Things with my partner were fine before I got pregnant. We were trying to get pregnant and it had taken some time. But on the day that the test came back positive, I felt sick to my stomach. Intuitively, I knew I needed to terminate the pregnancy. But I didn’t know why. I made the mistake that I had made on many other occasions and ignored my intuition or dismissed it as if it were something else, like fear of motherhood. But as the weeks passed, my intuition grew stronger until it was finally screaming at me to have an abortion. I couldn’t make sense of it, but I also couldn’t ignore it anymore. I terminated the pregnancy.
Within weeks, my partner removed the mask he’d been wearing throughout our entire relationship, and what emerged was horrifying. He became many things: abusive, controlling, possessive, jealous, cruel. After I took a step back from our relationship, he began to stalk me and anyone I dated. It escalated to the point of violence and I had to obtain a restraining order against him. In the aftermath, I finally understood the why; I may not have known it on a conscious level, but something deep within me knew that going through with that pregnancy would have tied me to someone abusive and dangerous for the rest of my life. My abortion saved me, in more ways than one. Since then, I welcome menstruation with gratitude and view it as a reminder of my freedom and safety.
