Second Chance at My Life

I had an abortion – a medication abortion – in 2012 when I was about 23.  I was on birth control but ended up pregnant. My mom found out and immediately told me I couldn’t have it and funded my abortion. She told me my dad could never know; to this day he still doesn’t. I was living in Washington DC at the time. It was one appointment, I took 1 pill there and took another at home. I spent that weekend feeling like I had a stomach flu with a little slight fever curled up with cramps and bled for about 3 months after that. Due to having one appointment the total was $400. I have always been pro choice, but I told myself that having this abortion needed to be my lesson and there’s no reason outside of something terrible outside of my control happening that I should ever have another one. Fast forward to now. I am 34 with 2 children and I am a single mom. I finally started dating again and had an accident one night. I took plan B within 48 hours but it was unsuccessful and I got pregnant.

I know I did the responsible thing taking Plan B and that it’s not my fault it failed, but I still struggled internally weighing the idea of having an abortion, knowing that it was my actions that led me to even need Plan B in the 1st place. I was supposed to have learned my lesson in 2012. I decided to go through with it in person. This time was difficult because I couldn’t tell anybody other than a couple close friends and my partner. I mean I could have told people but I now live in Kentucky. My supervisor at my new job has a degree in religious studies and both of our parents are against abortion. After having my daughter 2 years ago and the massive Hashimoto’s episode I had following, it took 2 years for my body to be mine again and now all of a sudden that was going to be gone.

I felt selfish for this being one of the biggest factors in my decision to have an abortion again. I called the clinic and made the appointment. In Kentucky the law states that you have to have a consultation 1st and then you have to wait at least 24 hours before you can have a second appointment to go through with an abortion. I planned to do a medication abortion again as I was familiar with how it would go and thought it would be less invasive and easier. Due to the need for 2 appointments and making $4 over the income cap for the income cap for assistance I had to pay out of pocket for 2 $384 the 1st appointment and 4th disappointment at $447 for the 2nd.

As a social worker I do not get paid very much especially for being a single mother of 2 who has to pay rent in this current housing crisis with high prices and and for child care.  If it were not for a close friend who is a very successful sex worker Lynn lending me money I would not have been able to afford this abortion. I have almost no physical support system in Kentucky and had no one to pick up my kids for me after my appointment. For my appointment I also had to miss 2 days of work at a new job and this was incredibly stressful for me. This is not Planned Parenthood’s fault it’s our lawmaker’s fault and our society’s fault and stigma’s fault and that is even more infuriating. I opted to instead have an in clinic abortion. I was very nervous and scared.  And I had to do it alone because due to covid I could not bring a support person. I had my appointment today and I can honestly say I felt no pain it was incredibly easy and in fact did not feel invasive at all somehow.

Had I known I would never have had a medication abortion the 1st time. I walked out with no bleeding, no discomfort and with a huge weight lifted off of me like I’d been given a second chance at my life I had worked so hard for and a second chance to keep my bodily autonomy when I knew being pregnant right now would throw off my physical and mental health immensely. It does suck knowing I have knowing I had to make this decision and that I had to feel that I had to keep it so secret from the people that I needed to support me. It’s that thinking about how precious this child would be if I did go through with it. My partner is in recovery and has a one year old and another child due in July; that was that would if this would have been child number 5 between the 2 of us. There is no way I could have afforded a place to live that would accommodate that many people and there is no way I could also afford childcare for another child on my own.

This is the right choice for me in my life right now and I feel better about it than I thought I would have and for that I am so thankful. I am so thankful for Planned Parenthood. And I will fight as a social worker as a human being and as a woman to get anybody’s safe access to reproductive services, yes like abortion. This is something I don’t plan to do again and I know I have said that in the past and I guess we can really say you just never know until you’re there. None of our lawmakers due to them having a penis will ever be there. I will risk my license because I can get if I can get an unlicensed social work job but I know our ethics stand behind me and I know this is the right thing to do.

Don’t be scared. Don’t let stigma religion religion or a bunch of old men bully you into making a choice that will be detrimental to your mental health, physical health, and ability to successfully parent that child if you are not ready. If they really cared so much about unborn babies and their right to life and to protect them because children are innocent then they would all be fostering and adopting because they have the means to do so yet here they are none of them doing it, they don’t care about these children. They definitely don’t care about your embryo and and they could just as easily the enforcing vasectomies  Or male birth control pills. But that is just not a conversation they will entertain. Male birth control pills have been found to be effective however research showed that men could not remember to take it every day. Are women that much better than men that we can remember to take it every day f*** out of here. Put that pill next to your toothbrush and you won’t forget because hopefully you brush your teeth every day at least.