I think a letter I wrote to the baby I terminated the life of best explains my feelings.
By anonymous on 15/03/2014
I was 31 when I fell pregnant and am 33 years old now. I think a letter I wrote to the baby I terminated the life of best explains my feelings. I had only been dating the baby's father for 5 months when I very unexpectedly fell pregnant and we parted ways shortly after the termination. My life has been in complete tatters since the abortion - a decision I regretted, felt very coerced and pressured into by the baby's father, my family and his parents also (although I completely blame myself for not being stronger and standing by my belief of what was the right thing to do; both sets of parents believed a termination was in my best interest). The anniversary of my due date is this week coming, when my beautiful unborn baby should have turned one. I regret with every ounce of my being what I did. A letter to my sweet-pea entitled "5 weeks and 5 days":
To my sweet-pea,
I have wanted to speak to you directly for so long - I have talked of you often but I have felt very scared to talk to you personally for fear of your reaction.
I do hope you are safe and sound, in God's loving presence. Your well-being is of great importance to me - ironic you may say given what I did back in July 2012. Although I robbed you of a life here on earth, and nothing I can say or do can ever put right the wrongs of that awful decision, I want you to know how much I love you and indeed loved you from the very moment I knew of your existence.
I was terrified and fear stricken about how I could manage on my own, with my previous back surgeries, financial insecurity and lack of family support. I always knew that you had been given to me as a precious gift from God and that children are only ever on loan from our Heavenly Father. The deep, intense love I felt for you from the start was almost tangible. I loved you being safe inside of me, with me protecting you from the dangers of the outside earthly world. I was so proud of you - in our 5 weeks and 5 days together we went through a lot and until 25th July, we had made it there as a team.
The physical pain and emotional worry as the medics thought you might be stuck in the right fallopian tube was immense. You could not be seen on that first scan, but as they did more scans over the next couple of weeks, you moved down into the safety of my uterus. I was so proud that you had made it there safe and sound. I treasured the long nights we had together, despite the excruciating cramping pain I was experiencing. The doctors told me it was from the uterus contracting as you were growing. As I lay awake, the world quiet and peaceful as most humans slept, I used to gently rub my abdomen where I knew the scan had shown you to be. Could you feel me do that? It was my way of hugging you, reassuring you that I was there for you, protecting you from any harm at that moment in time. It was the only way I felt I could "touch" you and feel you, and maybe you were aware of my gentle rubbing. The awful truth is that even then I knew I was probably going to go ahead with terminating your life - that made me want to stay awake for every moment of every night even more and not miss a moment of the short time I knew we probably were to have on earth together.
When I think about how much I loved you then and how much more I love you now, the feeling of love is so powerful I sometimes have to catch my breath. It may seem contradictory to say this but I loved you so much even back when you were inside of me that I would have traded my life for yours if one of us had to make such a sacrifice, so deep were my feelings for you. I can see how ridiculous this sounds knowing what I went on to do and what I knew I was thinking of going on to do even at that stage. I had always dismissed the idea that I could love anyone more than my mum, your maternal grandma. I thought it to simply be impossible. I experienced a love so deep and unconditional for you - it was unique and special and for that I would like to thank you my sweet-pea.
I think about you all the time and hope that your passing from living on earth to Heaven was a pain-free and peaceful one. I really hope you were not scared by what was happening. I hope you were met with Our Father's open arms and reached Heaven quickly without any period of being worried about where you were or what was happening. You always belonged to Our Heavenly Father but for the time in which you were on loan to me living in my tummy, I felt so scared and alone about our future. I look back and think how silly that was of me; not only was God right there holding you and I in his palms, but I was never alone in the human sense either as you were always with me. We were inseparable for those 5 weeks and 5 days, always together, so close.
I wish things had been different between your earthly daddy and I or between my earthly mum and I. I used many reasons to justify how I would not have been able to cope and it would not have been fair to allow you to be born into a life with a single mother, who was still a student. I want to know that I do not think that these were ever really my views - I was scared and bowed to the wishes of other people in my life. I am so sorry that I was not stronger, that I did not fight for you, that I did not hand over all of my worries and concerns to God, trusting in Him that all would somehow work out. He created you, He had a plan for your life - you had gifts and talents and had so much potential which I denied you the chance to realise and fulfill. I hope that Heaven has some of the wonderful things that are here on earth - the opportunity to see beautiful, golden sunsets, the smell and feel of fresh countryside air on your face and the sense of freedom and excitement as one rides on a bike going downhill very fast to name but a few.
You were perfect to me - I do not know what you would have looked like. Would you have had my brown hair or your earthly daddy's blonde hair? Whatever you would have looked like, you would have been simply beautiful to me. I am so sorry for what I did to you, my sweet, innocent, perfect child. I am desperate to learn some lessons from this travesty and become more of the person that God wants me be to as a result. I will endeavor to listen to what He wants me to do more from now on and look to depend on Him. I have learned that humans let one another down, not necessarily on purpose but because we all fall short of being perfect and sometimes follow our own desires. I would like to be someone who you are proud of - I could not have got off to a worse start with this given that fateful choice I made on 25th July. As much as I would love to go back in time and have the chance to make different choices, I know I cannot. Your death cannot be in vain - some good and changes in me have to take place from now on. I do not want you to think that this will somehow make good of the decision I made to abort you, as nothing could ever do this. From this point on, I would like to make you proud of the person I have become, proud of what I do in life, how I treat other humans and what my relationship with God is like.
I hope you feel loved, not only by God, but by me too and I hope you are not lonely. I hope my grandma is there with you. I loved her dearly too and actually visited her grave and asked her to take care of you, to show you how things work in Heaven so you did not feel lost when you first arrived.
I do not know when God will call me home, but I wonder if I too enter Heaven's gates if I would recognise you? I think I will be nervous about whether you would want to know me. I look forward to meeting you, to being able to hug and hold you. I am not sure I would ever want to let you go.
I do not know what the future holds and whether God will bless me with the gift of a husband and more children. I want you to know that if this happens, they will be told all about you, my first child. I hope to live the rest of my life on earth out never forgetting about you but not in this state of crippling grief either.
You are perfect in my eyes, my beautiful sweet-pea. I long for the time when we can be together again. I will love you always and forever and want you to know just how special you are to me.
With all my love, Mummy. XXXXXX
for post abortion support.
