I don't think of myself as pregnant. I think of someone who will be having an abortion.
By anonymous on 05/05/2008
Last week I found out I was pregnant. It had been in the back of my mind for about a week after I failed to get my period. I kept telling myself I was imagining it as my periods can be late sometimes. The condom had split and I took the morning after pill less than 24 hours afterwards, but it failed. I never thought this would happen to me. I finally took two tests, both said positive. Straight away my mind was made up that I couldn't keep it. I'm at university in a different country. If I had kept it, I would have had to return to my family and rely on them for everything, something which is not fair on anybody. I couldn't have given this baby anything.
I don't think of myself as pregnant. I think of someone who will be having an abortion. Seeing babies or pregnant woman has no affect on me. I know, I sound heartless but this is truly the right thing. Maybe I haven’t quite accepted I am pregnant. Even today at the hospital, I half hoped that there had been some sort of mistake. I went to a family planning clinic the next day where they confirmed I was pregnant. Up to then I was wishing that the tests were wrong. They referred me to an NHS hospital. Two days later (today) I was at the clinic where I had an internal scan, my blood pressure and blood taken. It was decided for me that I would have a medical abortion.
Before today I had read about it, but now I'm worried about the experience. I'm in no doubt about my decision, and seeing the dad today confirmed that it's the right thing to do, but I'm scared of the pain and the amount of blood I’ll lose. I'm a complete wimp when it comes to anything like that and I'm scared I won't be able to cope. The fact that people can bleed for weeks is scaring me as well. I wish I was having a surgical abortion but now I have no choice. I'm booked in for it in three weeks. This is the only chance someone will be able to come with me as they won’t do it if I have to travel home myself. Only two friends know, but I can't tell them how scared I am about the experience as they just tell me it will be fine, but I can't believe them. I want to believe that it won't be as bad as I think, but I know it will. This will be the longest three weeks of my life.
I don't think I will regret it, but who knows. I'll always think "what if?" but that’s the secret I'll have to deal with for the rest of my life. I'll be eight weeks pregnant when it happens.
Editor’s note: Thanks for writing in and telling us about your situation…You have had quite a shock, haven’t you? You did everything you could to avoid pregnancy, but unfortunately none of us has the level of control over these things as we would like. Pregnancies can be amazingly tenacious.
You’ve had such a shock that you initially found it very hard to believe you were pregnant, and when you did begin to believe it, you hoped against hope that you weren’t. This is something we do to protect ourselves from truths we don’t want to accept. The fact that you made a decision right at the start, when you were in shock, tells me that you have probably not thought deeply about what’s involved in an abortion. It’s not just about your circumstances but also about the message from your heart. Although it seems that your primary concern is about the procedure itself, and the pain you might experience, I wonder how much this is distracting you from the reality of what an abortion is.
You are not being heartless in your decision. You are under great pressure from difficult circumstances. However, your decision may have been made without paying attention to your heart. It’s vital in any decision that you listen to the message from your heart as well as your logical ‘head’, so that you can take everything into account and then make a decision. Not listening to your heart’s message may mean emotional pain later on.
There are wider issues too – going ahead with an abortion may mean a heavy burden for you because it’s a secret from your family. Perhaps you are not allowing them to love you as they might want to if they knew about your difficult situation. These are all things that need to be weighed up before you make a decision. You have time. Visit your nearest centre, ring the helpline of use Online Advisor to talk it through with an experienced advisor. We’ll be thinking of you.
