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Andrea

Published March 11, 2016 | By

I was 5 weeks when I found out I was pregnant. I’m 28 years old and I have a very wonderful fiancé (still engaged to him). We both talked about my pregnancy, as much as we wanted to very badly keep the baby we kept thinking of my parents. Because we both moved away to attend college, my parents are very concerned about mine and his education.

It was when I was 8 weeks pregnant  I took the abortion pill.  I came home that same day and experienced what was the worse thing I’ve ever done.  I couldn’t bare to see what I saw, even my fiance.  I started to hate myself and praying God for forgiveness.

I’m currently now going through medical problems after the abortion as I didn’t pass everything. I’m seeking medical help, but it makes me sick when I hear the doctor sat “termination of the pregnancy”.  No one knows about what is going on but my fiance, not even my own parents.

My whole family, including distance relatives are against abortion and I just don’t have the heart to tell anyone as I’m afraid they’ll not forgive me. I’m putting it behind me and decided with my fiance to make a memoir and tell everyone when the time is right.

But still to this day I hate myself thinking what have I done, that could have been my child.

Posted in Women's Stories | 1 Comment

Lola

Published January 8, 2016 | By

it all started 3 years ago .  I already had two kids and was a single mum.  I had this guy that I fell in love with.  He was amazing.  He treated my kids well and he has a son.  All the kids loved each other.

In 2013 we had a 2 month break up and he told me he had slept with someone else but he regretted it.  We wanted to give it another try.  We decided to move in together and I got pregnant and had his child which is my third.   2 days after my son was born he told me the girl he slept with called him and told him that he has a daughter (the only girl).    I fell into deep depression yet I loved him so I tried to ignore the situation got pregnant again.

He had no job and I was struggling  working and paying a babysitter while he slept all day.  I didn’t want to have an abortion.  I was scared of raising another child with no financial help or a helping hand.  I debated till I was 14 weeks and I did the biggest mistake I could of ever done.

Now after my abortion he left me.  I cant think straight or even work.  My mind is crazy right now.  I don’t know how to cope with the loss of my baby and now him.

I feel so alone and stupid now I’m a single mum of three and I’m only 26.   Please don’t be cruel to me.  I am hurting enough right now and I just need someone to hear me out.

Posted in Women's Stories | 4 Comments

K’s story

Published December 31, 2015 | By

October 12th, 2014.
I will always remember this date, every cold detail.

I had been in a loving relationship for about one year, we are still happily together now. When I found out I was pregnant I went numb, I walked into the kitchen and started buttering a piece of toast and then just sunk to the floor and sobbed. He held me and without even talking we both knew what came next. We were young, had a million things we wanted to accomplish. The fact that we didn’t want a family then doesn’t mean we didn’t want one later on.

We arrived at the clinic very early in the morning, before the sun came up and everything was grey and dew covered. I had been listening to the song A Postcard to Henry Purcell from the Pride and Prejudice soundtrack on repeat for the entire drive, and then one final time through while we sat parked. Their was one single protester, he stood alone with a sign on the pathway that lead up to the clinic’s front door. It was terrifying, I was just going through the motions.

I was early enough in my pregnancy to have a medical abortion. The doctor took one final ultrasound, I still have the image tucked inside and envelope. I can’t bring myself to throw it away, that would mean erasing all evidence that it every existed. I realize it was only a small seed of cells, this was the reassurance I gave myself to follow through with the abortion. What hurts me now to this day is the potential of what that little seed of cells would have become.

Every year on October 12th we remember. I know this hasn’t taken the same toll on my boyfriend as it has on myself, he was hurt seeing me suffer but my pain came from somewhere else. I hurt because I consciously decided to end the life growing inside of my before it started. That life would have been a part of me and him, but was never given the chance. Two years ago on the first anniversary we spent the day walking around these beautiful public gardens taking pictures of the changing trees, this year we did the same thing and next year we’ll probably do just that. I have to be outside looking at beautiful things, because if I don’t i’ll spend all day locked away thinking about the ugliest thing I’d ever done.

