About 5 months ago I had an abortion. My first symptom was missing my period. However, this was something I experimented often due to a hormonal imbalance. I remember feeling a little uneasy about this particular missed period, so I took a test. Negative. I was so relived. I went about my life as normal. I started to feel nauseous, I had awful heart palpitations, I was extremely territorial of my friends, I was dizzy, and I craved peaches. But the test was negative, so I didn’t think anything if it. Then one day I stopped at dunkin and ordered my favorite thing off of their menus. I too a bite and immediately tasted metal. That is the day I started to worry.
I then scheduled an appointment with my Gyno because I was 21 and hadn’t gotten a Pap smear. I went in and asked for a pregnancy blood test. He called me the next day and said “You are pregnant.” At first I smiled. Weird right? He then said “do you know if you’d like to keep the baby? “ I didn’t know what to say. I told him I would call him back. I started laughing. I couldn’t believe what he had told me. And I couldn’t believe I wasn’t crying. I grabbed my car keys and immediately drove to target. Walking in target I noticed my boobs feeling heavy and unbelievably sore. It was my baby. I stared up at the cute baby clothes, I say in rockers, I looked at toys.. I was happy. I was excited. And then I noticed the price tags and I snapped myself back into reality. I am 22. Me and my boyfriend have only been dating for a month. Then I realized.. I need to tell my boyfriend. I called him, and we talked. We both agreed that we could not support a child. All of my excitement left and I numbed the rest of my emotions. I scheduled my procedure for two weeks later.
Everyday after that my pregnancy symptoms got worse. I was growing a baby and I could feel it happening. The day of the procedure I went in and sat in the waiting room with my boyfriend. I was calm. Laughing even. They called me back, it was quick but not painless. The first words I said were “it’s over!” I sat in the recovery room feeling dizzy and empty. It was over. I was relived, and yet so sad. The next couple of months I experienced a lot of thoughts and emotions. Am I a bad person? What would my baby look like right now? I feel like the mother of a deceased child. What if I had kept it? Thank god I didn’t keep it. I’m so relieved that I made my decision. I’m so proud of myself for choosing the responsible choice. And that’s what I want other women to realize. You can feel both sad and relived. You can feel only relived. You can feel only sad. You can feel ecstatic. However you choose to heal or react is fine. You are not evil. Your choice was not wrong. You are a strong woman with a strong mind. Thank goodness we as women, have a choice to be a mother or not. Because even though I want to be a mother, I’m glad that when I choose to be one, it will be because I am ready to give my baby the world.
