i am currently a single mother of two little boys (ages 4 & 18 months); with sole custody of both.

in short, my current situation: i am a part time pre-nursery student and a full-time mother. i am currently unable to financially provide for my boys (without help) and several years ago when i had my firstborn child, i was given the option to move back in with my parents verses an assisted housing unit, so i did.

i will not go into too much detail about my past relationships with either of my sons fathers but the relationship that i had with my first sons father was full of: manipulation and both emotional and physical abuse. when i fell pregnant with our son back in 2010, my family informed me that they thought the best option for everyone involved would be to abort the child. with my strong pro-life stance, i could not even fathom how they would want me to commit such an awful act and i did not even think twice about it. in my head, there was “no” way that i was going to abort my baby. i could go on and on about the many abusive situations that i experienced via my oldest son’s father but it was not until i was 8 months pregnant and he dragged me down the stairs that i realized that i not only wanted/needed to end our relationship; but that first and foremost, my unborn son deserved better and so did i! one day when my sons father was at work; i decided to move out all of my belongings and moved back in with my parents. the day that our son was born, he did come to the hospital but was not supportive or excited in the least bit. the night our son was born the hospital informed me that only one person was allowed to stay the night with me and with my mom having been the only other person present at the birth; as much as she despised him because of all that he had put me through, she said “it is your son, so you can stay the night.” his response “no…you can stay; i rather go home and sleep with my dog and come back in the morning.” what kind of person has a child and wants to go home and sleep with their dog? this is when i knew for sure that our relationship could not continue. luckily, for everyone involved; when our son was 6 weeks old, his father decided that the best thing for everyone would be if he terminated his parental rights. sure, i could not understand the desire to not be in your child’s life (i don’t think that i ever will) and i was a somewhat scared first time mother with raging hormones going on; but i felt blessed knowing that our son would never have to endure the emotional and physical abuse that i experienced via his father.

for the first year of my son’s life i stayed home. first of all, i chose to breastfeed. second of all, i wanted to be present for the first everything; from his first word, to his first steps to his first hair cut and so on. soon after a year, i took steps to move forward in my life, so that i could improve our situation. i took an intensive cna course and got my cna certificate and began working in a nursing home. and i chose to step out of the dating world because i had a tendency of dating “bad boys.” not necessarily by choice but their seemed to be a mutual attraction. maybe a better way to describe my attraction was attractive men that were great at sweet talking; you know, the kind that swoop you off your feet in a heartbeat and make you feel your the best thing that ever happened to them, at least until they get what they want! anyways, because of this…i decided to keep the focus on my #1 guy (well boy, lol), which was my son. i had 1 close guy friend; which i met about 3 yrs previous to having my son, which remained my friend. even before falling pregnant with my son; he was the ‘only’ guy that was there for me to tell me that i deserved better, when my sons dad would go out partying, while i stayed home doing laundry and the only guy that was there to support me and tell me i was too beautiful to deserve the abuse i was receiving, when my sons dad beat me up so bad that i looked like i got hit by a car. after i had my son, we hung out on and off; usually going out to eat or to a local park, where my son could play while we just talked about life. sometimes we would just quietly sit and smile at each other, while watching my son play. but although i previously had strong feelings for him, it was not until my son was almost 18 months old, that we kissed one day. it was the first time that i had been hugged or kissed by any man in almost 2 years and i think i instantly fell in love, if i wasn’t already. even still, it was not until about 6 months later that we were casually hanging out and decided to take our relationship to another level. the sex was mutually desired and it was a “heat of the moment” situation; i am not going to deny the fact that he informed me that he did not have protection and although i am not dumb; i was ignorant and thought “i had sex with my oldest son’s father for almost 3 years before i even got pregnant, it’s not going to happen in one time!” and boy, was i wrong, because obviously i did! a few weeks after we had sex and i informed that i was pregnant, he was extremely excited that we were going to have a baby together. so was i! that was until a couple months into the pregnancy when he got scared and was like “we can’t afford a baby…i’m going to have to sell drugs or something; so that we can by.” i was like “what the f*&k; sell drugs??? i already have a baby that is my life and there are plenty of other resources, like getting a legal job for one, so that we can get by.” i was not going to inform my family about the pregnancy but i figured that they would realize my diet changed and/or that there was pre-natal pills in the medicine cabinet and just be even madder than if i told them the truth, so i did! i knew they would be upset but my older son had been such a joy to our family; i was not expecting the “you can’t keep this baby” conversation to come up again. in addition, i knew they already know my outlook on the situation (life begins at conception) and so all hell broke loose amongst my im世界杯2022亚洲预选赛b组 te family. i come from a family where my parents and most of my aunts and uncles got married as teenagers and have 2 or 3 kids together and our still together 30+ years later; so the idea of having a: daughter, sister, niece, etc…with 2 children from 2 different fathers, neither which i was married too, was appalling. in their heads, they thought “this can’t happen! you can’t support two kids on your own, as a cna. imagine what people will think of you, if you have two kids from two different dads? if you think it was hard to find a good man before all this; wait until you meet a guy and he finds out your kids have different fathers.” and in my head, i knew i had a tough road ahead of me; but i was like “wtf, our family acts like we have this ‘cookie cutter/brady bunch’ family & though we sure as hell do a good job of appearing that way on the outside, we don’t!!! so who the hell cares if my kids have different fathers, there are worse things in life.” i decided to keep my baby and i do not regret my decision at all. after he was born, i knew i had to do something to move forward in my life. i first discovered a local church, which has been extremely supportive community and good spiritual outlet for me and soon after, i decided to go to nursing school. yes, there has been sleepless nights and lots of tears; but i do not regret either of my babies!!! not to use them as band-aids but they both have changed my life around for the best, in different ways.