I have coped with what has happened, and I can say I mostly live day to day in peace. The dark spots come in the doubt and the wondering what might have been. When I do decide that I’m ready to have a family I will always be affected by the choice I made. I will always think each year how old that person would be, how different my life would have been. I chose this path, and I did it out of a selfish love for myself and my future, but that doesn’t mean it won’t feel like an open wound for all of time.

Posted in Women's Stories | 1 Comment

Caley

Published November 13, 2015 | By

It’s been three years since I lost my little boy and even though I’ve had another son, and I know he wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t done what I did, I still can’t get over it.  I can’t even understand it really.  I look at the baby in my arms today and imagine if something happened to him now that made him less than perfect, I would do everything.. everything to save him.

But I didn’t do that then.  I let everyone tell me how bad it would be to have a less than perfect baby.  I did everything I knew how to do.  I spoke to everyone I knew to speak to.  They all had nothing but bad news.  When I went into the hospital for the early induction I was surprised to be on the maternity ward where other mothers were having babies they would take home.

I remember laying in that bed while one nurse put a drip in my arm, staring at another nurse, willing her to tell me there was another way.   When she came over to me I thought she must have heard my thoughts… I had hope… I almost pulled my arm away.  Then she looked at me and said, “It’s okay, we don’t judge you here”.

She didn’t need to.  I had enough judgement for a lifetime and I still do.  There were times when I almost forgot, but now I can’t look at this new little boy without thinking about what I did to his brother and my heart breaks into a million pieces.

I don’t know how to put them all back together again.

Posted in Support, Women's Stories | Leave a comment

Lyn… ‘too young, too incompetent’

Published October 21, 2015 | By

The first time I fell pregnant I was 14 years old. I had a stable boyfriend at the time, my first love. After reading some bad advice in a girly magazine, I took a risk with unprotected sex. Abortion didn’t cross my mind at first, I didn’t even know what it was at the time. My mother had once entered a bathroom with a coat hanger when heavily pregnant, and I knew somehow that she was trying to kill her baby, but I had never grasped the concept of “abortion”.

My main concern with the pregnancy was telling my mother, and hoping to get to a point where I was large enough that she wouldn’t hit me. So I hid my pregnancy for several weeks before the rumour got out at highschool and eventually reached my mother’s ears.
She immediately demanded I get an abortion. When I asked what that was, she told me, and I broke down in tears and screamed, “How could I kill my baby!?”
“Its not a baby! Its just a clump of cells” My mother had spat back angrily.
It was a line I would hear frequently over the coming days, months and years.

My mother told me I was too young and incompetent to have a child, even though I had been helping her take care of her own children, my siblings, since I was 8 years old. She told me she wouldn’t help me. I couldn’t live with her, she had her own children to worry about, which must not have included me.

She dragged me to a Dr to get a referral for abortion. I hoped the Dr would help me out, but even after seeing me in tears and hearing me say I wanted to keep the baby, the Dr told me that abortion was the best option. She gave the referral to my mother, and my mother called up the clinic to make an appointment, all the while I cried and pleaded with her not to make me.

Back at school I sought out the counsel of my favourite teacher, hoping she could help me, maybe talk to my mother. She too told me I was too young and incompetent to care for a baby. She told me it would ruin my life, my education, and that abortion was the only solution for someone in my situation.

I clung to my boyfriend who was supportive at the time. He was raised Catholic and I told him I couldn’t kill my baby, and he agreed with me. He said he would do everything he could to make sure I could keep my baby, and his mother, also a devout Catholic, said she would assist any way she could.

I went back to my mother with this new information, which she immediately refuted. “You want to be like his mother, stuck at home with 6 children!?” She had yelled. “You know he’ll leave you once you have a baby and get fat and have a stretched vagina. He’ll want someone fresh and unburdened.”

I tried to ignore her. I believed my boyfriend would stick by me. I believed his mother would help me, and I clung to that hope, until that too was taken away. After a few weeks of arguing, of being told I was incompetent, of being told I was ruining my life, of being weakened, my boyfriend came to me.

He had been talking to one of the teachers at school. She had told him how risky pregnancy was, how I could die because I was so young. He told me his dad was pressuring him to leave school so he could support me and the baby, but that he wasn’t ready to leave school. He told me “We can always have another baby, later, when we are ready”. Now he too wanted me to have an abortion.

