I’ll always know that this day, winter solstice, is the day I had an abortion. Never in a million years would I have thought that would be my reality. I was divorced, a mother of 3, trying a long distance “relationship” with the first person I had dated since becoming single. I was 8 days from turning 45 years old. If I had the baby, it would be born exactly when I was due to take my oldest to college. My partner was 17 years younger than me and I later realized had all sorts of issues that oddly came into focus for the first time when I took that positive pregnancy test all by myself. He never knew. My kids never knew. I live in a very isolated place with no clinics, but there was ob/gyn here who could sign me up as part of a study of the success/satisfaction women had in obtaining the abortion pill via mail. So I signed up and waited. I felt guilty, I knew what being pregnant was like. I had loved my other pregnancies and am an excellent mother. I felt like I was cheating this baby by putting the needs of my other kids first. But the truth is that it would have wrecked my relationship with them. And I was scared for my own health and the baby’s at my age. There was no way I could take it on. I saw it on the ultrasound, and I looked at pictures and watched “in the womb” documentaries to see what my 6 wk fetus would look like. The pills arrived in the mail, and I waited until a night my kids were gone and took them. Alone, in my bathroom and bedroom. The shakes scared me, and I felt so very alone. But I bled, and the whole thing was over in about 5 hours.
