I bunked the morning off school and took the test in a petrol garage toilet. It only cost 2.99. It was positive.

By anonymous on 17/12/2007
It was two days after my fifteenth birthday when I took the test. I had missed my period for about two weeks but I didn’t want to take the test. My friends persuaded me to. I bunked the morning off school and took the test in a petrol garage toilet. It only cost 2.99. It was positive.

I don't know what I felt. I didn't feel sad or happy. I didn't even cry. I was so shocked. I rang the father that night. He was a boy I had liked for around two years, but we weren’t together. We had just been sleeping together. He was a horrible person and I don’t know why I slept with him. What made it worse was we used a condom every time. He said he would stand by me and go to the clinic with me, obviously thinking I would have an abortion. And the same with my friends. The first thought was what would I do to have an abortion, not that I had a choice. I felt I didn't have a choice: I was 15, GCSEs this year. I wanted to go to university, get a good job - somewhat different to my friends, who didn't care about their exams. They all wanted to do hair and beauty and called me a geek for doing well in my exams.

I didn’t want to tell my mum, and the father didn’t want to tell his. I had no one to turn to and no one to talk to. I said once that I wanted to keep the baby. 'No, you can't, it will ruin your life', 'No parties', 'No boys will ever want you'. But it didn’t seem important to me. I didn’t care about the parties and boys. But I went along with it and planned the abortion.

I had a scan at one of the clinics, and even though I was only 8 weeks and it was only a blob, I could see where a baby would have grown. Where my baby would have grown. The day itself was the worst of my entire life. I remember everything, from all the women waiting, all the older women. I remember the nurses, the room and what they said to me. When I came around, I felt empty, I burst into tears and was taken into the resting room. I was hysterical. I was allowed to leave, and to make the bus journey home, which took around an hour.

From that day, I have felt nothing other than regret and guilt. Whenever I see a baby or a pregnant woman I feel upset, annoyed. The father hasn’t spoken to me since the abortion. Or even shown he cared. I found out he was trying to get with my friend at the time of going through it. My mum found out and I should have told her. I would have been able to talk about my choices. I even went to counselling, but the two sessions I went to seemed to make me even more upset so I stopped going. I know what I did was the best in my situation, but I could have made it work. I felt I had no choice. I also found out that one of my friends had an abortion a month previously, I just wish I had known, I would have been able to talk to someone. Then a month later, another one of my friends had an abortion. I tried my best to explain how I felt, but the father threatened her and made it impossible for her.

It was the worst thing I have ever done, and I felt I had no choice. To anyone that is pregnant, please think about your choices and what is best for your baby, not just for you. And please talk to someone.

Editor’s note: Thank you for sharing about your experience with us…What I notice about your story is your sense of powerlessness at the time – circumstances and the opinions of others made it difficult for you to feel that you had a choice. I wonder if your annoyed feeling has something to do with this? It sounds as if there are many layers to your response – grief, guilt, loss, anger - that still need to be explored with you so that you can be released and relate in a better way to your abortion experience.

You say you went for counselling but stopped after a short while because it made you even more upset. This is the case with post-abortion counselling. Facing and acknowledging the pain inside you is part of coming to terms with the abortion. But you’re not left in that painful place. You come through that and can then begin the journey upward, working on accountability, forgiveness and letting go. You’re actually left in a better place than when you started. You can receive this specialist counselling for free at one of our centres, or through Online Advisor. It’s not too late for healing and recovery, and I want to encourage you to reach out for it again, because there is more for you in life than being burdened with this pain.

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