Feeling as though I had lost my last support, I gave in and allowed my mother to book the appointment.

At 13 weeks pregnant (it was illegal to terminate past 12 weeks in 1998 in WA), I took a day off school to attend the clinic, and went with my mother and my boyfriend. We went into a mostly empty waiting room, and my mother filled in some paper work before I was pulled into a room alone for “counselling”.

The counselling consisted of telling me about the anaesthesia they would use, “twilight sleep”, and how to use the contraceptive pills they were giving me. They discussed nothing of the procedure, and nothing of what would happen to my “clump of cells”.  Maybe they thought too much discussion would scare me.  It would have.  Then they asked me if the abortion was what I wanted.  I told them no, it was what my mother wanted.

“We can’t do the procedure if it’s not what you want.”  The counsellor had told me.  She leaned in close, and said to me in a very practiced way, something along the lines of,  “You will have to go back out there and tell your mother it’s not happening, and it was a waste of time and money coming all the way out here.”
I was terrified of what my mother would say or do if I was sent back to her, still pregnant. “It’s what I want too.” I lied.

They dressed me in a gown and took me into the surgery. They told me they had to do an ultrasound, but I didn’t have to look if I didn’t want to.  They helped me on to the table, and then gave me an injection to sedate me.  A nurse held my hand and I counted backwards from 10, until I blacked out.  They never did an ultrasound.
When I woke up I felt giddy and happy.  I commented on how I liked the colour of the walls. They sent me away with antibiotics and birth control pills, and an empty uterus.

At first I felt fine, relieved that it was all over and I could go on with my life, without my teachers and mother hounding me.  Then I started noticing the babies. Everywhere I looked there were babies. Even at school, girls were having babies. I didn’t understand why they were capable of having children but I wasn’t. I started to break down and fell into a deep depression. I cried constantly, and when I wasn’t crying I was sleeping. I stopped seeing my friends, I stopped doing my school work. All I wanted was my baby back.

My mother told me I was making a big deal over nothing, and that I should “get over it”.  My teachers told me to “get over it” and get back to my schoolwork.  Even my friends couldn’t understand why I was so upset.  My boyfriend, who was supportive at the start, began to get frustrated with me. He was sick of looking after his miserable girlfriend while his friends were off and having fun. He wanted me to “get over it”.  Then the worst thing happened. My boyfriend, and only support, broke up with me. We would never have that replacement baby he promised.

Now I was completely alone. I started drinking and sleeping around. I fought with my friends, my ex, and all his friends. I became the crazy girl who had an abortion, and eventually I was driven out of the school and the area.

In my new school I tried to settle down. I tried to forget my past. I tried to “get over it”, after all it was just a clump of cells, and I couldn’t let a clump of cells ruin my life. I had to be a normal person, and normal people didn’t grieve abortion. I buried my pain, moved on and made new friends, but I was constantly on the search for something to fill a void. A huge hole in my heart. I ended up with the first guy who came along and showed an interest in me past just having sex. He was a drug addict and an alcoholic. But I didn’t care, because he loved me, and the hole filled in just enough to continue on.

I moved in with him when I was 17 years old, and after a year of living together I became careless with my pills, knowing I could get pregnant, but not really caring. I cried when the test came back positive, more because I was scared of telling my mum than anything else. Scared that she might be able to talk me into an abortion again. She was angry of course, but she could do little now. I didn’t live in her house of under her rules anymore.

At the 12 weeks scan I saw my baby up on the screen. He was rolling around and doing somersaults, and looked just like a human being. A little miniature person. He was a week younger than the baby I had killed, but he was still just a clump of cells, right? But this was a wanted clump of cells, and therefore he was worthy of life.

I loved my son with all my heart, enough for me to realise that my boyfriend was bad news. I tried to make things work at first, begging him to seek drug and alcohol counselling, but he refused. I moved out on my own when my son was a few months old, but he tried to follow me. He would come to my house unannounced and then wouldn’t leave. He would demand sex from me, and get angry and aggressive towards me and my son when I refused.

