”I walked through the mud a couple days ago and went and sat by the busy road my dog got run over at, until my feet turned numb from the cold. The bottom of my joggers and shoes drenched in mud, I sat there and thought about taking my own life. I felt that, if it has to die then I should die with it. We would die together. Needless to say I didn’t end up going through with it, and walked me and my muddy shoes home. Barely feeling my feet. Took my shoes off at the front door. Ran a hot bath and sat in it.
I feel so sorry for it”
I wrote this while I was pregnant in a reddit thread. I have since had the abortion.
I found out I was pregnant at the local train station around my area, I bought a test at the local pharmacist and since it was too far to walk home I decided to take it at the train station. I am 22 in my third year of university and I was pregnant. I looked down at my test in silence the only sound being the train whooshing past. I was pregnant. I was tingling all over and laughing hysterically. I will admit I was a very irresponsible individual, but I wasn’t expecting this. I had taken countless pregnancy test’s before this one, and it all seemed impossible. I mean we all know in the back of our minds it’s a possibility. However no one really expects it to really happen, and maybe this just proves how childish I am. I didn’t expect this.
Without a second thought I called my GP and they directed me to clinic in my area.
The woman on the phone told me I was maybe 5 weeks and gave me an appointment in a week for a telephone appointment. My first reaction was so I can’t just do it now?
‘No’ she said
So I would have to keep it for longer.
I threw my pregnancy tests in a bin at the bus stop and walked home.
I have always wanted to be a mother. I would often look out the bus window with my elbow propped up on the bus windowsill, on those cold lonely nights and I would close my eyes really tight and have this vision of kids running around, playing in the back garden, screaming and laughing and maybe we would have a dog and I would be sitting back and admiring my children. I would cry for a future I so desperately wanted but felt as if I could never reach. I would often question myself if being a mother was almost my destiny as silly as it sounds becoming a mother was a goal of mine. Being pregnant was something I would imagine to try and get myself to sleep on unsleepable nights. I had this Fantasy this idea of how I wanted that part of my life to be.
I wanted to be everything I never had for my child.
Even writing this now I cant help but tear up. This will all be so difficult for me to write.
I dreamt of doing everything so right, I dreamt to hold my baby my child when he or she cried, I dreamt to tell my child that everything would be okay because their mother was here. I was their mother and I dreamt to love them with everything in me. I wanted to be a cool mum I wanted to be a mother my child would think of anytime they were struggling to not be afraid to talk to me, If they were in a really bad situation to call me and say
‘Hey mum can you please come pick me up I need you right now’ and I would have dropped anything to get to my child. I want my child to have the entire world, and I think that’s what any parent wants/should want for their child.
I never had that sort of connection with my mother. My mother is an astonishing woman, she provided me with all the care in the world, however my mum being an immigrant and a woman bought up in a small village on the outskirts of Turkey she sometimes doesn’t seem to understand today’s culture. I am a Kurdish woman who was bought up in a very cultural strict household. I do not blame her for who she is. I didn’t share with my mum I was pregnant and I didn’t share with my mother about my abortion. Her reaction not only scared me bad saddened me. I felt as if I somewhat failed her. My mother is the mother I talk about wanting to be, she would drop anything to make sure I was okay. But I always felt because of cultural differences or the fact that she excessively worries that I could never pick up the phone and ask her to come pick me up whenever I was scared. I wish for my child to tell me.
That’s just something I felt I could never do with my mum. Even when I would come home after getting relentlessly bullied as a child and she would ask me about my day I would tell her
‘Everything’s fine.’
My mother often says till this day you never share anything with me you never have since you were a child, your little sister tells me everything but you. You never did never will. I wish you would.
But how can I? when I always felt like she never would understand. My mother will never know how the men of our society has treated me how I would drown myself in anything I could get my hands on.
Sex is somewhat a taboo in my culture, sex before marriage. My parents never spoke to me about sex I had to find out on my own, like many other things. I feel as if I had to navigate this world all on my own.
I didn’t know how to tell my parents I had been have sex, reckless sex. I didn’t even have a boyfriend. I didn’t know how to word that to my parents, and If I had kept this baby the shame and embarrassment I would have bought upon my family name would have been unbearable. I grew up in a very tight knit culture community, when I say tight knit I mean many people know each other and word gets around, not only that but the family members I have in France and Germany and Turkey would all find out. There’s almost this shame around sex, no there is shame and guilt about having sex something I had to break through in my mind was okay to do, however as I’ve spoken about before I personally was extremely reckless with.
So how do you tell your strict almost Muslim religious Kurdish parents you’ve been having sex and now are pregnant.