now comes the story of my abortion; which is “very” recent! so, amongst taking my pre-reqs in nursing school; i became very close friends with a fellow pre-nursing student. we started out as friends, decided to take a few courses together and somewhere along the way, fell hard for each other and then began dating. unlike the majority of my past dates, he was very sweet to me; it was clear that he did not just want sexual relations; he spent a great deal of time with me (most of that time having been fun) and a big bonus for me (as it has not been typical with past dates) my family actually liked him; eventually i let him meet my children and over time they seemed to build an attachment with him too. we have been friends for about a year and a half but had only been dating since april; i was on the birth control pill and when i discovered i was pregnant a few weeks ago…all of that took a turn for the worst. he became very emotionally abusive to me, became distant from my children and began saying things to me, like “you are lucky to have me because most guys would want nothing to do with you, knowing that you have two kids from two different men.” the following day after discovering i was pregnant, i was like “it would so not be fair (especially to my children), to bring another child into this family” and i could already see that our relationship was going downhill and becoming emotionally abusive, so i knew this was not the man that i want to stay with and raise 3 kids with. this might seem rhetorical (as i did get an abortion) but i am the pro-life girl; the one that feels strongly that life begins at conception and the girl that got kicked out of an ethics debate because my pro-life stance was/is still strong!!! so anyways, my first thought was “i am going to have to put this baby up for adoption.” i im世界杯2022亚洲预选赛b组 tely called a pregnancy hotline number which discussed the obvious 3 options: parenting, adoption & abortion and then they connected me to an adoption agency. the lady from the hotline informed me that if the father does not consent (which he said there was no way he would) than it is not even an option! i cried and cried and cried! i thought “what the hell am i going to tell my parents! how am i going to afford to raise 3 kids when i am already struggling to raise 3” but in my heart; i feel abortion is monstrous, so i did not even think about that route. i ended up telling my parents and over the course of the week, being in my house was like an emotional hell. comments were consistently thrown out at me, like: “don’t you think people are going to think your a slut if you have 3 kids from 3 men?”; “if you love the 2 kids that you already have then you won’t be selfish by keeping this baby; when your not even financially stable enough to take care of the two you have.” and the list went on!!! my mother even threatened that she would do everything she could to take my other children away if i kept this baby. i relentlessly sobbed my eyes out, while hyper-ventilating, asking “why…why would you do that? i may have made a bad choice; but i am not a bad mother. i don’t drink, party, smoke. i am in school working towards a nursing degree and when i am not in school, i spend quality time with my children.” she screamed at me until she was blue in the face, while pointing her finger about 1/2 an inch from my face, saying “if you give a fuck about anyone except yourself than you will get an abortion.” when my older brother found out about the situation, he said the same! he was like “it is not fair that our parents are helping you to raise the two kids that you already have and you are being selfish if you decided to keep this baby! if you love those two little boys than you will realize that you already have two children to care for and you can’t add another one.” i reminded them that they said all of these things about my other two children, insisting that they would ruin my life; when in reality they turned it around for the better. if it wasn’t for me wanting to improve my life circumstances, for the sake of my two beautiful boys, than i would probably still be in and out of abusive relationships and living my life on the edge. i also told them that they need to sit back and realize that despite the fact that there has been plenty of sleepless nights and tears when i’m struggling to afford diapers or something; in no way, shape or form; have either of my children ruined anyone’s life!!! but no one gave a damn about what i had to say. i asked them to sit down and look at the situation objectively and analyze all the possible outcomes if i was to keep the baby and then all the possible outcomes if i were not to. anyways, i don’t think anyone did that but myself! this past sunday night, my brother drove all the way from a different state and while i sat on the couch crying saying that “there is no way i can do this because i am not that type of person!” ; for three hours he screamed in my face telling me that “if you give a shit about anyone else but yourself than you will do this.” then on monday morning, as he drove me to planned parenthood, as i cried saying i can’t do this; he did the same! i know that at the end of the day i had to make a choice myself but i feel like i was driven to make a choice that (other people wanted) through manipulation, shame, guilt and abuse. i will not lie that the stories i read online about planned parenthood being a hostile environment and the staff being unsympathetic and not caring about their patients are not true; however i don’t think they give an accurate description of how you might feel afterwards. i think they just do their end of the job and then once the abortion is over with; they feel the situation is over! and it is for them but not for you!!!

i know my situation occurred less than a week ago; but i also know that i feel way more guilt & shame than i would have if i kept the baby. i feel like a monster mom!!! i feel like i do not deserve my own life or gods love & forgiveness because i did such an awful thing. i know i have 2 beautiful children to stay alive for; but every time that i look at a picture of them, i imagine a little baby next to them. and i keep thinking about what would have been or could have been. and if it was a girl or a boy (in my heart it was girl). yesterday, i was sipping on a coffee at a café and seemed ‘ok’ and then i psychologically heard my oldest sons voice, asking me “mom, why did you do this?” and i started balling my eyes out!!! obviously he does not know about this and for heaven’s sake, i hope that he never does but i can’t help my thoughts. and all the scientific crap that people throw out, like “don’t worry it was just a blastocyst” does not make me feel any better; not one bit, at all!!!” these are thoughts and feelings that i am going to have to battle the rest of my life; while everyone else involved can go back to whatever they were doing before all this and continue to live their life; while i have to try and keep myself alive and not take the easy way out, to escape the voices in my head!

*i have already signed up for an 11 week counseling group and a weekend healing retreat but if anyone else who has been in my shoes has any advice on healing; i would appreciate it.