I’m ready to talk about my abortion…

I’m Ready To Talk About My Abortion.

14 months later….its taken time for me to be able to talk about it. I wanted to write it down because I think in some ways may be therapeutic, and to share my story with other women who may be going through something similar.  I found when looking online 14 months ago barely any stories/blogs about it, I wanted to know that someone else had come about the other side and that it was going to be ok.

My story is a bit different i think, I have 4 healthy young children already all 6 and under and I have been with my husband for 15 years.

It was 2 weeks before Christmas 2017, I was one week late with my period and ‘I just knew’, I remember going on with the day as usual, and once I’d got the children to sleep and had my first g&t did the test. I sat in the loo and watched the test change to pregnant pretty fast…it was an unusual feeling, i felt like i was sinking, and started to shake…’not again’ I thought, for someone who ‘needed help’ conceiving her first child I didn’t seem to have much of a problem getting knocked up anymore. My husband was upstairs, and I remember him coming downstairs, I told him that I was pregnant, and he had a small nervous grin ‘oh, what do you want to do? We will cope’ But I didn’t want to just ‘cope’

I had always been quite pro choice, I always thought that it wouldn’t be a big deal ‘getting rid’ however it was quite the opposite. We were irresponsible getting pregnant, we both knew the consequences, but would i be more irresponsible keeping it? I struggled most days looking after the 3 kids i had, let alone a newborn baby, did I want to go through it all again, the sleepless nights, the breastfeeding, and believe me that was the easy part, carrying my third was the hardest thing i had to do, I struggled to walk towards the end of the pregnancy due to having a dodgy pelvis, and my patience were worn thin.

I spent what felt like days contemplating what was the best decision, i spent hours crying and falling into some sort of a depression. I felt guilty and irresponsible. All I kept thinking is that it wouldn’t be fair on the other 3 children if i carried on with the pregnancy, I wouldn’t be able to dedicate enough time to each of them, I wanted to move on from the baby stage. Would I ever get any free time with my husband again? Would we be able to afford another one? I wanted to be able to go on holidays without constantly worrying about a newborn routine, or a toddler falling in the pool I wanted to get on with life and enjoy the 3 healthy children I had. I wanted to be able to take them to nice places, to put them through private school education, and for all of them to be able to enjoy the array of after school activities that they had the option of doing….a fifth would change all that.

So that was that, I had decided.

It was now the week before Christmas, I called Marie Stopes for the telephone consultation who said that I wouldn’t be able to have my appointment until the week after Christmas (2 weeks later), then I would need to go back a week later to have the surgical procedure. By this point I would be 10 weeks, I remember having a scan with my first born at 10 weeks, it had a heart beat, it looked like a baby…fuck.

That Christmas was the worst, my head was all over the place, emotionally I was drained. I was so so sick (I always thought of this as Karma).

I had the first appointment and they scanned me, they asked if I want to have surgery or take 2 tablets orally, I decided straight away I wanted the surgery, I wanted it to be over as quickly as possible, I had read the tablets can drag on a bit, so  I was booked in the following week.

It was the first Thursday of January, because of the Christmas break i’d had to wait a ridiculously long time for the surgery, but today was the day that it would be over.  My husband came with me, when we arrived we were greeted with Pro Life campaigners (as if the whole process isn’t hard enough, and I believe they no longer are allowed to be outside the clinic) My husband couldn’t come in with me. I was taken upstairs and told to get changed in to the gown, I remember sitting in this tiny changing room (almost a cupboard) in tears. Was I doing the right thing? What am I doing? How did I get here? I felt so alone. The nurse (who was lovely) came to get me, my hands felt cold but sweaty from nerves, and she took me to the room where what felt like 20 people stood staring at me whilst i put my legs in stirrups. The last words of the anaesthetist ‘are you sure of your decision?’, ‘yes’ i said. 

I woke up with a massive sense of relief, although the decision was hard, it was over. I decided from that day that I wasn’t going to look back, there was no point, it was done. I had to learn from what had happened, and I had. Never again will I go through that.