You don’t.
Would they kick me out? Would my entire family shame me and my child? Would they look at us both in disgust ? I couldn’t bare this type of fate for my child. I didn’t want their entire existence to feel like shame and a mistake. I didn’t want to look down at my child and think about everything it cost me, I didn’t want to look at my child in pain and loss. The thought was so saddening, on top of all of that I didn’t know how I could bring a child into my life into this world without knowing how to clothe, feed it and financially be able to support it. No innocent soul deserves that. I thought about adoption. But that would mean I would still have to tell my family and maybe for my own selfish reasons I would never want to give away what’s mine. I know I would have gotten so attached I would have ended up keeping it. I would never want to give up on my child, and for my child to feel as if their own mother didn’t even want them at the start of their life. Is not what I wanted.
What is being a mother? I have so many answers to this question but the question seems almost rhetorical there is not correct or answer to this question. Maybe sacrifice? Would I have scarified everything for my child? Yes but no I couldn’t sacrifice my dignity in the end.
And that is something I will live with for the rest of my life.
Regret
Shame
Pain.
I often ask myself did I do the right thing? this is a question I know will haunt me for the rest of my life. But I made a choice and now I must live with it. After all I cannot go back on it what’s done is done. I did what I did. I cannot eat myself up about it, I mean I could but maybe I’ll be able to forgive myself one day.
Abortion for me is grieving. I know this is different to every woman’s experience. But the moment I found out about my baby I was grieving. I grieved for a life I wouldn’t live and I grieved for a soul I would never met. I prayed for my baby’s soul to come back to me again when we were both ready. I didn’t ask for god’s forgiveness but my baby’s. I prayed and I cried for days straight, I threw myself onto the floor and begged god to tell me what to do countless times with no answer. I begged Allah day in and day out to no avail.
I am often too depressed to even take care of myself. I bring this up because this I feel is another reason I knew I wasn’t fit to be a mother right now. I sometimes go days without eating, I sleep for hours I am incredibly unstable in my mindset, If I had my child, my child would rely on me for the rest of it’s life. Which is how it should be. But how can a child rely on a suicidal mother?, constantly in fear their mother might die. I didn’t want this for my child. Not only am I unreliable right now I am unpredictable, my mood seems to switch a lot I’m currently finally starting to take my mental health a bit more serious and I’m trying to figure out what’s wrong with me. I want stability for my child. I am not stable. I have no stability in my life. I have no job and I’m on a university course I fear I might not be able to get far in. I have nothing, I’m in my 3rd year of university with no idea what I’m doing with my life at all.
And I’ve thought about so many times how this child might have saved me. Maybe I would have changed for this child. After all I would never abuse any sort of substance in front of my child not even smoking I would say this to myself before even being pregnant, I would never smoke in front of my child. Maybe this child would have bought meaning to my meaningless life, But the more I thought about it the more selfish it got. How could an innocent soul bear this type of burden? a baby at that? and what if I made things worse for myself? what if I ended up killing myself after I had my child and my baby was left all alone in a world that rejected them? without any one to protect them?
Maybe I should die with my baby? I promised for my child to not feel alone at death, that we would go together. I just went on and on and on. My brain wouldn’t stop.
In fact my brain was completely numb after awhile I stopped it from thinking.
It was either this or slowly losing my grip on who I am.
I was so sick during my pregnancy, not so vomiting but the feeling of immense hunger and If I didn’t eat enough I would be rolling around my bed in this urge to just throw up. I had felt hunger before but this was different it was very intense. Days went by and I had just started to accept life for what it was. There were so many instances where I would slip into being a mum, I would sometimes talk to my baby and every night I held my stomach when I fell asleep I tried so hard to not get attached but I couldn’t help myself, I ended up naming my baby Green, I couldn’t give it a real name that was too far. I would often gaze at mothers and their children especially mothers with their daughters and this sense of love I wouldn’t be able to experience with my baby. I went to a jazz club with my friends and as I while I was listening to the jazz I felt sorrow. My baby would never be able to use their ears to listen to jazz. I told myself a few times let’s just try to enjoy the time we have together. I cut down on my smoking a lot and tried my best not to drink too much. I wanted the baby on board badge but I knew I couldn’t have one there was no point. It wasn’t fair at all. None of this was fair on either of us. I wanted to enjoy my pregnancy but I couldn’t.
I asked god repeatedly what kind of lesson he was teaching me. What kind of lesson was this? I asked god many times, I asked Allah, I asked the skies I asked something what kind of sick lesson was all this.
