i am 27 and just had my first abortion.
i grew up in a place where, surprisingly, abstinence only sex education is taught. i was the only person out of my friends who didn’t get pregnant or have a child before the age of 18.
last year at age 26 i had my first pregnancy which ended in a natural miscarriage. i was still emotionally bruised from the trauma of seeing a 4 month old fetus come out of my body at the time i found out i was pregnant in late june of 2013.
i had been with the father of both pregnancies for two years at this time, and we had just moved to another state. i was in the middle of starting my own business, and so was the father.
now let me get a misconception about people who have abortions out of the way: i am not uneducated and neither is he. we were not emotionally prepared for a baby and i didn’t feel our relationship was at a point where being pregnant was a good idea. and did i mention that i was definitely not emotionally prepared to have a baby given that i was still dealing with the trauma of a natural miscarriage?
i made an appointment for my local planned parenthood center the week following a positive pregnancy test.
after watching a video describing what to expect (which is horribly played down) i decided to have a medication abortion at home. i signed my consent forms, signed all papers, took the first round of medications in the office, and was sent home with a bottle of four pills to take the next day.
the following day i had to dissolve the four pills in my mouth for 30 minutes. i put the pills in their places and hit “start” on my stopwatch.
at the 29 minute mark i started to feel nauseated, and at 29 minutes and 58 seconds i ran to the bathroom, vomited the contents of my stomach, and had the most horrendous painful diarrhea of my life. when i got off the toilet, i had to grab a sanitary napkin because my cervix dilated and the abortion was underway. the next three hours i spent in bed with a trash can to hold all the bile that i was throwing up. when my stomach settled, i made a cherry coke and took the ibuprofen that was prescribed, and put in a movie.
for the next week i was constantly bleeding and in pain. i couldn’t go far without bringing ibuprofen along and a purse full of heavy duty pads.
i stopped bleeding a week following the day i took the second set of pills and went for my follow up appointment. the abortion was successful, and during the week long abortion i had time to deal with the sudden drop in hormones. i felt relieved that i didn’t have to be an emotionally unprepared mother to a life that deserved better than what i could have done at the time.
over the next month i spent time grieving. my body had just been through a traumatic event and i needed to let that be known.
i was always pro-choice but never thought i’d make the decision to have an abortion. but i am honored that i live in a place where abortion is available to those who want it, and proud that the decision was mine alone.
would i have made the same decision, looking back on it? yes. making the decision to have an abortion not only relieved any worries i had about being prepared for a child, but helped me deal with emotions associated with the prior miscarriage. i don’t know how, and i don’t know if the same thing happens with others, but it happened with me.