I am a single mother to two small children. I lost my job, my house, the daycare provider I had, everything. I had to move in with my mother. I started a new job and met someone. He was charming, he was so sweet to me, he was outgoing. we got to know each other. I was on birth control. After a few months he stopped talking to me. A few weeks went by and I puked at work, my period wasn’t due for a few more days but I took a test anyway and it was positive. I texted him and he ignored me. I messaged him again and he said “what did you think you would get out of you telling me you were pregnant I’m seeing someone else” we argued back and forth he accused me of sleeping with my ex, with one of my coworkers. He threatened to hurt the father of my two children.
I looked up his criminal history and everything he ever told me was a lie. He had 8 different restraining orders against him, some from his exes, one from his own mother who had custody of his children. I thought he was a good person. I thought I could trust him. I was on birth control. I still got pregnant. I tried to have a mature discussion about the possibility of working things out, not as a couple but as potential parents to a child, as friends. The conversation went terrible. He couldn’t even be sober to talk to me. He threatened me, he threatened the father of my kids. He called me by his other mother of his youngest child’s name. He threatened to have me proven unfit and have our child taken from me and my children to be taken from me when he had no reason to do so. I made the most difficult decision I have ever made and will ever make. I wanted this child. I was barely 5 weeks along but it felt like a girl. I always wanted a girl. I didn’t feel safe. I felt like if I decided to continue the pregnancy it would be a life time of arguing and custody battles and that is not a life I would want any child to go through. For the child to grow up constantly being pulled back and forth between parents, the courts constantly having to be involved, him trying to prove me unfit even though I have always done everything I can to be the best parent, I’ve never done anything wrong, not even so much as a no seat belt ticket. Financially I was keeping my head above water but only just and I had no idea how I would support another child. I felt like it was an act of mercy to end the pregnancy rather than put a child through that. So I did. I do not regret my abortion. I am sad about it, I wonder what could have been and it breaks my heart but I do not regret it.
