I’m 21 years old and about to graduate from college and start my life with my wonderful fiancé. When I found out I was pregnant, it came as a complete shock and surprise to me. I had been on birth control, but what I did not realize was the antibiotics I had been taking for a UTI were interfering with the effectiveness of the pills. I didn’t know this until I saw my doctor and she did a blood test. The day I found out I came home in tears and told him we had a huge problem: I was pregnant. He held me and asked me what I wanted to do and at that point I honestly did not know. Then he told me how much he loved me and would be fine with whatever I decided to do.
I have always been pro-choice and a supporter of abortion. After I found out I was pregnant, I started having doubts about aborting the pregnancy. The majority of my doubts kicked in when I did a Google search for abortion and came across so many horror stories about remorse, guilt, pain and even death—undoubtedly posted by pro-life nuts. Not sure of what to do, I called up my best friend of 16 years, who recently had an abortion, and she put me at ease by telling me how quick and relatively easy it was to go through with the procedure.
At that point, I felt more comfortable and my fiancé and I decided abortion was our best option. One day he actually broke down and cried and told me he was so sorry it happened and he loves me dearly and if I decide to keep it, he’d always be there for me and love me and our child. And if I decided not to keep it, he would never resent me for it; he would understand because we are just not yet at the point in our lives where we should be having a child. He kept telling me over and over how much he loves me and how much I mean to him and that we’ll have our family someday. I can’t even begin to describe how much it meant to me to have his complete support. It made things so much easier and I will always love him for that.
On the day of the procedure, we had to drive about two hours to the clinic because the one closest to us was understaffed and couldn’t see me. There were a few protesters outside when we went in yelling, “Don’t let them kill your baby; we can help you!” I turned and gave them the meanest, nastiest glare I could as I slowly shut the door. (I’m dramatic like that!) Everyone at the clinic was so sweet and so nice. My first nurse went through my medical history with me and took my blood pressure and we talked a lot throughout the process and she made sure to answer every question I had—it made me feel very comfortable. Then they sent me back to get my blood drawn and the lady there was super sweet as well. From there, she gave me a few pages to read over that explained the entire procedure and took me to a quiet room where I could look at it. When I was finished, a counselor called me into her office and went over everything with me and made double sure all my questions were answered—they were very thorough. She also gave me a big horse pill that was 800 mg of Ibuprofen to soften my cervix then sent me back out into the waiting room.
When I was called back for the procedure, it was me and another girl that was waiting with me and we were both asked to go to the bathroom to empty our bladders. Then I was taken to the exam room and asked to undress from the waist down and lay on the table. A few minutes later the doctor and nurse came in. The doctor gave me a brief pelvic exam and told me I was 9 weeks pregnant, then the procedure began. He used a needle to give me a local anesthesia to numb my cervix, and I hardly felt it. Then he began to dilate it and this was very uncomfortable—it felt like a really, really bad period cramp. Then he began the suction and I got this weird emptying feeling in my uterus for a few minutes—it didn’t hurt at all and it only lasted a minute and he was done. I was still cramping pretty badly and the nurse helped me to get dressed and put a pad on me and walked me out to the recovery room where I was sat in a big comfy recliner chair with a heating pad. My recovery nurse took my blood pressure and told me I’d start to feel really sick but it would be gone in 10 minutes—it didn’t take that long. I was fine in five. The cramps started to subside a lot and they released me. The bleeding was moderately heavy at first, but here I am the day after and I have no bleeding at all. It wasn’t bad at all.
I’m not usually a very religious person, but before I had the abortion, I prayed and cried to God, asking His forgiveness. I thanked Him for the pregnancy, but I asked if He could just hold on to my baby for a little while longer until I’m ready to be a mother. I didn’t see it as killing a baby—I was simply giving the life within me back to God to protect and hold onto until the right time. I see nothing wrong in what I did. I feel no guilt and no remorse and no amount of propaganda or pictures of dead babies can make me feel otherwise. I’m not sorry.
