Yes. I had an abortion.
I wanted to wait a little longer to write about this but I just can’t. I had an abortion in July of 2020. I moved to Colorado in December of 2020. Oklahoma has started passing pro life legislation nonstop starting April 2021.
Even though I no longer live in Oklahoma and I am no longer in a relationship with someone that would beg me to get an abortion, I am still extremely triggered by seeing all of this happening. I feel more shame and embarrassment right now than I did in July. And I am completely unsure of what to do. So I will just tell you the story of what happened.
I stopped having periods in the middle of my chemo experience back in 2015. I had many tests done and it was determined that I had gone into menopause. It was kind of funny at the time because my parents and a lot of their friends were also going through menopause and I was one of them, even though I was still in high school. My doctors had no idea if or when my periods would return/ the status of my fertility. There were thoughts that maybe my egg count was lowered or maybe the quality of my eggs had diminished. There was a doctor who wanted to harvest my eggs before I started chemo, but we didn’t have time for that after discovering cancer cells in my bone marrow. After I was declared cancer free I considered having my ovaries removed since I had to go through hormone replacement therapy for the foreseeable future. For some reason, at 18 that made sense to me. It didn’t end up happening and I just stopped caring.
I went all through college without getting pregnant. I could’ve been safer when it came to having sex, but I knew I wasn’t going to get pregnant so it made me pretty irresponsible (sorry mom and dad). I went from using estrogen patches and progesterone pills to going onto regular birth control, like I said, I was on hormone replacement therapy. I was taking these things because for so long I was not producing my own hormones, and I really didn’t want to develop osteoporosis before 30.
But then a really random thing happened. I was sold expired birth control by my pharmacy and didn’t notice until I had been taking it for over a month. My periods returned. But instead of going back on birth control, I decided to ride this wave of no longer being menopausal. I didn’t do well on hormonal birth control before menopause, it made me suicidal. I had just started antidepressants and they were working and I didn’t want to ruin that. So I just went on without birth control. And this is the part of the story where a lot of you will think I had it coming to me because I didn’t go back on birth control. And that isn’t just my shame talking, there are people who will think that.
From October 2019 to November 2020, I was not on birth control. Around December 2019, I started dating someone. Since we were in a committed and exclusive relationship, we didn’t have the safest sex (sorry mom and dad). And for a long time, we were just fine. I think we fell into this idea that even though I got periods sometimes, I still couldn’t reproduce. And then in May of 2020 I had a very strange period. It was heavy and painful and my blood was very dark. It lasted a long time so I contacted my OBGYN and she told me that I had most likely miscarried. Miscarried? What? So I was pregnant?
And just as I recovered from my miscarriage I became pregnant again. But this time, I didn't miscarry.
I found out I was pregnant because I had a dream that I took a pregnancy test and it was positive. This woke me up out of my deep sleep and I went to take a pregnancy test (I always keep them in my home). And of course, it was positive. Even though it was five in the morning, I crept into my roommate’s room and cried in their arms. I didn't go to work that day. I made my boyfriend at the time come over before he had work. I told him what happened. And I am pretty sure that was the day he stopped loving me.
Now here is the thing. Most of the time that I was pregnant, I really wanted to keep it. More often then not I was crying about how I wanted this baby. This was the pregnancy I was told might not ever happen. But my boyfriend didn't want it at all. From the moment I told him, the only option given was abortion. And I understand why, I was 22 and he was 21. We were both broke beyond belief, his family would demonize him, he was in a band and didn’t want that kind of responsibility. The reasons go on and on. But at the root of it all, we weren’t ready, financially, emotionally, physically, etc. We just weren’t ready. And this broke my heart more than I could ever explain.
So I got the abortion. It was so early on that it wasn’t surgical. I just took two pills and it was done. Well, I bled profusely for several days and passed out in the shower one night, so it wasn't like a walk in the park. There were people protesting out front the day that I went, they were tapping on our car windows and yelling over megaphones. They had a creepy van across the street that advertised “other options”. Thankfully the people inside were kind, quick, and efficient. But there is nothing glamorous about abortion. It is a necessary medical procedure, not a fun day at the spa. Its something I pray I never have to do again for any reason.
Most people in my life knew that I had gotten an abortion but I had to hide it from some of the people I worked with. I just knew if one my managers and his wife found out then I would be fired. After all, I was still in Oklahoma at the time. My boyfriend wouldn’t dare touch me again after the abortion, he would barely kiss me. We would eventually break up during my roommate’s birthday party. He woke up one day and no longer found me attractive, he no longer loved me. And though I know this wasn’t intentional, it deepened my shame. My body has still yet to return to a form that I can recognize. I look at myself and become so confused, I have never looked like this or weighed this amount. I have stretch marks that plague all my intimate areas, these would be so beautiful to me if I had actually created and carried life for more than a few weeks. I plunged into one of the darkest moments of my life and it cost me so much.
So yes, I had an abortion. I was pro choice before and I will be pro choice for the rest of my life. My abortion didn’t change that and it never will. Yeah, I feel a shit ton of shame around the beginning and aftermath, but that shame is specific to me and my circumstances. My shame isn’t due to the procedure and process of having an abortion, it was what I had to do. It's something that countless people have to do, and it doesn’t matter what their reason is. It doesn't matter that I hadn't been on birth control, you can tell me all day long that I should’ve been more careful and I agree but I can’t take it back.
The shame that I am feeling lately has to do with the fact that my home state, the state I got an abortion in, is passing so much pro life legislation. They are banning something that I did less than a year ago. And it makes me feel evil and dirty because people like me are being made to feel that way. I am not evil or dirty, and neither is anyone else who gets an abortion. I feel demonized and after I post this that will probably increase, but I did what was right for me. I can say that it was the right thing to do and still grieve. I can know it was the right thing to do and still feel regret sometimes. These things can go hand in hand, abortion is a hard choice to make. Why are you trying to make it even harder?
Thank you for reading and allowing me to be so vulnerable. I hope this helps someone feeling the way I feel. And if you need more help then check this other blog out.
https://whatsyourgrief.com/grief-abortion-healing-unspoken-loss/
