it is very hard to write my story because i have to get over the shame i feel for my past situation
\nthat resulted in an unplanned pregnancy. along the years i tried to speak about it to a few people, but i ended up telling half-truths and what i thought at the time were lies. nevertheless, i knew i wanted so badly to tell my story to a trusting and non-judgmental person. the only one i told the whole truth to was my therapist a couple years later. this is now my true story: i had a bitter divorce at age 26 from a marriage that lasted two years. i turned to alcohol and pills with the intention of blacking out to forget my \u201cpathetic\u201d circumstances and often times i woke up in someone\u2019s random apartment not knowing how i got there. i met three different men on separate occasions and would bounce back and forth between spending the night with them, each not knowing i had another lover. only one of them did i truly have feelings for, but felt so ashamed to show it because i was betraying his trust by sleeping with two other men. i stopped using birth control one month prior because i was determined after the divorce i wouldn\u2019t trust another man in bed, only the alcohol and pills made me act otherwise. i was careless having unprotected sex, because in a way i thought my body and life isn\u2019t worth it anymore. i missed my period and took a test, of course turning out to be positive. never once did i feel i was going to keep it, because i didn\u2019t know which of the three men got me pregnant. i turned to the man i had feelings for, saying i got pregnant from my ex-husband the last month we were still married. i still don\u2019t know why i confided in him, but i knew he\u2019d be supportive. he accompanied me to planned parenthood and i scheduled my abortion. three different clinicians encouraged me to have a medical abortion, saying i would \u201cmiscarry at home and it feels like a heavy period\u201d. i got the pills, went home and decided it\u2019s best to be alone during the process. i ate a big breakfast, as directed, and waited for the pills to kick in- it didn\u2019t take long until i ran to the bathroom and had intense diarrhea accompanied by heavy bleeding and cramps. i had to pee, vomit, bleed and poop at the same time and went to the shower to expel everything. i cried and my nose was snotting; basically every orifice in my body was expelling bodily fluids. i am a doula (childbirth coach) and used my birthing methods to overcome the pain, but it still was excruciating. i felt i was \u201cbeing punished\u201d and deserved all the pain that was raw and embarrassing. i still bled after two weeks (something they said would pass) so i went for my follow up appointment and, lo and behold, i was still pregnant with remaining tissue inside my uterus. no one told me that was a risk, and that risk also can lead to septicemia that can kill me. i ended up with a d&c with a doctor that looked at my file and said flatly, \u201ci see the pills didn\u2019t work. well i\u2019m sorry about that.\u201d i started bawling, for the first time i cried, and the anesthesiologist yelled at me, \u201cstop crying!\u201d, because apparently my airways should be fully clear when i go under general anesthesia. i didn\u2019t know that either. for years i bottled in the experience, and wanted to talk about it. i lied to some clients that told me they miscarried in the past, saying that i too miscarried once and i understand their pain. i felt terrible afterwards for lying but somewhat relieved to at least say a \u201chalf-truth\u201d. i went to a post-abortion support group, also saying i got pregnant by my ex-husband, because i didn\u2019t want to seem like a \u201cwhore who got pregnant by who knows\u201d! i talked to a girl recently who sought my doula advice because she was freshly post-abortion and was undergoing severe stress. i told her my story and felt compelled to seek counseling and tell my true story. she was a godsend that helped me open up my floodgates, and now, this is my story. i am no longer afraid to say i got pregnant by one of three men, i was 26 years old, i come from a religious background where this situation is \u201cshameful\u201d, and i lied to my clients about miscarrying. but all in all, i am proud to say i stuck to my decision and never regretted getting an abortion. i am happy now that i had the choice to keep it or terminated it, and i am happy that my body can conceive. i feel free now, but the shame still sets in every now and then, like when i see a mother with a three-year-old, because that would have been me. my doula clients are becoming mothers, and that also pains me sometimes because i would have been that three years ago. i sometimes feel that i\u2019ll still be \u201cpunished\u201d, and my next pregnancy will result in a miscarriage or that my baby will have deformities or another disability. that is my struggle, but this is why i\u2019m writing my story- because finally admitting the truth is making up for those years i kept silent. i hope i inspire others to not be ashamed of their true story either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
it is very hard to write my story because i have to get over the shame i feel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_世界杯2022亚洲预选赛b组 ":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[296],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"\/\/www.k12fl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20476"}],"collection":[{"href":"\/\/www.k12fl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"\/\/www.k12fl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.k12fl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.k12fl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"\/\/www.k12fl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20476\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"\/\/www.k12fl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/世界杯2022亚洲预选赛b组 ?parent=20476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.k12fl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.k12fl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}