My abortion is in three days. I am 17, and scared. It was my first time having sex without a condom, and he hadn’t told me until after that he had taken it off. For the five days before I tested, I laid in my room feeling like I wasn’t in control of my mind. Every thought and action was muddled and exhausted. I woke up and would look at my stomach in the mirror. I’m not sure if I somehow knew I was pregnant, or if I was just subconsciously scared because he hadn’t used a condom and I am not allowed on birth control, but I had this gut feeling.
I took a test in the nurse’s office at school. Then scheduled an abortion after being on an automated planned parenthood phone call system for an hour. The nurse shared with me that she’d had an abortion before, in an attempt to give me information on medical versus surgical abortion. She said at the end that her pregnancy was not viable and that she wished more than anything she was able to keep it, and that it was different because I simply did not care to keep this baby.
I did not care to. That’s what most people probably assume, when they find out a teenager has an unplanned pregnancy. That it’s just a mistake they think there’s an easy fix for. I hate that. I’m moving across the country in a few months for college, I have no knowledge about money or the real world, or even having a job, for that matter. I don’t have the family support some do. It would be a bad environment for a child. And mentally, I cannot do adoption.
I’m not trying to justify myself here, because i do believe my decision is the right one. I am simply in pain, and want to share it so others might relate. Might feel less alone, as the stories on this site have made me feel.
I feel pregnant. I can feel this child inside me being created. My body changes everyday to accommodate him or her. I am sick everyday, I pee constantly. I have cramps every single second. I have hormones and mood swings I don’t understand. I question how anyone gets through this. Then I realize, it’s because they get to have a baby at the end. All the pain is worth it because they are a mother to a perfect child by the end of it. But not me. I will have no baby to gush over. But that doesn’t mean that I am not pregnant. That I am not picturing a thousand futures with my child every second of the day. Hating myself because I know it’s the right decision but it feels as though I am ruining the greatest thing that could happen to me.
I am simply scared. Scared that it’ll be too expensive, scared something will go wrong, and scared that I am making the wrong choice. I am just scared.