So many times I would look over at things and thought about how I couldn’t have my baby. I would never be able to smell them or hold them, I would never be able to sing them to sleep or see them smile. So seeing the parents with their happily giggly kids brought a type of anguish a sort of melancholy sadness, I would look at these happy families in tearful dull eyes. I would could never have this with the baby I was carrying inside me.
Now whenever I see children it’s almost like god is punishing me for my decision. Or I’m just currently very hypersensitive to children right now who knows, all I know is that it hurts. It hurts to see someone have something I could have had, an inseparable bond.
So the day came to have my abortion. I had my first ever scan and I mustered up courage to ask the nurse if I could see my baby in the scans she replied almost caught off guard.
”it’s not like the NHS ones”
I didn’t care I wanted to see.
I looked down in awe, I knew I was pregnant but looking down at my scan it was proof of what was inside of me. Green was inside me for real. I had a tiny little shrimp bean baby growing inside of me. It was such a surreal moment.
I asked if I could take one but they said I could only take a picture. So now I have these blurry images of my ultra sound. Of my baby. The nurse asked me if I wanted to know how many weeks I was, around this time I knew I was 7 weeks and 3 days and she told me I was 7 weeks and 5 days.
The next time I walked into that room the nurse’s told me about a repair man also being in the room but on the other side and they presented me with the Pill.
I never knew I would have to take the pill there and then I thought I would have more time, the nurses did say I could take it later on but I knew myself it was now or never and as I made out the words while crying ‘I don’t want to but I have to’ I swallowed the first pill.
The repair man was probably so confused. I thanked the nurses in the room and I walked out crying. I had come to the clinic with two friends who walked behind me as I cried and cursed god for what was happening to me. I had to now carry my dead baby for 24 hours and then I had to put four pills up my vagina. I felt like that one line from Macbeth about lady Macbeth ripping a baby off her nipple violently.
”I would, while it was smiling in my face, have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums, and dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn as you have done to this.”
One of my friends handed me a small rock which I keep very close with me even now and I held onto a small green piece of fabric through out the clinic, they seem like tiny little reminder’s and one pregnancy test since I threw the others away. Me and my friends walked over to the church that was across the street and walked around, we found the tiniest grave we had ever seen and we prayed.
After that I went to my friend’s place and there I passed the pregnancy. putting four pills up my vagina is probably one of the most degrading thing’s I’ve done and I’ve done a lot. It was hard, it was very painful and I threw up. I felt my baby slip out of me it was disgusting.
I’ve had a hard life however this is the hardest thing I have ever had to do.
I woke up the next day with no longer having that intense hunger and and that’s knew I knew you were completely gone.
it’s been 18 days since my abortion. I hope to forgive myself one day.
No one really talks about how lonely abortion can be, no one seems to understand.
I learnt a very valuable lesson with sex, I never want to have an abortion again.
I hope my baby forgives me. I couldn’t be the mother I wanted to be.
I am still grieving, and what if’s cloud my mind.
Did I do the right thing?
I feel numb and some days I’m okay and sometimes I remember.
But one day I’ll wake up and I’ll realise I haven’t thought about it that day, and that’s when I’ll know I can forget, I’ll slowly heal, After all this isn’t my first experience with loss, the dog I mentioned at the beginning who died, I saw him as my child. I watched that dog grow from a small puppy into a beautiful being, to die in front of me. I often ask god why he took both my children away from me.
all I ask of anything nowadays is that both my babies are safe and in peace, and both souls come back to me one day.
I never met Green, but I know for a fact whoever Green would have become, they would have been such a pure kind and gentle soul and I would have been Green’s mummy.
I am Green’s mummy.
I named my baby Green after the evergreen trees and grass I love to go hide away in.
I feel at peace when I lay in a forest full of green.
I will have children when I’m emotionally, mentally ready. When I can give them the best possible start in life.
When I can give them the vision I see so clearly .
I may feel guilt and ask myself often if I did the right thing.
If it means wanting to become the best mother possible for my children.
I will live with my decision.
One day I’ll be the mother I know I can be.
That just is not now.
I’m so grateful I had a choice.
– Just a note this is just my experience with abortion and dealing with my own mental turmoil everyone’s struggle is different, but this process is a right, it is needed and should never be taken away from anyone. It is a necessity a basic human right.
another note is sex. Women are allowed to do as they please every woman in this world should have a choice. Anyone in this world should have a choice with their bodies, whether it’s sex or abortions. I personally learnt to just slow down on sex or maybe I’m afraid I’ll get pregnant again. Whatever the reason sex should never be a taboo for women.
