I've been on 'The Journey' programme and feel ready to share my story

I have been doing the journey programme for about 6 sessions now, and finally feel like I am ready to share my story.

I got pregnant on a night out, they say the stereotype of women that have an abortion are 'feckless young women on one night stands', well that was me. I am not proud of the situation, but that's what it is.

I was extremely drunk and remembered very little about the whole situation, except I insisted that we use a condom.

Two weeks later I had a text message from him saying that he needs to tell me something, and it turns out that the condom had been taken off at some point and he continued anyway.

A negative pregnancy test

I was due to start a new job in London the following day. I went to the chemist on the way in and bought a test that I did on my lunch break. It was negative but I knew that I could only be a week or so along so that it might not show yet.

I wanted to do another test right away but I knew there was no point, so waited three days, did the same thing, and to my horror it was positive, only the faintest line, but some hasty internet research indicated that was enough.

I spent the rest of the day hitting myself in the stomach to try and make it go away. And I had my old works christmas party that night. I didn't drink anything which led to questions, as did pulling out of a rugby match that I had three days later.

The way I saw it my life was over

I called my sister on the way home and sobbingly told her and her husband everything, they were really supportive and she stayed with me all night until I fell asleep.

The next day I phoned my new job and told them that I wouldn't be coming back, the way I saw it, my life was over.

I told my parents the next day, they were really supportive of whatever I decided to do, if a little confused as to how I got pregnant without a boyfriend.

I thought about adoption

Although my inital reaction was that I wanted rid of it, I called an advice line who suggested adoption, but when I talked about this to my family they were very against it, and they said I should keep it or get rid of it. I know that they were thinking of how traumatic having a baby and giving it away would be for me.

I made an appointment at the doctor, and told him that having done internet research decided that I wanted a medical abortion. He was really nice about the whole situation, he saw that I still had doubts and made it clear to me that I could cancel at any time. But once the appointment was made, I resigned myself to it.

The first appointment was the day after Boxing Day, less than two weeks after I found out that I was pregnant, and one week after my doctors appointment.

My mum took me to the clinic, and we were warned that there might be protestors outside, thankfully there were none. There was loads of women there, of all different ages and races, which actually comforted me a little.

I had a scan but they could not see anything, but a test confirmed that I was pregnant and I was taken upstairs.

I was given a pill that I was told will cut off supply to placenta and therefore kill the baby, I took it and then went home. No side effects that night.

The following day I went back and was given four big grey pills, which they said would make my womb contract and force everything out.

The pain was mostly like bad period pains

There was another girl with me, a little younger than me that cried the whole time.

The nurse warned us not to take to our beds, but to continue as normal. I did for several hours, but the pains got quite bad and I didn't want to walk around.

Mostly they were just like bad period pains, but at times it felt like I can only imagine contactions do, that only lasted for an hour or so.

I knew when I had passed the pregancy, but unlike other ladies that have told their stories on here I did not hear a 'plop' and could not see anything, it looked just like a clot that you sometimes get with a normal period, but I knew that it was gone.

I bled for several weeks after, but no worse than a heavy period.

I was pretty low during that time and rarely went out, and did not attempt to look for a job.

Eventually I pulled myself together and got back on with life.

None of us really spoke about it again.

Its been almost three years now and throughout that time I still had periods of extreme low-ness and burst into tears if anyone mentioned the subject. Christmas was especially hard, and its then that I told my boyfriend.

Seeing how not over it I was he suggested that I get some counselling, it took me several months to build up the courage to do so, but now I am so glad that I did, I am finally dealing with it all, I still have a way to go but just being able to write this story down is testiment to how far I have come.