my boyfriend’s. It was when I was in my car when I realized I was starting to feel like my old self again-importantly I was no longer nauseous. I didn’t realize how that got the best of me until it was gone!
I’m sorry it took me so long to open up my eyes and see how blessed and lucky I am to be able to live in a country in which a woman can decide what to do with her own body.
I’m not sorry I terminated my pregnancy.
The only bad thing about the experience was the wide range of emotions I felt afterwards. I didn’t prepare myself for that. Everything was making me cry-whether it was something happy, something sad, someone looking at me funny. It didn’t matter what it was, I would cry. Another hard thing was that I felt guilty because I didn’t feel guilty. I did however feel like a HUGE weight was lifted off of my shoulders. I am so happy to have found this site. It has helped me so much the past few days reading the stories of the other women. It has been a big help to know so many other women have all shared their stories and have really made me feel so much better about what I did. I know I will never be sorry. I will never look back and wonder what could have been. I will not ever regret what I did, because it was the best thing for me. I know I will one day have kids when they can be born into a world with both a loving mother and a loving father who can support them and know they were wanted.
Thank you for letting me share my story.
