I had my abortion a week ago. I was 12 and a half weeks pregnant.

By anonymous on 07/10/2009
I had my abortion a week ago. I was 12 and a half weeks pregnant. I wish I had known about this site before I went through with it. It has been one of the hardest experiences of my life. I hadn't actually missed my first period, it was just a little different. I had taken the morning after pill, after the condom had slipped. I was mortified at having to ask for the pill but not as ashamed as having to buy a pregnancy test. I had read somewhere in the leaflet to check with your doctor if your period was different. The doctor examined me and sent me off for a scan as she thought I had an ovarian cyst which could be causing a strange period. However I thought it best to check, as I guess maybe deep down I think I knew. I fully expected/hoped it to say negative, so I actually screamed when the test said I was five weeks gone. I immediately told my boyfriend. Despite having been friends for years, we had not long been going out and were very on and off, conducting the relationship, although not the friendship, in secret. Once I got over the initial shock, I was really angry at being in this situation and felt trapped. My friends were asking me to come out and I knew I couldn't. I saw all my dreams and ambitions start to slip away from me. I wasn't married and was scared and ashamed. I had always been so careful and had been waiting til my next period to go back on the pill. My boyfriend/friend talked a lot but sorted very little. Weeks went by very quickly and I found myself swinging from denial to being 100% sure about an abortion to being excited about having a baby the next. Slowly, the stress of the situation tore us apart and we stopped communicating. I booked an abortion 3 times before eventually going through with it. The first, he told me to cancel, which I did. The second we went to. It was awful, everyone sat in silence staring at each other, listening to the most awfully depressing music in a back street clinic that felt dirty. I was referred to a major provider of abortions by the NHS and was shocked at the facilities. After the scan, the nurse asked if we were sure about the procedure. I couldn't bear it any more and said no I wasn't sure. I just wanted to get out of there. We left with a picture of our 11 week old foetus. I was happy and terrified at the thought of keeping the baby but glad we were making a decision. I knew the guilt of an abortion would stay with me forever. Unfortunately, that was when my boyfriend chose to turn his back on me. We had previously booked a holiday and were due to go on it in a few days time, we never went. He stopped talking to me and resumed his heavy drinking, taking residence in the pub. I called his phone continuously and left messages but none were returned. I eventually had to look for him in all the local pubs before I eventually found him. He and I went outside but he didn't even have the courtesy to leave the pub premises before he told me to get rid of it and that he no longer wanted me as a girlfriend or wanted anything to do with the baby. I begged him to come away and talk about it but he told me he had nothing more to say. I was extremely angry and very very hurt. This, coming from the man who had said he loved and wanted to marry me and wanted to have a baby. I waited two days and when I still hadn't heard anything from him, I made a third appointment. Looking back I should have known. He said all the right things but when it came to comitting to them, he just couldn't do it. Throughout the time I was pregnant, he would only go out to the pub or for a curry (knowing I could not drink and felt nauseous in the evening), carried on smoking around me despite the midwife telling him to quit. I was receiving mixed messages and saw a life where I would be at home wit h a child,picking up his dirty socks, whilst he would disappear to the pub any time we disagreed or the baby cried too much. He said he would stop when the baby arrived, but I felt the time to do that was now, or at the very least cut back and do something I could enjoy too. I guess what I was looking for was the reassurance that he would be with me and that I would not be left to cope alone. The day before the abortion, I called him to come over to try one last time to sort it out. He only came because his mother had guessed what was happening and had shouted at him for treating me in this way (may I add he is 33 not 17!). He said he wasn't sure what he felt, but that he felt it wouldn't work out as I was being too demanding asking him to give up his lifestyle and get fit. I was terrified he would be dead by 40 from a heart attack or liver failure and what I really wanted was reassurance that he could look after himself and was able to look after me and a child as I could not do it alone (I had already lost my job 2 months before in a very painful dispute, just had surgery, suffered from glandular fever and had been told by doctors that they suspected I may have lymphoma-a type of leukaemia with similar symptoms to glandular fever). It sounds like a badly written soap opera, but unfortunately for me it was true and was just all too much to deal with at once and o n my own. I was unable to take my antidepressants due to the pregnancy and was falling apart with the stress. We left the next morning. I had planned the route by train so as not to get stuck in rush hour traffic, but he decided to drive me directly there. I panicked when we became stuck in heavy traffic and asked him why he had not gone down the other motorway. He became aggressive and violent calling me a bitch and using personal fears I had told him in confidence, against me. He ended up punching the dashboard and opening the door onto the motorway in at attempt to throw me out of the car. I was hurt and terrified and spent the rest of the journey in tears. When we eventually got there, he left me to go in by myself. I was so angry and hurt and already in tears. The nurse asked me again if I was sure as it had said on my notes that I was very ambivalent, but after the experience I just had, I said yes I was totally sure. I just wanted it over and to get away from him. I wanted it all to stop. I was in tears by the time they got me to the operating table and willed the anaesthetic to knock me out quickly. But the worst was still to come. As soon as I came round, I burst into uncontrollable tears. His words kept going round in my head and I was flooded with guilt and grief for my unborn child. What had I done? My child did not ask to be created and yet I had aborted my own flesh and blood when it was already formed. What kind of a person does that? I texted my boyfriend to let him know that I was out of surgery, only to find he had just dumped me there and gone home, over an hours drive away. I was in pain, dizzy and distressed and now I had been dumped in an area I did not know. I took a taxi and booked into a hotel as I could not face going home. When I came home the next day, he came over and tried to act like nothing had happened. Initially all I wanted was to be with someone who was going through the same and to be able to cry. My mother had told me the day before that I had made my decision and that I must grow up and get over it. He ran out of the house as soon as he saw my mother. It wasn't until my mum reminded me of the way he had treated me the day before that I started to become angry. I messaged him to ask if he was actually sorry for leaving me, but he said he thought it was justified after what I had put him through by telling him to give up drinking and smoking and get fit. I couldn't believe he was turning everything back on me after the dreadful time he gave me and the dreadful time I was already going through. That was a week ago. Since then he has not spoken to me and has frozen me out of our circle of friends. Spending most of his time with another girl (who I was close to) and his drug dealing friends. None of his family have checked I am ok, especially as they know what happened and I was very close to them. I feel cheated and afraid, as though I am being punished when I have already been through so much. I cry every day for my unborn child, my first child. Whilst at times I feel relieved to be untied from a bloke who let me down so terribly, I also feel so sad at the decision I took and guilty that the one who suffered was the one person who was innocent in all of this. The person I was supposed to protect.

Editors Comment:- You have been through a terribly traumatic experience and I am so sorry that you had no one to support you, and be with you at this time. You have been let down and abandoned by those you thought would care for you and support you, and that is hard to come to terms with. The relationship you describe with your boyfriend sounds like a distressing breakdown in communication and relationship. He needed to take responsibility as a father and partner, but was not prepared to do this. I wish that you had found our website and that we could have put you in touch with some support.
Thank you for your courage in telling your story. It is probably the first step in working through the grief and losses you are feeling. Please do access the post abortion support that is available through individual centres, or the helpline or online counsellor service

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