February 26, 2003
It was the summer of '84, I was 17 years old at the time. I was dating an older guy whom I'd had a huge crush on for months. I thought he was just everything. We both were into partying and drugs, and spent all of our dates getting high.
I had been sexually active since the young age of 13, and had never been on any type of birth control.
After a couple months of dating this guy I noticed that I wasn't having my period. I never really kept up with it, so I wasn't sure how far behind I was, but I knew that I needed to start. I began spotting just a tiny amount of blood and thought for sure my period was soon to come. It wasn't.
One morning, before school, I felt fine and was thirsty. So I got myself an orange soda pop from the fridge. I took a couple drinks and began to feel like I was going to vomit. I ran to the bathroom and vomited it back up. I then knew that I was more than likely pregnant, but for some reason, I was in complete denial.
I live in a very small town and told a couple of my close friends of my fear of being pregnant. Soon it was all over school.
I went to the local health department for a test, and of course it came out positive. I was completely frozen with fear. I was afraid of how my mother would react if she found out. She and I had a terrible relationship at the time and I knew I couldn't share this with her. I was probably around 6 or 8 weeks by this time.
I told my boyfriend and he reacted in disbelief, like maybe it was someone else's, and that hurt me so badly.
Like I said, I was afraid of my mother's reaction, but much more so than her, I feared my grandmother most of all. She had raised me in church, with high morals and values. I just knew that I would definitely be disowned and thrown out of my family. It was the most horrible time of my life. I was completely torn. I was so afraid of everything, I just wanted to wake up from this horrible dream. I didn't have anyone that I could turn to for advice.
I had an older cousin who lived in a town a couple hours from my home. I called her and told her of what was going on. She agreed to help me with an abortion. I went to visit her, and she must have had a change of heart because she said that we had to tell my mother. I let her break the news to her. They decided that I'd go back the next week for an abortion. My mother didn't even ask me what I wanted to do, she just decided this was best.
On the long ride back home to our house from my cousin's, she didn't speak a word to me, she was very angry with me. I felt most horrible, like scum. One thing that really bugs me about it was that I know in my heart that my mother secretly knew that I was pregnant and didn't try to help me. She was there the morning I got sick and vomited the soda, she was making comments on my weight gain, and just before I made the first trip to my cousin's, she bought me a brand new sweat pant set, she could see that all my clothes were tight fitting around my abdomen. I know that she knew I was going to my cousin's for an abortion, a secret abortion. Why couldn't she just have talked with me about all this? Maybe we could have prevented this mess. If I'd have had just a little support from her, I don't believe I'd have had the abortion. Sounds like I'm projecting blame, and maybe I am, but heck she was my mom! I was a child, practically.
About a week later my mother took me to my cousin's where she then drove us to a small clinic. I honestly had been in such a denial of all this, I didn't know how far along I was. We went in for the procedure and I was given a sedative, Valium. Then I went in for an ultrasound to find out exactly how far along I was.
Turns out I was too far along for the facility. I was crying my heart out, it was awful. I was projected to be at around 14 weeks at this point. We then had to make another appointment in a town about an hour from this town. So my mother and I left my cousin's home coming back to our town again. We never once, not even one time, spoke of this pregnancy. She wouldn't talk with me hardly at all about anything. It was so awful, I felt like I was the most horrible sinner in the world.
The morning of the abortion was finally here and we went to this huge clinic with my cousin. There just happen to be a woman and her daughter there from our town, how ironic is that? She was getting an abortion, too. I was so ashamed, even though I knew that they were there for the same reason we were, I was still filled with shame and so depressed.
I have to believe that I've blocked some of this day out of my memory, so I'll just share with you all what I can. I was sent to a room filled with about 20 other women waiting for their turns. No one was talking much, it was very somber in this room. One young girl began to talk with me. She shared that this was her 3rd abortion and she was just so calm about this all, she even seemed cheerful. I could not understand this girl at all.
Then it came time for me to talk with the counselor. She was a pretty lady and she was very nice. She did talk to me about most of what was happening, but I still had no idea of what this was going to do to me, both physically and emotionally. All I could think of was that my grandmother would disown me if I told her that I was pregnant, so I told the lady that I had to go through with it. She didn't try to change my mind on the issue, she just urged me to go along with what I thought was best.
It was an all day wait. This was a huge clinic that performed well over a hundred abortions a day. I had all day long to dread over this, and I was dreading it more and more as time kept going by.
Finally they put some of us on gurneys and wheeled us to a room just outside the operating room. They started an IV in my arm and told me to relax. I was so exhausted, I drifted off to sleep. When I awoke, they were just getting ready for me. I laid there and began to panic, I thought that there was no way that I could do this, I could not kill my baby! But then the image of my grandma would pop right back into my head and I knew that she wouldn't ever have anything more to do with me as long as I lived… (of course now, when it's too late, I know that I was wrong). It was awful, this was probably my first panic attack and it was horrid.
All I remember from then on is that I was wheeled into the operating room, the doctors were joking and trying to make me relax and there was music in the background. They gave me something in my IV and soon I was out like a light.
The next thing I remember was waking up and in pain with lots of blood on me. I got myself cleaned up and went back out to meet with my mother and cousin. I was actually the very last abortion of the day. That was God giving me all that time to back out, to do the right thing, but I didn't…
My grandmother never did find out the truth, but we've had conversation's since concerning abortion and teen pregnancy. She tells me that if she'd ever had a girl that had gotten pregnant that she would have stood behind her and never would have allowed her to have an abortion. I guess I'll never know.
Since the abortion, in all of God's goodness and glory, He's completely forgiven me of this most horrible act. He's even blessed me with two beautiful and most healthy children… But… psychologically, emotionally and physically I am a wreck!
I have so many health issues I don't know where to begin. I was never sick a day before the abortion, could go anywhere and do anything I wanted anytime I wanted to. But since the abortion I've gone from bad to worse. I have lower abdominal pain constantly, in which the doctor's have no cure for. I have panic attacks and can't travel. And worse than all of this is the fact that I have to live with the decision that I made all those years ago. I have to live with the shame and guilt of that decision. Although I know that I'm truly forgiven by God, I cannot seem to forgive myself. I'll always wonder what my baby would have looked like and I think about this child most every day of my life now.
* Not her real name