Around 6 months after we broke up he was at my house again, drunk and disorderly. He demanded sex, and not wanting to upset him I gave in. He didn’t want to use a condom, and I didn’t argue. The chances of me getting pregnant from one time was slim anyway…right?

Two weeks later I found out I was pregnant. I came to my decision rather quickly. I couldn’t have another baby with him and be trapped with him for any longer, and in this country you never have a baby if it’s going to cause you inconvenience. I knew it was the right thing to do, because every authority figure in my life had told me so, and I knew grieving a clump of cells was wrong, because every authority figure in my life had told me so.

I booked in for a termination without any more thought. I went in for the quick procedure, hurrying the doctor through the “counselling”, because I had been there before, and new what I was doing. I was completely emotionless. It was like having a tooth pulled.
Afterwards I felt relief. So much so that I went out nightclubbing that very night. I finally left my boyfriend a few months later and my life got back on track. I attended university, I met my husband. I got married and had a baby. And I new this had to be because I had an abortion. Abortion helps women. It helps them to leave their parents and get and education, because women are too incompetent to do those things AND take care of a baby. That’s what we are told anyway.

In 2007 I fell pregnant with my 5th child, 3rd I had planned on keeping. We were so excited. We were going to have a family of 3. We were going to be complete. Then at approximately 8 weeks pregnant I miscarried.
I was devastated when it happened. I locked myself in my room for nearly 2 weeks and ate and spoke little. I couldn’t help but think the universe was punishing me for my abortions. I killed two babies because they were inconvenient, and now I was losing a wanted and planned baby to make up for it.

I feel pregnant again almost immediately after, but this didn’t help my pain. I still felt guilt, and it affected my ability to care for myself and my children. My depression, which had always been lingering in the background, grew worse and worse. I began to be unable to cope with parenthood. I was put on medication after medication, and tried to medicate myself with drinking and partying, but nothing really helped. Finally in 2009, after years of feeling worthless and useless, I gave in and tried to end my life.

I was at home with my youngest son at the time, and scared he would be left alone when I died, I called the police thinking they would take at least 15-20 minutes to arrive. They arrived only a few minutes later, and luckily this saved my life.

They took me to the hospital, and they fed me charcoal to try to counteract the effect of the sleeping pills. I was in and out of consciousness, but I remember a nurse asking me my name, and the date and then how many children I had. I said 6, and he asked my husband if that was right. My husband gently reminded me we only had 3, and I broke down in hysterics, thrashing and calling out for my lost babies.

I was put into a mental hospital, for the fear I would try to kill myself again. I remember begging one of the orderlies to bring my babies back to life. She acted like I was crazy. I’m not sure if it was because I wanted my babies back, or because I wanted clumps of cells back.
After two days of being away from my family and my children, I couldn’t take it anymore, and I begged to be let out. They agreed and put me into my husband’s care. I attended intensive therapy for a few weeks, with a focus on self-care. I got help with caring for my children, and eventually I regained a sense of normalcy, yet the pain of my abortion was still there.

I wanted to support other women who had had abortions as a way of dealing with my pain. I wanted other women to be aware of the psychological effects so they could make the right choices. I volunteered for a pro-choice post abortion support group, thinking a pro-life group would only judge me for my abortions. However after a few weeks working in pro-choice groups, I discovered this talking about abortion grief was not welcome, and the main aim was to put all the focus on the woman, no focus on the child, and help her to “get over it”. Pro-choice did not want anyone to know about the negatives of abortion. They didn’t want people grieving over “clumps of cells”.

I was in limbo for a while. Caught between abortion being necessary, and abortion being awful. It was soon after that that I came in contact with the pro-life movement, I had never really been exposed to a rational argument, and was under the impression that all pro-lifers were crazy religious nuts who hated women.

I started to see that there were many in the pro-life movement that really cared about women, and they also cared about the “clump of cells” which they called a human, a person and a baby. They told me it was okay to grieve for my lost child. They understood the societal pressures that drove me to that choice. They didn’t judge me for my grief. They helped me to heal. And now I hope that I can help other women do the same..

