When I was 18, I started dating someone from my high school who had graduated the year before. The first time we had sex, he raped me. I remained in a relationship with him, which became increasingly abusive over the years. My childhood was very troubling–I underwent a lot of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse–and I lacked the tools to extricate myself from the situation I was in with him. At 23, I got pregnant. By then, I had been highly suicidal for at least 10 years, and utterly emotionally and mentally unable to have a baby without enormous consequences to all involved. The whole experience was extremely stressful, and I still to this day resent everyone who made it more difficult for me. From the protestors outside of planned parenthood to the doctor who laughed three weeks later as he explained to me that the anesthesiologist had overmedicated me, leading to anesthesia leaking into my spine (I was unable to contract my muscles for over 4 weeks), I was disappointed by how an already extremely difficult experience was made even more unbearable.
I turned 30 a few months ago. I’ve received intensive treatment for the severe PTSD I was diagnosed with in my twenties over the past two years, and I finally no longer struggle with suicidal ideation on a daily basis. In a few years, I hope to become pregnant and start a family with my current partner, an absolute gem of a person. I’ve been given a second chance at life, and the gift of rewriting my story. Choosing to get an abortion spared me from additional challenges in life that surely would have resulted in my death, either by my then-partner’s doing or mine.
I will forever be grateful that I was able to get an abortion, and that I had the bodily autonomy to choose what I needed and wanted to do for myself at the time. When I have a baby, I’ll be able to provide my child with a stable, healthy, loving, and nurturing environment because of the work I did to address my traumas and untangle myself from abusive dynamics. I can’t wait to experience such a love and bond, to provide for a child what I never had, and to alter the course my family’s history.
