I had a medical termination and was 8 and a half weeks pregnant.
By anonymous on 13/04/2011
I recently had an abortion, around five months ago. I had a medical termination and was 8 and a half weeks pregnant. I now regret my decision hugely and there is not a day where I wish I could go back and decide to keep my child.I was around 5 weeks when I discovered I was pregnant. I began to experience feelings of nausea but I wasn't actually being sick at that stage, just gagging at certain smells like deodorant, cleaning products and petrol. I thought this was odd and later realised I was 2 weeks late for my period.
The next day I went and bought a pregnancy test, I'd had scares before and they'd all been negative, so in a way I was expecting it to be negative. When it came out positive I was unbelievably shocked and didn't know what to do.
I did nothing for the next few hours trying to let it sink in, but it didn't. I then sent a text to the father telling him I needed to tell him something important, within a matter of minutes he text back saying 'Don't tell me you're pregnant'. I began to feel sick with nerves, but I knew I had to tell him sometime. I decided to ring him rather then tell him by text. Once I told him he made a joke about it, I found none of this funny and didn't understand why he was trying to make light of such a serious matter. He then went on to say that it was going to be fine and we'd make a doctor's appointment to get it 'sorted'. He seemed so calm about the situation. Although I didn't ask about this I assumed he ment an abortion, as we'd had a conversation about children before and he made it quite clear he didn't want any anytime soon.
The thought of abortion was one I'd always disagreed with
I wasn't actively against it and understood that there were justifiable reasons why women had them, personally but I always said I would never have one. Now faced with an unplanned pregnancy where the father did not want our child made me question actually having one. We had only known each other a few months and weren't officially together, people had warned me about his reputation and told me to be careful. Of course I didn't listen, I had begun to fall for him and really liked him. I didn't want to upset him or go against him so I began to consider abortion.I told only a few of my very close friends and all seemed to think carrying on with the pregnancy was a bad idea as I am only 18 and was planning on going to university in September. They told me I had the rest of my life ahead to have a family. Although I was still unsure about what to do I made a doctor's appointment because if I was going to have an abortion I knew the earlier you have it the less risk there was of complications. I managed to get an appointment for the next day.
At this point I had started to actually be sick. I suffered from really bad morning sickness whilst I was pregnant. I would feel extremely nauseous from when I woke up in the morning til around the late evening, and would be violently sick atleast every hour. I could barely keep any food or drink down, and wouldn't even attempt to eat til evening time. Even a sip of water would usually result in me being sick.
I would spend most of the day in bed because even getting up and walking around made the sickness worse. My severe morning sickness resulted in me losing around a stone in weight. When I went to my doctor's appointment I didn't tell the father I had it as he hadn't contacted me in about a week and I didn't want to ask him to come as I was scared what he might say, even though he had previously said we would go together. I went to the appointment and even the doctor suggested that it would perhaps be best that I ended the pregnancy as I wanted to go to university, I wasn't in a stable relationship and I was unable to tell me parents.
My mum was so set on me going to university and had previously made comments that she wasn't ready to be a grandmother. I said I was still unsure about what I wanted to do but my doctor made the appointment at the hospital for me in the following week anyway and said if I wanted to it was there for me to go to.
I decided to let the father know that I had been to the doctor's and that the appointment at the hospital had been made. He seemed pleased, saying 'that's great'.
The night before my initial hospital appointment he asked me to go see him, I hadn't seen him in a few weeks and was happy to go and see him. He knew I had the hospital appointment early the next morning and although I knew he had work, he didn't even offer or explain why he couldn't come. We barely spoke about the appointment but I told him a few times that I was really scared.
In the morning he booked me a taxi to the hospital as I didn't want to catch a bus while being sick. I went to get the taxi and he seemed really off with me, and didn't really say goodbye, this made me feel upset and added to my nerves.
I was a little late for my appointment and felt as if everyone was staring at me. I luckily got seen straight away. They did a scan which showed a was a little over 7 weeks. They then took some tests and asked me whether I wanted to go ahead with this, I said yes.
I felt pressured into having an abortion and that it was what was expected of me
No one I told said I should keep the baby, I was scared and didn't give it enough thought and just assumed it was the right thing to do.They seemed concerned about the amount I was being sick so gave me an anti sickness injection and a prescription for anti sickness tablets.
The following week I went back to take my first pill, it was a Wednesday and I was now around 8 and a half weeks pregnant. One of my closest friends came with me which really helped not being alone. I felt sick with nerves. The nurse I saw was friendly and explained the procedure and what may happen after taking this first pill. I took the pill and was told to come back in two days for the next lot of pills.
I went back on the Friday for the next lot of pills, I went on my own this time as my friend couldn't get the time off work and again I felt I couldn't ask the father.
I arrived early and was the only person there. The doctor saw me shortly and inserted the pills into my vagina. She explained that I may experience severe cramps, sickness and diarrhoea. I decided it would be best to try and sleep, hoping I would be able to sleep through it all. I slept for about half hour, the ward was pretty noisy as there were about 4 others there also having a medical termination.
All the other women had there partners with them, this made me feel really upset and lonely. I began to shiver uncontrollably as though I had a temperature. I got extremely painful stomach cramps, diarrhoea and was still being quite badly sick. This lasted for several hours, during this time I bled quite a lot and had lots of large blood clots. Everytime I went to the toilet or changed my sanitary towel I was told to leave it for the nurses to check. I went to the toilet to change my sanitary towel and there was a large lump of tissue there. I instantly knew what it was and began to feel very emotional.
The nurses checked and confirmed that I had 'passed the foetus'
I burst into tears. They let me go several hours later. I bled quite heavily for the next two weeks but had no complications.I'd heard of women who felt a lot of relief after, I didn't feel this in the slightest. I went back to work the next day (which I wouldn't recommend doing) and I resummed the life I had before I was pregnant. It wasn't until a couple of months after that it really hit me what had happened.
