I hope someone is holding your hand like they did mine, but if they aren't, know that I am holding you in my heart.
People share stories about an unplanned pregnancy leading to a baby that keeps a couple together for better or worse but our abortion brought me and the love of my life back together.
He and I had been together about two years when we broke up in 2021 during a painful period of personal growth. It felt impossible to me to stay in a relationship as I attempted to grapple with larger issues in my life, and as a very passionate person, he could be difficult and demanding in a way that I felt took a great deal of the attention and care that I needed desperately to give back to myself. I was moving from Oregon to California, so picked up my things from his cabin and we had goodbye sex even though I knew I was about to ovulate – I was still in love with him and could not stop myself. It was some of the most visceral sex we ever had, and I stopped at the pharmacy on the way out of town for the morning after pill because I could immediately sense it was different, which obviously did not work.
Because I track my cycle, I knew I was late before I even was late – I waited for my period to come without expecting it to, even after taking the morning after pill. I just felt different in my body than I ever had. I took the pregnancy test which very faintly confirmed that I was barely five weeks pregnant. I knew immediately I wanted an abortion, and I considered not telling him. I was afraid he would see it as a sign that we should be together and raise a baby, and that it would shatter my heart all over again to tell him I didn’t want that. But I called him all the same, and he didn’t say any of that – he just said he would come immediately, if I wanted him to. I knew that I did.
The place I had to moved to in California was in the mountains and very rural – the nearest abortion providers were hours away. Luckily, I was able to get the abortion pill shipped to me, which drastically changed the experience for the better. I have always been private and independent, and have not always had the best experiences with health care workers. Adding even more complications, I was still on Oregon Health Plan, and would have had to pay out of pocket for any care in California. But miraculously I was able to order them to my door for less than $150, and my partner drove ten hours in one day to come to me. He arrived with so much love and support that was like coming home – I was getting something from him I realized I had never even truly asked for, because I expected not to get it. My relief was instantaneous when he laid down in bed with me after I took the first of the two pills. It was like I could take a breath again.
The next morning we rented a motel for the rest of the process, and it was during an hydrological outlook – a weather phenomenon that basically means buckets of rain. We watched the creek that ran behind the motel rise and almost flood, and he made me tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches when I was feeling like eating – that and lots of mango licorice. We watched a Stephan King marathon on the cable tv because it was late October. We cuddled, he rubbed by back and held my hand and drew me a hot bath when it really hurt. When he went back to Oregon a few days later and I returned to work, I knew he was everything to me and I was back living with him within a few months.
Its 2024 now and we’re still going so strong. He is more measured and giving, I am more open and communicative, I’m not sure if we would have found our ways back to each other without the pregnancy causing me reach out to him in a time of great fear and need, giving him a chance to show me that he could take care of and love me if I just truly was vulnerable enough to ask him to. We still don’t know if we want kids, but the foundation of trust and partnership that we established with the abortion has changed our world radically for the better.
I love my life and I have never regretted it, not once. Even when I wonder about other timelines, mostly I just come back to a sense of gratitude for the one I am in. I have an incredibly rewarding dream job I never would have found if I had a baby in 2021. My partner and I have traveled all the lower 48 states plus Canada and Mexico a camper van we bought in 2023, something we always dreamed of doing, that we never could have done the way we wanted to if we had a baby in 2021. I love all the late-night drinks at concerts with friends and quiet early morning solo fishing and foraging, the programming I get to curate and people I get to support with it, the freewheeling impromptu authentic heart lead life I lead. The man by my side I get to lead it with. Abortion, especially the self-managed chemical abortion that allowed me to feel empowered and in charge of the experience, is a blessing. I feel so endlessly grateful for the service that shipped me those pills so quickly and affordably, for my partner who never made me question myself by having to explain anything to him only share how I felt, for the way it rained that day and made me feel cozy, safe, and warm inside, and for the little ball of energy that passed through me and back into the cosmos that brought love back to me tenfold.
To anyone reading this, please do not be afraid or ashamed. Abortion is spoken about in relation to death so often, but I promise: that energy passing through you will find the right outlet, and there is so much life for you to live on the other side of this. Stuff you already want, and things you could never expect. That life matters, and it is all waiting for you. I hope someone is holding your hand like they did mine, but if they aren’t, know that I am holding you in my heart.
