I had an abortion February 7, 2003. I was 18, about to be 19, and had been dating a wonderful man 10 years my senior for just over 6 months. It was the only choice I had in my mind. I was in college and living on my own. It was a shock … but I knew the exact day that we weren’t ‘careful’. We were stupid and could have prevented it but that was our lesson to learn. When I first realized I was roughly 5 weeks pregnant … I hadn’t taken a test yet but I could feel something different in my body. I didn’t remember my last period, couldn’t sleep on my stomach and I just felt different. I couldn’t see past my life was ruined, I didn’t want to believe it was true until I finally just took a pregnancy test and basically had it slapped in my face, that I was irresponsible. Since I was an early teen I took so much pride in being responsible doing the right thing, having a job, doing well at school, and staying out of trouble. I took so much pride in it that I think it blinded me slightly. I knew I couldn’t go to my parents who were very Catholic and I not having any thing to do with religion knew they would not understand. I told my boyfriend and he wanted only what I wanted. I really felt like I didn’t have an option and we decided that I would get an abortion. His main concern was for me and didn’t want me to be hurt. We researched it together and found a good doctor that would take care of me. The day of, I was scared silly and so was he. We did everything possible together that day except for the actual procedure. It actually took me a few days to feel normal again because of some heavy bleeding but within a month all the bleeding was gone. He and I are still together after 5 years and I’ve since graduated and started a great job. We are basically married (considering we don’t want to get married) and we want children in the future. It was a difficult experience and I’m not saying it wasn’t extremely hard physically or emotionally but I consider it still the right decision. I don’t think I would be where I am today, the person I am, or with the life understanding I have now if I didn’t go through that experience. I had an abortion and I truly do not regret it.
Sep 052010