I had been dating my boyfriend for a few years but I felt like our relationship had run its course and we were just incompatible anyways. He was emotionally absent, always lying to me, and seemed interested mostly in just having sex with me, not really connecting on a deeper level. He wasn’t the best option but I accept full responsibility in allowing myself to be treated that way. It was a poor choice but I had stayed with him so long hoping that he would change but that never happened.
So while I was on vacation, I decided that I was going to break up with him once I came home. On vacation, I had weird things happen though. I would sleep the entire day instead of exploring, I thought all the food tasted gross, and my breasts were so sore.
About a week after I got back, I had a weird metal taste in my mouth in addition to the weird symptoms I’d already been experiencing. I googled the symptoms (not that I recommend using google to diagnose your conditions, lol) and it said those were pregnancy symptoms.
So I took a home pregnancy test and sure enough, the result said ‘Pregnant’. I hadn’t used protection with my boyfriend, I just figured since we’d had sex for so long with no pregnancies, it was just something that couldn’t happen to me. In fact, I didn’t even think I had the ability to get pregnant.
The next day, I went to a crisis pregnancy center and got confirmation of the pregnancy. I was 9 weeks pregnant and had somehow missed all the signs.
This pregnancy couldn’t happen at a worse time. I had already broken up with my boyfriend, I was in between jobs, had no money, and my mental health was on the decline, as it had been for years. I already knew I couldn’t have this baby. No money, no father for the child, and terrible mental health is not the environment to bring a child into. Abortion was the only option.
I live in a state where abortion is illegal now so this meant that I would have to go out of state to terminate the pregnancy. New Mexico was the closest place I could get it done. I did some research and found a place that fit my schedule and could cover the funding for me. All I had to do was find a way there. I was able to get some money from friends and family then got a plane ticket to Albuquerque.
I sat in the waiting room for about 5 hours. When it was my turn, I went into the room, I undressed from the waist down and put one of those thin paper sheets onto my lap. It was cold in the room so the nurse in the room with me got me a blanket and a heating pad to stay warm.
They dimmed the lights in the room and played relaxing music. They gave me some anti-anxiety and anti-pain medicine. Once they gave me the medications, the room started to spin, kind of like I was really drunk. While the doctor performed the abortion, the nurse talked to me through the entire procedure about some of my favorite things and places. The abortion was over in about 5 minutes.
Even now, it’s surreal to me that something that is so life-changing, an abortion, is just a few minutes long.
The actual abortion experience itself wasn’t bad. In fact, in the month following the abortion, I was elated. I was over the moon that I had narrowly avoided having to be connected to my ex through a child. The ex who’d spent years treating me like garbage. Like scum.
But after that first month, my feelings started to change immensely. The reality of what I’d done started to seep in. Just a month ago, there was a human being growing inside of me and now it was gone.
What if I had kept the baby? What if we had met? What kind of person would they have grown into? What kind of hobbies would they have had? What kind of job would they have worked? Intrusive thoughts like these started to seep in and drowned out that initial relief.
I bled for about 2.5 months after the abortion. It was a daily and traumatic reminder of what I had done to an innocent life. I had vivid dreams at night that I had kept the baby, that I slept next to it in my bedroom. I went through post-partum depression and started losing my hair, I’m guessing due to the hormones.
It didn’t matter what I did, I just could not escape the pain of what I’d done and the reality of that decision. But on top of that, more and more, I was starting to regret even getting the abortion in the first place. I kept seeing new ways that I could have made it work, even as a single mother. I just wouldn’t open my mind to these other options at the time. I had wanted to avoid the stigma of single motherhood almost more than I wanted to avoid single motherhood itself.
Coincidentally, shortly after the abortion regret started to settle in, I had started videography and as my luck would have it, I got so many different calls to record baby showers and gender reveals, when before, I had never been called about these services before. I needed the money so I did it but it was absolute torture having to film so many heavily pregnant women who hadn’t been stupid enough to abort their child like I did. Women who were happily, proudly, and bravely carrying their babies to term.
Even now, I feel jealousy when I see people announce their pregnancies or if I see a pregnant woman just out and about just running her errands. Everyday I feel like I sacrificed what would have been my first born child for nothing.
If I had known then what I know now about abortion, I would not have gone through with it. I would have made it work, even if it meant I’d have to live through the stigma of single motherhood. My baby would have been okay at least. I can’t get that baby back but I’m glad I can write about it somewhere.
Because of the highly politicized nature of abortion, I have felt like there’s nowhere on either side of the abortion debate that the discussion of abortion regret is permitted. Pro-lifers use it as a “gotcha” moment while pro-choicers refuse to hear anything short of “I am so happy I had my abortion, I feel so empowered”.
It’s already isolating to be someone who’s had an abortion but it’s even moreso to be someone who deeply regrets the abortion as well. We just don’t hear enough about how an abortion affects the person who had it. The emotional pain is such a heavy burden to carry.
If I could go back in time, I never would have had that abortion. I would have been stronger for my baby. I would have just told everyone to kick rocks if they had a problem with me keeping that baby.
Submitted by: Ashley