I wished every day when I woke up to feel different, to want this baby, but it never happened.
Being 24 and married it seemed like an okay time for anyone to have a baby and I have friends my age that have babies and it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to them. I love babies and my husband does too. We’ve been together for a little over 5 years now and decided we would start trying for a baby. We were filled with excitement every time it came to that time where my period was expected. We hoped I wouldn’t get it.
November 2020- My period showed up and it was sad for us but we said we’d keep trying. We were hopeful. The next month my period was late and I was so happy. I thought this was it. I quickly took a test and it was negative. It’s okay I thought, it’ll be soon.
February 2021- I felt so guilty when I saw those two lines. I don’t know what had changed. A month ago, I was crying because the test was negative and now that I had what I wanted I felt so depressed. Nothing was different… My husband and I were still in a very good place, I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t happy. I tried to think of any reason why I might be feeling the way I did but I couldn’t find one.
I wasn’t excited to tell my husband or even come up with a cute way to announce it, even though I had a whole “baby board” hidden in my Pinterest ready to go. I spent the next few days hoping it was a false positive and that my period would come soon. It didn’t. A week went by and I decided to tell my husband. He was happy and excited, which made me feel worse… but I didn’t tell him that. He said “let’s go to the store and get you prenatal vitamins, and let’s call to schedule you an appointment to make sure everything is going well. I love you so much.” How do I tell him that the only thing I want is for this to be a dream and not real life? He’s so excited, I am crushed. I feel like my heart is being torn. I knew I could talk to him but I didn’t want to crush his excitement.
I thought about it for a long time. I said, maybe it’s just the hormones, I’ll feel better soon. I’m going to take care of myself and take things easy. I downloaded two pregnancy apps because I wanted to know how far along I was, 4 weeks, they read, “Lucky you, you found out very soon, sooner than the regular bunch!” I cried thinking of all the people out there wishing to find out soon of their pregnancies but were getting negatives.
A week later I made my decision. I couldn’t get out of bed because I was so depressed. My husband understood, he supported me 100%. I called to make my appointment. It’s my first time ever going through anything like this, I thought my appointment would be sooner but they didn’t schedule it until March 15. It was the 5th. They didn’t do surgical abortions at the PP that I went to so my fastest option was the medical abortion. The next week and was rough. I wished every day when I woke up to feel different, to want this baby, but it never happened. Each day that I woke up I hated myself more because I put myself into this situation and I felt so much shame. I shouldn’t have felt shame but I felt that more than anything…
Once I hit the 6 weeks mark, I was trying to crawl out of bed because my morning sickness was so bad, morning sickness was all day sickness for me.
I had lost 15lbs by the time my appointment had come around. They checked me in and asked me a lot of questions. I have insurance but it wouldn’t cover the procedure. Total cost was $630. They explained how the procedure would go and how I would feel, asked if I was sure of my decision and then did an ultrasound. They asked if I wanted to know how many there were, how far along I was and if I wanted to see it or keep a copy of the sonogram. I said yes to all of them. I told myself If I saw it and felt differently, that I would walk out of there and not look back. I held the picture in my hands as I waited and If I hadn’t felt 100% sure of my decision, this confirmed it for good. I felt nothing as I was sitting there looking at the image. No type of connection whatsoever. I was thought to be 7 weeks but was actually reading at 6 weeks and 1 day. They say the further along you are is how painful your abortion would be so I was glad I was reading at an earlier time than expected.
I took the first pill there at the office and then went on my way home. I had 24 hours before I took the other pills. The next day I cleaned the house as best I could and cooked some fast meals because I knew the days after were going to be a bit hard.
I usually have heavy periods with heavy cramping so I really thought this was going to be 10x worse, so I was preparing for the worst of the worst.
5pm- I took the nausea pill with the 800mg ibuprofen they give you at the clinic and waited the 30 minutes. I then placed the 4 misoprostol pills inside my mouth. One on each side of my gums/cheek. They had no taste so it wasn’t bad. Waited 30 minutes and then swallowed what was left. I felt I had started to spot already as I was waiting for the 30 minutes to pass of the Miso pills. About an hour after I felt a bit more blood and then more. I couldn’t really feel any of the cramping because I did take the pain meds so it was very tolerable but I did have chills for around 30 minutes. I felt blood clots coming and would occasionally go to the bathroom to relieve myself because I did feel very bloated. An hour passed and I could feel the bleeding get heavier, it was probably around 10pm and I started to feel the cramps a bit more. The pain was around 3/10. I was sleeping when the cramps woke me up at 12am and I was in the bathroom with very bad diarrhea. I was cramping, pain around 5/10. That was the only time I got diarrhea. The biggest blood clots I got felt no bigger than grapes. I took the next pain pills at 2am because I was having a hard time going back to sleep since the cramps were hitting me harder now. I fell asleep almost after that and didn’t wake back up until 7am. I didn’t bleed through or anything like that but did get up right away to change my pad. I read a lot of nightmare stories so I was pretty scared going through the process but was relieved that my experience was a very positive one.
I had energy, I didn’t feel depressed anymore, I felt hungry and I actually wanted to eat this time. I knew I had made the right decision. I took a warm shower and felt really good after. The second day following the abortion I was still bleeding and passing small blood clots. Today is the third day after my abortion and I’m still feeling some cramping here and there since I’m trying to hold off on taking Advil all the time and using it only when I feel like I really need it. I know it’s going to take me a while to recover but I honestly do not regret my decision. I have my follow up appointment in two weeks to see that everything worked out. I no longer feel pregnant.
I hope if you’re in the same boat as I am that you go forward with your decision. Do it even if you feel judgement from others, do it if you feel guilt or shame. No one but yourself knows what you’re feeling, only you know what you need to do.