Posted in Stories, Uncategorized, Women's Stories | 4 Comments

Loveness

Published October 15, 2015 | By

I had an abortion twice…..
I am sitting here, at 36, highly educated with a Doctoral Degree, big career BUT, the regrets! I first fell pregnant when I was 22 years old. I was still doing my undergraduate degree.  My then boyfriend was working.  He had a great job.  When I found out about my pregnancy, he just told me immediately: ‘You MUST have an abortion’.  He was 26 years old then.  At 9 weeks when I went for a scan prior to the procedure, the nurse asked me if I was sure I wanted to go ahead with this because she could already tell that I was carrying twins.  The doctor came in and I remember he was so cheerful and tried to strike up a conversation with me.

It was so PAINFUL!   I screamed and cried….!  When all was done, my then boyfriend picked me up in his car. I told him it was so painful that I was crying. His response was ‘It cannot have been that painful. If it was, you could have passed out’.  I remained with the bugger and five years later, we had a son.  Two years down the line, we split up.  I got a great scholarship to do a Masters degree in England in one of the best universities in the world.  I met a man there.  This time I was on the pill but, I fell pregnant.

The man is a Doctor and he also told me point blank:  ‘You have no choice.  Abort this child.  I knew I had to do that because I felt the child would interrupt my studies and I would lose the scholarship. A fter the abortion, I remember having nightmares in my room. I would hear children play around my bedroom. The man later left me.  I know I will be judged for being careless… I admit I was but, the regret is killing me inside. I look at my son, now 10 years old, and I imagine what my other two kids would look like….

Posted in Uncategorized, Women's Stories | 2 Comments

Di

Published July 31, 2015 | By

I’m 22years old at 19 I had an abortion I was 13 weeks along.
I was in a 3 year dysfunctional relationship we lived together throughout those 3 years. He was a gangster, in and out of jail and one time he got sentenced to some months.  I started talking to another guy who became the father of my baby.  He already has 2 kids but he supported me and wanted me to have it.  I was scared and so lost because I was still in love with my boyfriend and he was coming out of jail the same month I found out I was pregnant.

So he came out and I hid my pregnacy from him.   To this day he doesn’t know.. I ended up having the abortion thinking I can fix me cheating on him while incarcerated and getting pregnant by some other guy that wasn’t him.. when I went through the procedure after it was done I felt relief.   I would think about it but nothing like now.  I regret being selfish and not giving my baby a chance to live.  I cry at times thinking what could of been,  holding my precious lil one,  enjoying him.  I can’t believe what I have done.  I feel like a monster.   I hope and pray to God he has mercy on my soul for what I did.

If only I could go back in time I wouldn’t have gone thru]ough it and I would of been a mummy:  I miss my baby.. ladies if your thinking of doing this pleaseee pleaseee don’t if you have a heart and conscience you won’t be able to live with your self knowing you killed your baby. There is different ways of dealing with stuff, don’t take the easy way out please don’t..

Posted in Women's Stories | 1 Comment

Lena

Published July 2, 2015 | By

The week after I had my abortion my sister told me she was pregnant.  I didn’t know what to say.  I couldn’t tell her before that I was going to have an abortion and I sure couldn’t tell her now.  I just stared at her like my brain wasn’t working and she laughed and thought I was just shocked or super excited or something.  We were all together and mum and dad were jumping up and down like it was the best thing.   I can’t even remember what I did after that, or what I said.  I don’t even know if anyone noticed there was anything wrong with me they were so excited about yelling out baby names and talking about plans.

I watched my sister for the next 6 months and would look at myself in the mirror, my belly not growing, my baby gone, hers being celebrated. I still thought I’d done the right thing in some crazy way, right up until I saw my baby niece for the first time.  It’s like she made it so real.  I couldn’t stop looking at her but I wasn’t even thinking about her, I was thinking about my baby.

I was thinking about how when I went to the clinic a nurse told me that I might feel sad after, but that only women who have some kind of tendency to mental illness will stay sad or get really upset about it. Most are really happy with their decision and never think about it again she said.  She also said it would be safer than having a baby.  I’m pretty sure she told me that having the abortion would be 10 times safer than staying pregnant or giving birth or something like that.  What she didn’t say, and what I didn’t think of in my panic to just get it all over with is that if I stayed pregnant I would actually have a baby, and that maybe that risk would be worth it.

