I have had an abortion in my life, in fact I have had two abortions and I don’t regret either of them. Last week I finally opened up to a friend about my alcoholism, and what was really incredible as we were both unpacking our emotional challenges as women and mothers, was that we both opened up about having had abortions when we were younger.
I don’t for one minute regret either one of my abortions, I never felt connected to the babies, I never wanted the babies and I certainly new within my heart that I didn’t want to be with either one of the potential fathers.
My first abortion occurred when I was 22, I was married to a horrible man and I accidentally fell pregnant, I will never forget the day that I suspected I was pregnant. It was December, I hadn’t been feeling well, my breasts had become extremely painful and enlarged, I remember thinking oh shit, could I be pregnant. I went and got a pregnancy test and prayed that it would come up negative, the moment that those two lines appeared, my heart literally stopped, I knew straight away that I didn’t want this baby. My husband was ecstatic, but I felt like I was dying on the inside.
In my heart I already knew that I didn’t want this marriage, but I hadn’t yet got the confidence to leave or seek a divorce. He on the other hand, had no idea that I was feeling that way, he had made it very clear that he wanted this baby and he wanted to be a father. We started to fight over the baby and there was no way I wanted to have this child, I didn’t give him a choice, I was going to do everything in my power to go ahead and have an abortion.
The day we got to the abortion clinic he was acting supportive, the clinic’s procedure was to do an ultrasound to confirm how many weeks pregnant I was, and then we were to go in for mandatory counselling. As we sat down on the counsellors lounge, they asked if we both wanted the abortion, I said yes, my husband said no. Because he didn’t want the abortion, the clinic refused to go ahead with the procedure because of safety concerns, so they sent us away and recommended we get counselling.
It was the Christmas season and I couldn’t feel any less festive, I felt like I had a time bomb growing inside me, I was 8 weeks pregnant and I knew if I didn’t act soon then this baby would be born and my life would be over.
We fought over this baby and the abortion for a week until finally my husband agreed to let me have this procedure on the condition that he wouldn’t come with me. So I rescheduled the appointment and he dropped me off at the entrance to the abortion clinic. This time I went through with the procedure. I woke up from the abortion feeling a huge sense of relief, knowing that my life wouldn’t end, that I would get a second chance, but I also knew that my marriage was over. 6 months later I ended the marriage and never looked back.
The second abortion I had was a lot more straight forward, I accidentally fell pregnant to a guy I had been seeing for a while, we both knew that we didn’t want the baby and he was supportive while I had the procedure. There was no emotion, just relief after the procedure.
Like when I ended my marriage, I did feel disappointment that I had allowed myself to fall pregnant not once, but twice and I was sure that this would affect my fertility when I wanted to have a baby, but thankfully it didn’t.
I kept both of these abortions very secret and to this day, only a few people in my life know about them (including my wonderful new husband), but I did feel shame about allowing myself to be in this situation. I think alot of the reason why I felt so much shame about being married, but not about being pregnant was because I kept this secret repressed inside me and the entire world didn’t know.
To this day I thank my higher power for allowing me to make the right decision with accessing and going through an abortion because I never would have met my amazing husband if I had of had children, I never would have followed my travel dreams, and I wouldn’t have the two beautiful girls that I have today.
Having children and motherhood is extremely challenging even if you have a wonderful marriage and financial security. As a mother and a woman I now know that by having a child to the wrong person and when you are not ready for it is a death sentence. Sure, I would have been much younger and able to cope with younger children physically, but mentally I would have suffered for the rest of my life, I would have resented my children, I would have resented these men and I would have no doubt had even bigger challenges with alcoholism and depression if I had not had these children.