“I knew of the post abortion regret. I read about it over and over, preparing myself for misery. But online blogs, not even this one, can truly express in words the pain you feel the second you walk out those doors. I walked in there with one soul, and left with none. I have never been the same since that day. I refused to accept the fact that I loved being pregnant. I loved that apple seed with everything inside of me. Don’t do it. The father of my child left the country and never spoke a word to me again.”
A post-abortion woman named “Leena” tells the following story:
“I’m now 21 years old, and I had my abortion 2 months ago… I was about six weeks pregnant.
It was, and has been, the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through in my life. I didn’t want to do it… I just felt stuck, like I had no choice.
My boyfriend and I had been together for only about six months, and were living together. We were not having protected sex, so my pregnancy was bound to happen.
He knew, before I did, that I was pregnant. He told me for a couple of weeks, and I kept saying, “Nah, nah… my period isn’t due yet.” But I was wrong.
One Saturday, I went to the grocery store to pick up my pregnancy test, and secretly took it that day. When the pink line came up fast, I was completely shocked. I walked out of the bathroom, not being able to speak, and just motioned for my boyfriend to go look in the bathroom.
The first thing he said to me was, “His name is Alex.” I was in more shock than he was, almost crying. But in the back of my mind, I was so happy. I’d always wanted a baby. I’d always imagined myself pregnant. It was finally happening for me.
For the next few days, my boyfriend told me he’d support me in whatever decision I made, whether it was to keep it, or have and abortion. I always said I didn’t know, but I secretly knew I wanted the baby. I figured, we’re both adults, we both work, and I’m planning on going back to school. To top it off, we’re in love and planned on getting married. I could do this.
But suddenly, he put down the line. I had to abort the baby. We weren’t ready financially or emotionally, he said. I didn’t want to. I cried, and cried.
I couldn’t function during the day. I made an appointment at the abortion clinic. I cried, and cried. The night before my appointment, I cried, and begged him to let me keep it.
There was nothing more I wanted than to keep this baby. I wish I would have been stronger. But I wasn’t, and I went through with it. The morning of my appointment was dark and rainy. We drove, and I was numb.
Once we got inside, I was shocked at how many women/girls were there. I cried from the time that they called my name, to the time I went under anesthesia.
It was the scariest thing I’ve ever been through. And I would never go through it again.
To this day, I hate seeing pregnant women. It can ruin my day to see one. Babies, even.
It breaks my heart to know that in February, I would have had my own. The worst thing is that I feel like I don’t have anyone to talk to. My boyfriend and I are still together, but it’s not the same. He doesn’t understand what it feels like. God love him, he does try. But a man will never know what an abortion feels like.
The moment you find out your pregnant, you have an instant bond… something that no one will never be able to understand until they experience it themselves.
Did I do the right thing? I still ask myself that everyday. If I took away the emotions, I would say, “Yes.” I’m only 21 years old, and I still have my entire life.
I’m trying to get through school, and work full time to get through it. My boyfriend and I are broke. We are scraping by, with rent every month. Financially, we could not support a baby right now.
But, with the emotions? Yes, I wish I did have that baby. That was my child and, even without any money at all, that would be the love of my life… So its hard to say. Its over now, and I have to get on with my life.
I will always love that little boy with all of my heart and, someday, I’ll have him again. Till then, I just have to learn to be strong.”
A woman shared the following testimony on the Priests for Life site:
“I made an appointment and went to the clinic. They said I could take the pill because I found out in the early stages. A part of me thought that as long as they didn’t go in there with any metal tools and suck it out, it would be different and less gruesome. Boy, was I wrong! The time between my visit and my appointment went by really fast. I was numb and completely disconnected from everything around me. I would start crying as soon as I left work until I fell asleep at 4 or 5 am. I would walk down the street crying, or in the train, or when I saw babies and pregnant women.
I went to the clinic on a Thursday afternoon and took my first pill. I was given prescription pills for the next day. It took about 30 minutes for the cramps and bleeding to start. I remember thinking, “OK, so this should be over in an hour or so.” But it wasn’t. During that time I felt like my inside was being torn and sliced to pieces. I had blood all over my legs and went in the tub to wash them. The cramps got so bad I couldn’t even move. I couldn’t even cry. It was worse than anything I’ve ever seen on TV. All the labor and contractions they show was nothing compared to this. I couldn’t get to my phone to dial 911 and go to the emergency room. I lay there for hours thinking, “I deserve this; I brought this on myself.” Right before the fetus came out, I started vomiting everything I had in my system since that morning. Then I bled some more and hurt some more. I started praying curled up in blood in the tub, for the first time in years. I don’t remember the last time I prayed before this happened. After hours of hurting, I finally felt a huge physical relief, and the pain was immediately gone. I managed to get up. When I turned around .I saw the most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever seen my entire life. I saw my child. It was at that moment that it finally sunk in properly. I really had been pregnant. I had been carrying the life I created inside of me until that very moment.
