November 22, 2002
I had just started off in a new relationship. I already had a 5-month-old baby daughter.
Two months later, I started to have all the signs of pregnancy, but I kept it to myself for about 3 weeks. Once the morning sickness started, I decided it was time to go and have a pregnancy test done.
By the time I had the test done, I was 6 weeks into the pregnancy. I felt happy at the time.
Then I told the father, and everything went down from there. He did not want a child, and asked me, honestly did I want another so soon?
I thought about it for another week, then decided it was wrong to have another child as I already had a 5 month old and didn’t think I could cope with two toddlers.
So the decision was made.
I went back to the doctor’s where he referred me through to Greenlane Hospital’s abortion clinic. The date was then set. It was to be Friday 13th August 1999.
The morning that I went to the clinic, I remember walking in and seeing a lot of other women there — all for the same reason I was. It was horrible.
Then I got handed two lots of pills to take. One was a sedative, and the other to soften up the cervix. Once I had taken these, I knew there was no turning back.
Next thing I remember is the nurse coming into my cubicle. It was my turn for a termination, and that’s when it hit me.
I couldn’t stop crying through the whole procedure. My partner didn’t even come along with me. Instead, it was my best friend’s partner who held my hand through it all.
After they had finished, I was escorted back to my bed for about half an hour. All I did there was cry and cry, and think about how selfish I was to do this sort of thing.
I went home about an hour later, and was still very saddened by what I had done. I did, however, bring home the foetus and bury it under a shrub in the garden, sort of my way of grieving.
Not long after that, I became very withdrawn and didn’t even want to spend time with my daughter — all through guilt of what I had done.
My mother ended up making me go back to the doctor, as she was worried about me. He told me I was clinically depressed. More than likely it was brought on by me having the termination.
If I could turn back time, I would have thought about it a lot more, and maybe my decision would have been different.
I’m not saying that termination is a bad thing, and don’t do it. All I’m saying is that it is something that you really need to think through properly before going ahead, and make sure you have heaps of support. Mentally you can really suffer from it if you don’t think through it properly.
