Personal Post: #ShoutYourAbortion

This is pretty personal, proceed with caution.

The hashtag #ShoutYourAbortion has been doing the rounds the past week or two and it’s about damn time.

I had a termination when I was 20 years old.

The pregnancy was accidental. Failed birth control. It was fucking terrifying.

I’d only moved to the city a few months before, no job yet and no real friends to speak of outside of bf’s family. I didn’t tell them. I didn’t tell my friends or family out of state. I still haven’t told a lot of people. It’s too far in my rear view to bring up with any of them now. But more on that later.

I remember being in the doctor’s office when he delivered the news to me and my boyfriend at the time. I burst into tears, my worst fears being realised. I had a sneaking suspicion because my scheduled period was late and the boob soreness was out of control.

I told him I wanted a termination. He tried to talk me out of it which made my anguish so much worse. I reiterated that I did not want to be pregnant nor did I want children.  He finally saw reason and he wrote the referral to the clinic. My boyfriend had a quiet word to him after for trying to pressure me out of the idea of a termination.

Unprofessional conduct and highly traumatising to me. Telling me that it was his duty as a health care professional to go through all of the options with me. I didn’t need to hear any of them but the most obvious one.

I booked the appointment for the referral. I attended it, went through all the discussions with the consulting physician. I was terrified – I had never had an operation prior to this and had no idea what to expect. I was on my own and in tears at the prospect which they mistook for reticence and regretting my decision. JESUS CHRIST. I assured them that was absolutely NOT the case. I was scared out of my wits. I also had no-one to talk to about it outside of my boyfriend.

I went through the next round of blood and urine tests and the ultrasounds confirming how far along I was (that I was not allowed to see for obvious reasons). I was about four weeks by that stage and constantly sick. The nightly vomitting after meals was painful and truly awful. I couldn’t eat during the day, my stomach was knotted in cramps for the majority of the day and what little I could eat – and keep down – refused to stay put for very long.

The blessed day of the termination came two weeks later (after more violent illness – as time ticked along, the worse it seemed to get) and we made the excuse to the family that we were heading out for breakfast and a wander around the city. I think they fell for it but I think his mother had an inkling of what was truly happening. She never said a word about it, though.

As we made our way past the protesters out the front of the facility (they were mostly silent apart from trying to hand me one of their propaganda pamphlets), I was strangely calm. Sat in the waiting room for endless hours (I remember being so dehydrated and thirsty but unable to drink anything) until my name was called and I all but ran to the theatre. My boyfriend was distraught that I didn’t kiss him goodbye. Pardon me for my mind being elsewhere, dude.

It was finally over and I’d been so horribly ill for so many weeks on end that I’d forgotten what homeostasis was. Not being nauseous at certain smells and the general malaise that had been the previous four weeks was over.  I took the prescribed medication until it was done. We were extra careful using both condoms as well as birth control pills and I was terrified of having to go through all that again.

I eventually found work, we moved into a place of our own closer to the city and every day on my way to work, I had to pass that same facility. I’d see ladies with sweet little babies on public transport and I was often overcome with horrendous guilt and shame – so much so that I wanted to get off at the next stop and cry my heart out. It was almost as though they knew my awful secret and were silently judging me and what an abhorrent person I was. This was all pure projection on my part, of course, but it didn’t make it any less awful.

I never told my friends or family, apart from one girl that I was close to who had been through the same procedure a couple of times before. She understood it. She knew the guilt and shame that I felt and I’d felt better sharing it with her. But the guilt and shame clung to me for dear life for many months afterwards. It wasn’t regret. No, never regret. There was no way I could have had a child at 20 or 21. And to think how that would have panned out with my ex had I gone through with the pregnancy and birth and all it entails.

We’d still be forced to be in each other’s lives in some legal capacity. Shared custody. Visitation rights. And given the kind of person he was then – spiteful, misogynistic and vile (the benefits of hindsight, no?) – there is no doubt in my mind that he would have played all kinds of horrible mind games just to spite me through the medium of a child.

How utterly miserable our lives would have been! Would possibly still be. And what impact would that have had on a child? No, thank you.

I don’t regret my decision for an instant. And if it ever came down to it, I would go through it again. I’m still not keen on the idea of having kids. I’ve never felt the supposed “biological imperative” as a woman and as I turn towards the ever-approaching menopause, I truly never will.

The shame and guilt I felt for the few months after quickly faded after I witnessed a pro-life rally wandering past my house one day. I decided then that the only people who should have any sense of shame, guilt or remorse were these very people. The ones so viciously shaming and guilting women for having autonomy over their bodies.

I let go of it all then. I made the absolutely right decision for me and I stick by it.

-End-