i was 41 years old and a mother to an 18 year old, 14 year old and 7 year old. my husband and i had started a new business and put all of our savings into it, along with mortgaging all of our property and maxing out all of our credit cards. we were working from 8 am to 10 pm every night and my kids were watching themselves (up until then i had been a stay at home mom). my 18 year old started doing poorly in her behavior and at school and we were starting to worry about whether she would graduate. our new business that we were sacrificing everything for was struggling, and i found out we were pregnant again. having a baby takes time and money that we no longer had. i had 3 kids already that needed my attention and i didn’t have time for them anymore. i had no maternity insurance and medicaid turned me down for assistance. we were 3 months behind on our mortgage and barely had money for groceries. my pregnancies had all been high risk due to premature labor and now i was also over 40. i had an abortion at 10 weeks. it wasn’t a difficult decision for me to make, i had no reservations before the procedure or regrets afterwards. my priority will always be to take care of the children that are already here.

our business failed and we were fortunate enough to avoid filing bankruptcy, but it was close. if we had had medical bills and the expense of a baby on top of everything else we would not have made it through. we are still struggling to pay back everything we owe and it has been 2 years since we closed the doors. i am grateful that i had the option of abortion open to me.