I had my first (and only, so far) abortion in February, 2001. I was 21 at the time, and was with my boyfriend of 6 months, who has never dated anybody else in his life. We were both going to college. Neither of us had really had sex before. We were pretty ignorant about the whole thing, and mostly we were just doing it without really knowing what it would lead to. Well, it was mostly due to the fact that in our home country, sex ed was so poor that we didn’t grow up learning much about it – but that’s another story.
Now I look back at it, it was pretty amusing and sad at the same time. I decided to go for a pregnancy test after talking to a friend and finding out that I was probably at risk of getting pregnant. It turned out that I was pregnant! I decided on the spot that an abortion was the only choice I had. There was no way that we could have had a child – we were sophomores in college, and we had only been together for 6 months, with absolutely no idea about what the future was going to be like. I made an appointment with Planned Parenthood, and was scheduled to have an abortion in 2 weeks. Yes, it was the longest 2 weeks in my entire life. My boyfriend at the time was so inexperienced that I didn’t feel that I received too much support from him – honestly, he was more freaked out than I was. However, two girls living on my floor gave me the most support. They took me to Planned Parenthood for the procedure, and kept an eye on me afterwards.
The procedure itself was fine. It wasn’t painful, since I was knocked out completely during the process. The only thing I remember was some paper cranes hanging from the ceiling while I was lying down, and they were swirling slowly with the air coming out of the vent above me. I was very relieved afterwards. In fact, I was so happy that I yelled out “I’m free!” on our way home (of course, I was still in a “drunk” state because of the anesthesia I was given).
I don’t think for even a moment I have been sorry for my decision. It was the responsible thing to do not to bring a child into the world when I wasn’t supposed to and wasn’t able to. It was a mistake to have it conceived. We make mistakes. We learn from them. It was part of my growing up.
