Author: Brie Isabela

The consequences of your choices never quite hit you the way you think they will. Especially when choosing to terminate a pregnancy.

Towards the end of my senior year of high school, I had a casual encounter with a guy who was a little older than me. One thing led to another and we ended up having sex. In the past, I have always tried my best to be safe. I was on the pill throughout my sophomore and junior years, but had to go off of it due to hormonal complications. This time, though, I wasn’t being careful.

Nearly four weeks and a missed period later, I found out I was pregnant.

I immediately broke down and had no idea what to do. Coming from a strict Catholic upbringing, abortions were very taboo, and although I did (and do) have a pro-choice stance, I never thought of it would be a decision I’d ever have to make. After my panic settled, I turned to a few close friends —my mom, and the guy I had slept with — for guidance and support. I went through a roller-coaster of emotions and discussions. Finally, the decision I made was to have abortion.

Having very limited knowledge of what exactly happens at an abortion appointment and not knowing anyone personally who had ever had one, I was going in blind and very scared. I went into my two appointments alone and cried pretty much the entire time. When it was time for the abortion — choosing the surgical option — I changed into a hospital gown and was given a combination of pills to prepare me for the procedure. They made me stay in a private waiting room with two other girls who were also there for abortions. The nurse called my name, brought me into another room, and made me lie down. At this point, I felt the medication kick in and was slightly lightheaded. The clinician then explained to me what was going to happen before we started. The procedure itself went by really quickly, around five minutes, and then I rested and bled out for about an hour. I went back home after that and rested for the next couple of days. Physically, I recovered pretty quickly and was able to return to everyday routines only a few days after the procedure. But the real price to pay for my decision was the emotional turmoil that followed.

 

Denial

Before even getting an abortion, I had to find out and deal with the fact that I was pregnant when I didn’t want to be. After I saw those two lines on the home pregnancy test, I took two more just to be sure, bawling my eyes out after each read positive.

18 years-old and a few weeks away from graduating high school, I was nowhere near ready to be a mother. Although the guy I had conceived with was a good guy, there was no way a co-parenting situation was going to work out between us. I was in flat out shock that I was pregnant, not because I didn’t know what I did was wrong (I’d had unprotected sex), but because I never thought my carelessness would catch up with me. I thought, how bad could it be? It was just one time. I wanted to believe that my pregnancy wasn’t real. This attitude carried over into getting the abortion, as well. I just tried my best to act like nothing had happened and not acknowledge all the feelings I was sweeping under the rug. And it worked at the beginning. What I didn’t realize was that I was bottling up my emotions — and they eventually caught up with me, too.

This is when I started getting the worst flashbacks. They felt like a consequence… as if because I was ignoring the situation, I had to be reminded of it by living through everything over and over again.

 

Grief

Having a pro-choice view on abortion, I understood that the embryo I was carrying was not a full-grown baby. When finding out I was pregnant, however, there was no way to stop the what ifs and and maternal instincts from taking over. I knew deep inside that I wanted to keep the child. At one point, I even thought of names and how I was going to raise him or her. You could even say I was slightly excited to be a mother. I knew being a single mom was going to be tough, but at the end of the day, the child was going to be a blessing. Yet the hardships I would have to face were too much to handle, and I was not ready to raise a child.

When it was time to make the final decision, despite electing for a termination, I still hadn’t quite let go of the maternal attachment and all the optimism I had for raising my baby. It was going to be my child. After the abortion, I couldn’t help but feel like I had lost something or someone so dear to me.

I struggled with validating my feelings of grief because, in truth, I had chosen the outcome. I still have recurring thoughts of how I could’ve chosen differently. But I’m slowly starting to go through the process of mourning the loss of my baby and asking for his or her forgiveness.

 

Forgiveness

If I’m being completely honest, I haven’t quite reached the point where I can say that I’ve found peace through all of this. What I have learned so far is that the journey to recovering from this emotionally has a lot to do with acceptance, growth, and rebuilding myself. Accepting that I was careless and let the heat of the moment slip was the first step. I can never change that, but what I can change is how I will handle and prioritize my reproductive health in the future.

When it comes to accepting my pregnancy and ultimately my decision to terminate, the process of healing has less to do with the situation itself than it does with finding the will to forgive myself. I had begun to see myself only in the light of my mistakes, and this made me realize the effect the situation had/has on my mental health. I am not my mistakes. And although our choices make us who we are, I can’t define who I am based upon the shame, guilt, and turmoil I have placed upon myself.

 

Support

This is a point I can’t stress enough. It’s super important to have a loving support system when going through tough times. For some people, they see an abortion as one of the best decisions they’ve made in their lives and have no trouble with it afterwards. As this clearly wasn’t the case for me, I needed the help of people close to me. That said, I wasn’t so keen on reaching out to loved ones. I felt the weight of my situation, and didn’t want to pass it on to others. It also didn’t help that the fear of being judged or shamed was something always running through the back of my mind. Ultimately, I knew this wasn’t something I could go through alone, as the guilt and internal conflict were starting to eat me up.

I began by reaching out to anonymous support groups online where I could join forums with other women who shared their own abortion experiences and how they got through it. I was able to receive really helpful advice and relieve myself of the shame surrounding what I had gone through. I will probably never meet these women in person, but I have no idea what I would’ve done if I had never come across them. When I became comfortable with talking about it, I started reaching out to a few close friends. These were probably the first moments when I felt that things were going to be truly okay. I am so blessed to have the close friends I have, and they reinforced the love needed to get through this.

 

Life after an abortion

Everyone tells you that part of being an adult is making tough decisions, but I never quite understood the magnitude of what that meant until I was faced with the consequences of one of the toughest personal experiences I’ve ever gone through. At the tender age of 18, the experience did mark a very significant point in my life. It’s easy to think of it as just a decision about my future based on my present circumstances, but it’s hard to ignore the realities of how this impacted everything I see and do from here on out.

Will I be able to be intimate again without the mind-crippling anxiety? How will this affect me in the future when I’m ready to have children? I still struggle with unanswered questions. Yes, I will heal. Yes, I will cry about it again. Yes, I will learn. Yes, I will continue to go over this time in my life again and again and again.

And I still worry that I will never be able to say I’m truly “okay,” but I hope I’m wrong about that one. Through the time and space I am giving myself to find peace, I know deep in my heart that I’m doing my best to get through this.

Even after everything that has happened, I still believe in a woman’s right to choose. Although deciding to get an abortion was and is a very conflicting experience for me — and I’m sometimes visited by feelings of regret — I understand that every woman’s experience and circumstances vary; there is no one-situation-fits-all when going through with an abortion. Every woman’s story is different and each woman should have the right to choose what happens to her body and her life. I hope to one day draw enough strength from my own experience to help other women go through what I am going through.

 

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Click here to read a previously published personal account of what happens at an apportion appointment. 

If you are considering getting an abortion and want free, unbiased information, you can call the NAF Hotline at 1-800-772-9100 — representatives are available to speak with you during the week from 7AM-11PM, and on weekends from 9AM-5PM.