Right after that, I cried and cried for hours. I put my child in a little box and kept saying I was sorry for what I had done. I was weeping and screaming, but nothing could turn back time. I felt like a part of me died. I felt angry. I felt guilty. I felt like my world was coming to an end and that I was the most terrible person on this earth. I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. It was the most beautiful thing I ever created, and I destroyed it.”
Kate, who was molested and raped by her father, became pregnant by him, decided to get an abortion. She was far advanced in her pregnancy when she went to the abortion facility:
“In fact no-one ever asked me the identity of my child’s father; nor did I want to tell them… I had been trained to believe that no-one would believe me…
I had given up alcohol and was taking extra milk and iron to nurture a baby I intended to abort!
September came, and at last I left home, having won a place at college to read theology and psychology… Still pregnant, I went to the students’ health center. There was no discussion of alternatives to abortion. The attitude was, “You’re at the start of your degree. You don’t want to spoil everything now.”…
At the BPAS clinic [British Pregnancy Advisory Service, a network of abortion clinics] I had what was euphemistically described as counseling. Two doctors pronounced that my mental health would be impaired if I continued with this pregnancy. There was no discussion about my circumstances or the father’s identity; it was simply assumed that because I was 18 and embarking on a three-year degree course, a child would get in the way.
My naïveté extended to ignorance of the abortion procedure. I thought I’d go into the clinic, have an anesthetic, wake up and walk out, free to get on with my life.
“You might feel mildly depressed afterwards,” I was told. They took no account of the fact that I was nearly 26 weeks gone, nearly at the legal limit. I think all abortion is traumatic, but I had no idea what would come my way. I was totally unprepared to discover that not only would I be awake, but it would take a long time and be extremely painful.
The staff at the clinic were also ambivalent towards me. It’s harder for them to administer a process which will destroy a 26 week unborn infant than a 10 week baby, because the gruesome result of their actions is far more evident…
Nothing was explained except that I was too many weeks pregnant for termination to be by a surgical procedure. The solution was a saline injection. It never occurred to me that I would go through labor and birth. I remember asking a doctor, “Will this hurt the child?”
He replied, “You mustn’t think about that. It’s not a child, it’s a fetus.”
Melanie Symonds, Phyllis Bowman And Still They Weep: Personal Stories of Abortion (The SPUC Educational Research Trust, 1996) 73 – 74
“I got an abortion on March 4, 2017. I knew I didn’t want one, I knew it was wrong, and I knew it was a mistake. I’m 21 and a senior in college. I’m graduating in May and so is my boyfriend. He’s the logical one, and I’m the emotional one. I wanted to keep my baby, but he refused to even consider it. Although I know he would help me raise the baby in the end, he would resent me and even told me how miserable he would be. I kept saying, “I don’t want to have an abortion; I want to keep my baby; this is wrong; I’m going to regret this; you’re forcing me to do this,” etc, etc. He still kept saying we had to. He got up and drove me to the clinic… I went in still saying I didn’t want to do it.
Right before I went back, my boyfriend finally told me, “If you get back there and decide you can’t, I’m not forcing you to do this.” But his face was saying, “You have to get this abortion.” Minutes later, they called me back and what was I supposed to do—ruin my boyfriend’s life? He made it very clear that’s what I’d be doing if I kept the baby. …. I made the biggest mistake of my life, and it’s something I’m never going to forgive myself for.
I can’t stop crying. I hate myself. I have a stuffed animal I keep dressing up in the onesie I was given at a Women’s Care Center when I got my pregnancy test. They were so kind there. I don’t want anyone else to ever have to feel this way. I wish I had at least postponed the appointment a few weeks, so I would have been able to have more time. Now it’s too late, and there’s nothing I can do to ever get my baby back. I’m never going to hold him, hug him, kiss him, care for him, feed him, take him to his first day of school, take him to college, watch him grow up, read him stories, or play with him. And those are only a few things I’m never going to get to do because of abortion.”