Now I don’t want to go to work.  I don’t want to see anybody. I want to stare at my niece all the time but I use a photo because when I’m with her I’m too scared to hold her because I think I won’t be able to let her go.  Maybe I was one of the ones who was always going to go a bit crazy anyway.  That doesn’t really help me now because I still can’t tell anyone.  I did it. I chose it. I have to live with it. I hate it and I hate me for doing it.

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“Please, please don’t.

Published March 30, 2015 | By

so my story starts in 2013.

My partner and I were engaged and already had a beautiful 1 year old, we decided it would be a wonderful idea to start trying to conceive, we always wanted our children close in age and we knew this is what we wanted. we kept it a secret because we knew if his family found out they would be furious because they hated the idea of us being together they made it very clear. in January 2014 we had successfully conceived our second child, we managed to keep it quiet until one night I had strange pains and asked his mother to take me to the hospital to get the all clear, obviously we had to tell her I was pregnant. she was so angry. she started saying stuff like ‘if you don’t abort this baby or give it to me I will take away your 1year old, you cant have another child’ and ‘you need to abort this baby’. she got into my partners head and he even started saying horrible things saying I had to. this all broke my heart. his mother made the appointment to have it done. I really didn’t want it, but somewhere she got into my head and got me to do it. so at 8weeks pregnant I had the abortion. I cried so hard for weeks, still remembering the weeks as the went by, every Saturday was the start of a new week ( 16/01/2014 – May -2014 EDD 18/10/2014 ).

but my story isn’t over yet, i was put on birth control and as the weeks past my partner started apologising and saying he wish it never happened and even became distant, he too was affect from all this. In June 2014 that same year my birth control had problems and out it came. my partner and i agreed that no matter what happened that we would never EVER repeat history and that we could never do that again. August came around and complete shock i was pregnant, we were so happy. we kept this a secret because we knew as soon as his mother found out she would go mental ! but then my partner moved out and moved into his mother, i knew in the back of my head it was the end but i refused to believe, trying to hang onto everything.

he didn’t even come to the first ultrasound at 6weeks, that’s when everyone was told and BAM shit hit the fan AGAIN ! by this point he had ended our relationship and was telling me he never wanted kids and that i was to have an abortion. he went on how that i was not to have the baby and that i wasn’t even to adopt it out to a loving family because he didn’t want to be known as a dead beat dad ( BUT WHAT ? i was meant to be the murderer ? !) i told him i didn’t care what he had to say anymore and that it wasn’t up to him.

In September that year i went into a complete depression state, wanting to kill myself and i had no idea what to do. i was getting told daily to choose death over life to the point i wanted to take me own life, i was even admitted into care. during this time he went to the courts and filled for full custody just to be spiteful to me because i was still pregnant. i then believed i had to make the hard decision and have the abortion so at 14weeks i had it again (July 2014 – Oct 2014 – EDD 27/03/2015)

i still find it hard to get to sleep even though i have my child back and my depression has almost completely gone away. i still sit awake thinking of all these dates and still feel so guilty ever day !

everytime i see someone have their baby, i just wish i never ever had those abortions and that it was me holding my newborn child in my arms, smelling the sweet scent of babies all around me.

I will never ever forget the days i had this done and i will never forgive myself for doing so – i just hope that one day i can look back at this and stop blaming myself for everything.

So if you are considering to have an abortion, please please please don’t. you ARE strong enough you ARE capable and you WILL be the best parent for that child. YOU ARE NOT ALONE !.

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Andie

Published March 23, 2015 | By

Me and my husband were young and we already had two children and were filing for divorce.  One night he came over and things lead to us sleeping together without protection.  I became pregnant again.  Him in his fear and worry gave me an ultimatum; have an abortion or he would skip town.

He could not see helping me raise three children financially.  So i did.  Walking in there numb to all that was around me still hoping he would change his mind until my name was called.  I walked back there and had my abortion.

For eight years i walked a destructive path of choices because i could not believe anyone could love me least of all God for what i had done. It wasn’t till i heard someone have a story like mine and reach out to help through post abortive counseling that i was able to change my life around..

Posted in Women's Stories | Leave a comment
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