Thank you for reading this, this is the most I have ever said about it, to anyone.
2020. New relationship, new world. I’ve never wanted children and I certainly wasn’t planning on bringing a child into the world in its (then) current state. I had struggled with an eating disorder for over a decade when I found myself holding a positive pregnancy test. Already fighting with my partner during lockdowns, I fought with myself on whether telling him was worth it. If I could bear that weight on my own. I’m not religious, but I did immediately feel a connection to it.
A few weeks earlier, I had felt a sharp pain in my lower abdomen and a strange awareness of what had just happened. One night when the words fell out of my mouth, he asked what we would do, and I said “what I’ve always said I would do”. And I did. I made an appointment with my doctor, had to wait a week to get in. Blood test confirmed, and a call with a hospital urging me to consider other options came a week later. A week after that, I was finally able to get the pills. Every day, I cried for that baby. Knowing that I couldn’t give it a safe place to grow, and that if it somehow survived inside of me, what life could I possibly provide it? Anyways, I had the abortion on my bathroom floor. And I think about that baby a lot. And while it may come with tears some days, I know in my heart I made the right choice. For me, for my partner, and for my baby.
It feels like a loss. Like something I took away from myself. And I think that’s okay. I think there’s a huge push to make people think you have to be happy about an abortion, and I want to remind those who need it, that it’s okay to be sad. To feel sorry. To daydream that circumstances could have been different. Even if you don’t “want” a child. I don’t think there’s any right or wrong way to feel. You don’t HAVE to tell anyone… I still grieve. I still know what I did was right. Thank you for reading this, this is the most I have ever said about it, to anyone.