“I’ve always loved babies, and I love my boyfriend—although we’ve only been together for less than a year. But I let my fear get the best of me…I had my abortion at 11 weeks, 2 days, on the 7th of February, 2017. I waited over a month after finding out because I struggled. But I did it, and it is the worst decision I’ve ever made, I wish I walked out of the hospital that morning. I took my baby home with me to bury and that just deepened my pain—but I don’t regret that. I cry and I get angry a lot. It’s a huge thing to hold on your shoulders. I’m constantly looking up pictures of what my baby would have looked like right now if I had kept him or her. Nothing has ever hurt me this bad; I feel so stupid. I wish I could turn back the clock. BE SURE ABORTION IS WHAT YOU WANT. Don’t let the pressure get to you. Ugh. It just sucks so bad, thinking about my little baby all the time.”
“After the procedure was over I rested in the bed at the clinic. A poster in bold stark letters taped to the ceiling read. “If it weren’t for Planned Parenthood where would you be today?” That poster nauseated me more than the abortion. Filled with anger and frustration I began to weep. “You didn’t help me, “I thought. “You had the resources but you didn’t protect me or my baby.”
A woman shared her story about taking the abortion pill. She describes what happened after she realized she was pregnant:
“I announce the news to the dad who tells me right away: “abortion”. I break down and cry, I try to get him to change his mind but to no avail. He is scared and me too, I have to admit. So out of love, I decide to abort. At the hospital, I tell them that it is against my better judgement that I’m asking this abortion, that I do it “out of love for my man”.
Then I take the two first pills, everything goes OK. I go back home. The next day, I’m having horrible pains and enormous blood loss, it was a nightmare and I thought that the worst had passed. I collapse from exhaustion and the next day, I wake up surprised to not see anything happening.
At night, I find myself alone. At 7pm, first pains. The more time goes by, the more I’m in pain. Around 11pm, I begin to feel dizzy and faint. I call the [paramedics] who tell me that it’s normal.
I spend two hours on the toilet, emptying myself of my blood. I’m still in a lot of pain, I cry, I scream and I totally regret my choice. Having no strength left, I decide to go to bed. I fall asleep for 20 minutes and I wake up bathed in blood.
My man sees in what condition I am and he calls the [paramedics] again, who want nothing to do with it. A couple of minutes later, I have an urge to push just like for childbirth and here I find myself with my “baby” in my hand. A never ending nightmare!
At 7 am, I get up, exhausted and I go to the hospital where I explain what happened and that I lost the baby. The midwife calls the gynecologist who comes right away, does an ultrasound and confirms that I lost the baby and that I had a brush with death because of the hemorrhage.
Today, I sincerely regret my choice when I see how much I’ve suffered while being abandoned; that they let me suffer alone.
I’m telling myself that the life of my baby was more important that “that love” for a man. I suffer from insomnia and nightmares; I’m feeling exhausted, angry and destroyed.
I don’t know what to do, I need advice to help me overcome this ordeal. It’s been 2 months and I can’t forget, I feel disgust for my man. Thank you for your help.”
Posted to Facebook, translated from French, March 24, 2016
A woman named Victoria told the story of what happened when she had an unplanned pregnancy.
“I hope in writing this story that females who read it will learn that it is okay to think that abortion isn’t for everyone.
At first, I was optimistic about my pregnancy because there was another human being growing inside of me. But shortly after, I had to leave my boyfriend, the father of my child, because he was being verbally abusive, calling me stupid and taking useless problems out on me. I got tired of it and started treating him the same way. He couldn’t handle that, so that’s when the arguments came in. Finally I promised myself that the next time would be the last. When that time came, he knew it when I hung the phone up in his ear. He tried to call me back and I continuely hung up on him. This continued for a couple of weeks. He asked me if I still wanted to be with him, and that’s when I told him no. He said he was heart-broken. I felt relieved. Relieved to be able to do anything I wanted to. Why should I put up with just anything? I think I’m worth more than that.
14 weeks
At fourteen weeks, I went to the abortion clinic not knowing how far along I was in my pregnancy. After I saw my little baby on the monitor screen I can’t lie and say that I didn’t feel anything at all; I did. From there I knew that my baby already had a personality. It had an attitude. The technician who did my ultra sound [sic] pressed down hard on my stomach where the baby was located. (I don’t know what the purpose of this was.) Even though I couldn’t feel him, the baby kicked its little legs up and its arm were going everywhere. I don’t know if this might have hurt it. I have pictures of this little one.
