I never was one to outwardly exclaim, “Hey! I’m pro-choice!”. I didn’t really know that was a phrase until I found this SYA, but I always said that there are circumstances to which I feel women should be able to have abortions, and I never thought of it as a bad choice. I always had the belief that it’s the worst thing to bring a child into this world and not be able to give them the world… if that makes sense.
I had been on birth control since I was 18. I’m 31 now. I stopped taking it when a Dr’s visit showed a link of my thyroid hormones elevating around the time I started using a birth control patch. June 2018, I stopped the patch, and continued to have sex with my husband, obviously,… but unprotected. I was afraid at first because I had been on some form of birth control for 12 years, but my cycles were coming regularly, husband and I got a bit arrogant with our “method” and didn’t think pregnancy would happen. I also had it in the back of my mind, “meh, if it happens it happens…”. Well…December came and went, my period never came, and I was freaked the f*** out! For some reason, I knew I was pregnant but I put off taking a test because husband and I were traveling for the holidays and I didn’t want to take that emotional stress on.
So as I stated, I’m 31 and so is my husband. We’re independent, with good jobs and I guess it’s fair to say we have a fairly great family support system. My husband and I found out we were pregnant January 7th…I had my abortion January 21st. I was 8 weeks. I feel like outside looking in people would probably say our circumstances aren’t that bad to have to consider this option but to be honest we just were not ready. That was the reality of it. I wasn’t ready mentally and emotionally, and I can’t really speak for my husband but from a guy who comes from a strong, somewhat conservative Christian background, for him to say he’s not ready, that’s pretty serious, and so we knew what our next steps were going to be. When we first learned we were pregnant, I bawled my eyes out, and he wasn’t thrilled judging by the tone of his voice. For a moment we tried to accept it, saying we can do it but the more we thought about it, and to think that we had no signs of happy emotion in us when we found out, we knew we couldn’t. It wouldn’t have been fair to the child that would have been.
The process took me two weeks. What a long, dreadful two weeks. I don’t live in the states and would rather not disclose where I reside but everything is not done in a day like some stories I’ve read on here but rather over a few different appointments. My husband was with me every step of the way right up to when we had to part ways for my surgery. During the time we discussed our decision making sure we were making the right choice but nothing had changed, we knew what we wanted.
My surgery came and went, and that was that. I don’t regret my choice, and I really don’t feel like there was any wrong done. I don’t feel any different than I felt before January 7th…mentally that is. Life has gone back to normal although life already went back to normal for my husband once we made the decision, where as for me I was sick as a dog (no throwing up just super nauseous), very, very gassy like always burping, couldn’t really get out of bed on the weekends so I just slept, felt gross when my husband touched my skin, had a slight heightened sense of smell and didn’t eat much due to the nausea. It wasn’t a pleasant experience especially since it was an unwanted one.
So before I wrap this up, what I’m not going to do is write all of this without mentioning my emotions. I’m not going to pretend I was someone I wasn’t. Though confident in my decision, I was still scared, embarrassed, felt like I shouldn’t be doing this and felt very self conscious about people knowing my business since my husband and I come from a small community. I cried at night about having the surgery, I cried from the hormonal changes my body was going through , I was blank, I was confused, I was sad, I was a lot of things. I contemplated whether I actually wanted kids after this whole experience, and the answer to that question, I really don’t know. However, I’m grateful for this experience. I can look at a girl or a women or a family who has decided to make this choice and have complete empathy for them. My eyes wouldn’t be filled with judgment but with understanding without having to hear their why. If someone should ever choose to confide in me, I can be there for her whole-heartedly understanding the thoughts going through her head. I can actually say I’m PRO-CHOICE and know what it means because it happened to me.
PS… I’m going back on birth control!!
