I had my first abortion at 14. I recently turned 34…that’s 20 years of being a very very fertile person. How do I know? Because I had a second abortion at 19. Then another at 20, not even a year later after a broken engagement. Then another at 22. Four abortions before having my first live child at 29. Then at 30 I had another abortion when my son was barely a year old. Then a few year later I had my second live child.
I’m a very fertile person. I’ve found comfort in words that came from an OB-GYN one day, she said “those weren’t things you did, those are things that happened” as I broke into tears having to admit how many pregnancies I’ve had by age 23. Reminding me that each of those pregnancy had a story behind it.
At age 14, I was being continuously raped and molested by a young, but still an adult technically, relative. That lasted until I was practically 16. Being raped led me to seeking actual sex from a relationship- who got me pregnant, was it my uncle or boyfriend. I don’t know. But my mother didn’t have to know the details to extend her support and brush my hair to sleep as I cried from both the shock, experience, and trauma it all sank in my 14 year old self.
At 19, I was ending the first year of college, preparing to conquer the world. I fell deeply depressed. “I’m going to be another statistic, how many Latina mothers are pregnant before marriage, drop out of college.” I was angry at myself for being careless with my birth control. But I still held a lot of pain from my first pregnancy that I made the hard choice of keeping that baby. I had my parents support. “Graduate college in 5 years, we are going to support you and your baby for 5 years. You have 5 years to get yourself together because you need to be able to be someone for your baby.” My confirmation ultrasound came, something strange appeared on the screen. The baby had not grown…sometimes about measurements not lining up to what it should be. A second ultrasound was scheduled. It confirmed the baby wasn’t growing but technically still viable. The doctors talked about medication to help sustain the pregnancy. Lab work confirmed that my hormones weren’t where they would want it to be. Medications would help, might help. Might not help. “What would happen without the medication?” my father asked, absolutely not shocked that he would ask about the alternatives to being pregnant. I’d likely have a miscarriage, the baby is just too small for where it should measure. Two weeks later, no medications because lets see what fate brings us, another ultrasound. Baby still has not grown, now the pregnancy was not viable. A miscarriage will happen naturally, maybe tomorrow, maybe the next days, maybe in a couple of weeks. I couldn’t sit and wait. I cried every night. The agony. My mother brushed my hair at night as I cried myself to sleep. Scheduled a D & E, cried myself to sleep for a few more weeks.
At 20, I got back together with my high school sweetheart. We got engaged after finding out I was pregnant. We were happy or so I thought. This time, being a year apart…something felt different. Our relationship was not a fairytale like it was in high school. He wasn’t as kind. He wasn’t gentle anymore. He didn’t praise and adore me like before… we weren’t madly in love anymore. I watched him talk about how he would marry me because of really dumb reasons. But he would say it in such a way that you’d think we were making rational decisions. It was an out-of-body experience: I didn’t want to get married because of a baby. I didn’t want to get married at all actually. I yelled at him, “I don’t want to get married to you, I don’t want a house and while picket fence with you. I don’t love you.” I wanted to stay in school, finish college. Go to graduate school. Live on my own. Be successful in life. I had goals and dreams. I didn’t want to drop out and pretend play happy house wife with him.
At 22, the summer of hot girl summer fun. I felt brave and strong and powerful. I wanted to conquer the world. I wanted to hoe-around. I was still in college. I spent too much time with a summer fling. With the same goals and dreams in mind, I called my fling, “I just wanted to let you know that I took a test and I’m pregnant. Before you say anything, I’m not having it. I just wanted you to know because I’ll be not around probably.” He was very gentle with me with the news. He supported my choice. He offered to pay, I accepted because well, I wanted to conquer the world but I was still a broke college kid. He offered to go with me, which I wanted so he knew 100% that this was being done. I was brave in the outside, but truly numbed out in the inside. That guy stuck around for many years…
For a long time, I thought I’d never be able to have children. How can I be a mother if I keep losing them? One gyno even suggested further testing to be done because sure I had scheduled abortions, but it appeared that my hormones may also make it difficult to keep pregnancies. I thought, maybe I wasted money having those two abortions, but I didn’t want to risk the chance. I wasn’t ready to be a parent.
Summer before COVID, turns out I was still hanging out with the guy I had a fling. I realized, I wasn’t good at having flings. I got pregnant again. But this time I was finishing up my graduate program. I had work lined up. I had most of my dreams and goals. This time it felt different. I felt ready. I had a hard time experiencing pregnancy…for a long time it felt unreal…so unreal that my body took nearly 7 months to register that it was making a baby because I had zero symptoms, very little pump.
I welcomed my baby boy before the world shut down.
A year later, I feel pregnant again and thankfully I took a test because my period had not returned back to normal so it was precautionary before attempting to get on an IUD that could not be placed due to the shut down. I didn’t think twice. I called and scheduled to abort again and I went to the clinic alone and took the pills. I didn’t tell my boyfriend until the next day, “I didn’t know how to say it, I figured you’d have no problem with it. A couple of days ago, I took a test because I could tell something was off. I was pregnant.” Was? “When I said I had a doctors appointment yesterday, I actually went to a clinic to pick up the pills to abort. It’s already done. I took the last dose this morning and I’m already begun to spot and bleed.” Silence. He wasn’t mad but he was surprised I didn’t discuss it with him. I didn’t want to discuss it though. We weren’t stable. We weren’t living together anymore. COVID was happening. There was a lot of uncertain. I was ready to be a single parent to 1 child, but not 2. I needed to do it quickly before my mind had time to process it. Before it had time to fall in love with a baby again.
A couple of year ago, we welcomed our second baby boy. Same guy. This time we were married and It was planned. The experience was different. I felt pregnancy from day one.
My story is long and complicated. My story is elective abortion but also holds pain from times that the choices were taken from me…miscarriages with scheduled D& E. My story includes the pain of making a choice with support and sometimes lack of support. It’s taken a lot of time to heal. No one talks about the complications of abortions and how long it takes to heal. I always knew I wanted to be a mother…but those past times were not the right time. I knew my time would come and it has. I love my boys now age 5 and 1.
