I'm 19 and recently had a surgical abortion under general anaesthetic

By anonymous on 29/06/2014
I'm 19 and recently had a surgical abortion under general anaesthetic, which I now regret and cannot stop thinking about it and getting upset. I had been on the pill for nearly a year at the time when I fell pregnant in November 2013, so I thought I was safe (I know not 100%) from getting pregnant. One night I went home and had sex with a boy I knew, we had been have casual sex for a while. About a month and a half later I began to get concerned because every time I drank alcohol I threw up and there were several days where I would randomly throw up. I was also feeling sick all the time and would burp all the time. So I went to see my doctor in my home town and he said he thought I had an acid reflux problem and prescribed me with some tablets. These didn't work so I went to see my doctors at my university and I had some blood tests done to rule out any stomach illnesses (I don't know what he tested for).The results came back fine and he told me he thought I had IBS and I was given some tablets to try to see if they helped. I took the tablets for a few weeks and they didn't help, I had also began to notice that my stomach felt like it was Stretching. Over this period of time since I had sex in November I had taken my pill back to back a couple of times in order to not have a period so I would not have known that I was actually missing my period because I was pregnant. Just before Christmas I went home from university and forgot to take a new pill pack home, so I finished the one I had and thought it would be ok to not take my pill over Christmas as I knew I wouldn't be having sex. When I had finished the pack I had I had an abnormally short bleed which I thought was my period (it was in fact a withdrawal bleed from the pill). I then came back to university after Christmas and was waiting for my next period to come so I could start taking my pill again. This period never came, I thought it was due to me messing up with my pill over Christmas or due to stress. I then waited another month for my period and it still never came, but I didn't think anything of it because I was sure there was no way I could be pregnant. The tablets for the IBS the doctor gave me didn't help so at the end of February 2014 I went back to see him. He felt my stomach and said it felt swollen, so he decided to do an internal examination. From this he concluded that I had a cyst on my ovary and was going to arrange for me to have a scan. I left the doctors and a few minutes later the doctor called me to say that he'd just realised that we hadn't tested for the obvious thing. So I went back and did a pregnancy test. I couldn't believe it when the nurse waved it in my face and told me it was positive. The doctor then came in and said he was going to measure my stomach to estimate how far gone I was. He told me that he thought I was 4 to 4 and a half months pregnant. The next day I went to have a scan (thinking that the doctor had got it wrong and they were going to tell me I wasn't pregnant). But to my disappointment they confirmed that I was 18 weeks and 4 days pregnant. I was told that I was too far gone to have any choice in what abortion procedure I wanted to have, my only choice was to have a surgical abortion (Dilation and evacuation). I had my abortion booked for the following week. It was the hardest week of my life because I was unsure of whether I wanted the abortion or not. I told my parents and my sister and they were so supportive of my decision and really helped me through the difficult time. At the time I had decided not to tell the father of the baby because I was scared to and had planned to never actually tell him. However, a couple of months later I did decide to but I've never properly sat down and talked it through with him (because he doesn't want to), which I find really upsetting because I feel like I won't get closure on this and he is the only other person connected to the pregnancy and I want to feel like I can talk to him about it when I need to. I went through with the abortion and it all went well. I arrived at the clinic early in the morning and they inserted some things (don't know what they are called) into me in order to dilate my cervix. I then had to wait for a few hours for it work. Then I went for the procedure and that only lasted about 20 minutes. After the abortion I bleed quite heavily for the next 3 weeks, also my breast began to leak, which was horrible. It made me really upset. Nearly four months after the abortion I'm still not over it. I think about it everyday and find it difficult seeing other pregnant women and interacting with babies. I often think about how my life would have been had I not had the abortion, but they are things that I will never know. I wish I could have had more time to think about the abortion and if I had, I probably would have gone through with the pregnancy.

Editor's Comment

It must have been a shock to find out that you were over 18 weeks pregnant when you had been on the pill, but as you say it is not 100% reliable.
Finding out so late gave you very little time to really think through your decision, and it sounds as though it was a shock reaction rather than something you had thought through and considered all your options.
I can understand your longing to be able to talk through your feelings with the father of the baby. He may not want to face the reality of what happened, where as you had no choice.
It would probably help you to have some post abortion support and counselling to work through some of your painful emotions and come to terms with what you have been through. Please contact CareConfidential so that we can get you in touch with a post abortion practitioner. for post abortion support. or call the national helpline on 0300 4000 999

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