When I was 20, my boyfriend at the time and I used a condom when we had sex, but I got pregnant anyway. A year older then me and unemployed, he did not have the means to support a child and did not want me to have it. My mother, who was the best friend I ever had, had died less than a year before I found out I was pregnant and I was still in an incredibly deep state of grief. I knew deep in my heart that there was no way I could provide emotionally for a child (or financially because I was an unemployed full time student).
I decided to have an abortion and luckily I live in a county that has a provider. I ignored all the protestors screaming from the sidewalk and after counseling about my decision, contraception, an ultrasound, etc. I took my first dose of RU 486 orally at the clinic. The next morning I inserted the other pill in my vagina. I was in a lot of pain at first because I kept throwing up my pain medicine, but I don’t remember bleeding much more than a regular period. I felt a little better physically by the early evening. Within a few months of the abortion the boyfriend and I broke up. He was actually quite emotionally abusive to me through out our whole relationship, but it got gradually worse. I am not sorry that I chose to have the abortion. It was a liberating experience for me, if I regret anything it was sleeping with my ex-boyfriend in the first place. Now I have finished college, am in a healthy supportive relationship and have learned a lot of empowering information about fertility awareness (and abstain from sex in the week surrounding when I ovulate, in addition to always using condoms).