After I had my ultrasound I went to someone called an “advocate” to talk about my decision. I told her that I was thinking that I was sending my baby back to God. I felt that I was at a crossroads, and at this crossroad it splits in three different directions: Abortion, Keeping it, and Adoption. I chose, at that time, the abortion route. I asked her could I see the pictures of the aborted fetuses at the late stages of abortion. She told me that these pictures were really graphic and I might change my mind about abortion. I told her if that statement was true I have that right. She seemed like she wanted me to have an abortion. After looking at these gruesome pictures it reminded me of my history lesson in high school about the Jewish holocaust. These little bodies chopped up in a glass casserole pan. It was sad.
When I got home, my mom discovered my ultrasound pictures. She turned to me and asked, “Are you sure you still want to do this? After having this picture? You don’t feel nothing at all?” I told her no. I was trying to psyche myself up for this procedure thinking it would be a one time thing. No one knew all that week I threw up at the thought of abortion. That is no lie.
The time came when my mother took me to the abortion clinic. In the car she asked me if was I sure that I wanted this done. I kept telling her yes. All kinds of thoughts ran through my head: This child has nothing to do with my mistakes, cutting up this baby is soooo wrong and how could I do this to an innocent human being, why should this baby pay for my mistake. All I could think about was this innocent baby just in my stomach without a care in the world not knowing what is going to happen to it in a couple of hours. While my mother kept hounding me with questions of, “What make you think your baby will not be taken care of? Your father and I will be here to help you. I am not saying that this decision is right, and you know it isn’t either.” As soon as her back was turned my face scrunched up and I cried hysterically. Feeling helpless like the baby in my stomach. My mother wiped the tears off my face and said, “No, I will not take you because you don’t want to do this. That’s it. We are not going. I’m going to take you home.” She took me into her arms and hugged me. I don’t know what I would have done without her. She’s been there every since. Ever since then she said I’ve been acting like her daughter again.
I am still pregnant and will be delivering in two months. To this day I am still shedding tears about even considering aborting my baby. It is like, how could I ever do that. Everyday I get up and look at all the ultra sound pictures I have and wait impatiently for the day I get to hold my baby in my arms. I don’t regret my decision at all.”
This post-abortion woman felt relieved when her abortion was over. But then the aftereffects began.
“When I went to be checked out by the doctor [after the abortion], an incredible sense of relief swept over me. It was over, finished. The doctor said I was fine and could look forward to having more children. Everything suddenly seemed okay and I could get on with my life now that the “problem” had been dealt with.
Looking back, I can see that I went into that clinic as one person and came out quite different…
I got back together with my boyfriend. We never talked about what I had done or where I had been; it maintained the denial…
Just 13 months after our wedding day, the marriage broke up. I gave up my career; I could not function properly.
Then I just went haywire. Between drinking and taking “uppers and downers”, I struggled with suicidal feelings; I was in a twilight zone where I hated myself, men, doctors and I suppose everything and everyone.”
She married again and had a son.
“… When Benjamin was born, I couldn’t relate to him. Certainly I loved him, but I was terrified of being a real mother to him. I always felt I’d damage him or break his little body somehow, or that I would lose him… Meanwhile I suffered from sleep disorders and couldn’t eat. I’d hallucinate and hear children crying, and dream of rows of tiny grey babies in chains.
Her second marriage fell apart as well.
With two broken marriages behind me, I got involved with a church group which helped you get through the grief over lost relationships. We thought we were dealing specifically with death, divorce and separation, but every time we moved into deeper territory, it was my abortion which caused me pain. In my denial I’d been calling it a “termination”, not abortion, and now my denial was being gently stripped away…
I went to my first SPUC [pro-life] conference. I’d been invited to hear a woman called Olivia Gans, the founder of American Victims of Abortion [a group for post-abortion women, to help them heal]. As she spoke about her life and the things that had been unearthed in the United States about women who had had abortions, I thought, “She’s talking about my life.”
I wanted to cry and scream with relief. I thought, “I’m not crazy after all!”…
She became involved with a post-abortion support group, British Victims of Abortion.
Now I knew I wasn’t alone. After an article about BVA appeared in Bella magazine, I had dozens and dozens of calls in one week from women like me. Healing came from being with other women, breaking down the isolation and naming the pain.”
Melanie Symonds, Phyllis Bowman And Still They Weep: Personal Stories of Abortion (The SPUC Educational Research Trust, 1996) 4 – 7
