abortion and sad
I am 34. I had an abortion a year ago and I regret it so much. My partner didn't want children and pressurised me into it. I felt I couldn't cope as a single mother. Now I am panicking that I won't meet a man to have children with. I keep reading stories about fertility dropping after ones twenties and wonder if I will ever have another pregnancy. The doctors at my surgery and at the clinics were all so cold, it was like being on a conveyor belt. Abortion may be OK for a teenager or early twenties but for a woman in her 30s who wanted a child it can be so hard. I was so happy when I found out I was pregnant and now I feel so sad.
Story shared: 27/04/2007 21:39:49
Comments
Allow yourself time to morn the baby you're obviously were ready to have. I think they way doctors that dealt with your case treated you wrongly and should have at least offered you counseling or something.
Now, I understand your afraid you won't get another chance. Take solace in the fact that these days women are having babies into their late forties. Although I personaly have mixed feelings about this trend, I'm sure you will get a second chance...
Take care
Allow yourself time to morn the baby you're obviously were ready to have. I think they way doctors that dealt with your case treated you wrongly and should have at least offered you counseling or something.
Now, I understand your afraid you won't get another chance. Take solace in the fact that these days women are having babies into their late forties. Although I personaly have mixed feelings about this trend, I'm sure you will get a second chance...
Take care
I have up days and down days. I am still with my partner who is adamant still he doesn't want children. I tend to be up most of the time but will have a bleak time just before, during and just after menstruating. (I tend to hope I will get pregnant again, even though we use condoms). I know it is down to me to leave him if I want to have children. I want to meet someone naturally and not embark on a grand internet-dating/dating agency type mission just to increase my chances of getting pregnant. Like most people I feel like I am an individual and have experienced love, and feel that it can't be forced. I don't want to settle down with a unsatisfactory relationship just to have a child either.
I would say I think about the abortion most days. I had it in June 2006 and it has lately got a bit easier after the year anniversary mark. I get tearful sometimes but not as often as I did. I went to see my GP about a month ago. I had never received any kind of counselling before or after the abortion. The GP was understanding and she recommended a charity counselling service called Westmeria. I haven't tried them yet but it is good to know they are they for the future. So still I haven't received any counselling although I have considered it. I looked at the Westmeria website and it did look very good, and there was a lot of praise for the service from clients on the site.
Finally perhaps a bit of a soapbox but I do think this is a feminist issue also, and I feel that we live in a world where still women are discrimated against, and yet most people just don't get it and live quite unknowingly I think, in a world that is filled with double standards. Women are damned if they have an abortion, if they are a single mother, if they have a child too early or too late, if they don't have children.... Think about those issues in relation to men...Does anyone pass much comment if a man has a child in his forties or if his partner has an abortion? Do the fathers attract the same antagonism as the single mothers they have created? Does anyone notice or care about childless men?
Thank you to all have replied on here, I repeat, I have drawn strength from your kind thoughts. I will check the site again to see if there are any further responses.Maggie
I married my husband 15 years ago and we have a 6 year old son, the pregnancy and birth opened up the raw wounds from my abortion and tore me apart, when I was young I never allowed myself to think of the foetus as a human life.
Through a tragic event in my ex-boyfriends mum's life recently we have come back into contact with each other ...we are now pen-friends and chat 2 or 3 times per day, we have talked extensively about the baby over the past week and I have been able to apologise to him for the decision I made on our part. He has also been able to tell me about how the loss of the baby has affected his life at times over the years.... we now know that it was the abortion that ended our relationship, and it has been wonderful to talk to him about all my thoughts and feelings surrounding the horror of it for the first time.
He asked me yesterday if I would run the London Marathon next year with him, 1.3 miles for every year we've lost.... I said I would, I am going to run every mile and by the end of it I know that I will have forgiven myself for what I did all those years ago.
My husband thinks this is all wonderful, he's a very caring man.
What a very traumatic experience you have been through...I ready your story and it almost felt as I had written myself. You story is so simular to situation in many ways...
I had my abortion (I hate that word) around siz months ago. Again my was an unpllaned pregnancy and to be honest I was very shocked and upset about it at first. I had only known the father 3 months when I feel pregnant (and he also told me around that time that is was still with the mother of his first child - I was devasted). I felt so confused, lonely, anxious and absolutely scared about what to do - I just couldn't think logically. What made things even harder was the father did not want the baby and I too felt extreamely manupulated and pressurised to what he wanted.
I did have that abortion mainly because I new he did not want the baby and I was scared about being s single mom - I feared I would not cope and was scared about what people will think etc...to the this day I regret having that abortion it is the worst decision of my life. I wish every day that I could turn back the clock and have my baby back.
The feelings of depression have been immense for me and like some of the other people have mentioned in the post, sometimes I have felt like I just want to die...I just feel sooo guilty, angry, loss, greif and I am very tearful all the time. I cannot see how I will learn to cope with my feelings - I can't see a future for me at the moment! I know long for my baby...
To top of it, the father ended our relationship (to be with the mother of his first child) within a week of me having the abortion, he said he wanted a 'clean break'. So I lost both my baby and the father.....what an Idiot I was?
One thing I have learnt from this is that you should never have an abortion to make someone else happy, especially if it is against you wishes and your beliefs. You will most certainly regret this decision as I have. Once you have that abortion there is no going back. You have to be 110% that it is right for you...If you are ever find yourself in a unplanned pregnancy then please consider what YOU want first. It is a frightenning experience and you can't always make a logical decision is such stressful circumstances so seek as much support as you can for example friends/family or see a councillor so you can talk it through and make the right decision for youi!..
Maggie I know it has been a couple of year since you wrote this...if you still check this post, then how are you coping now? Do you find it get easier to cope as time goes by or worse? What are plans for the future? do write if you can. I would really like some advise on how to get through this and cope with these feelings!
I made the call myself out of pure panic, even as i lay on that cold table crying, crying up at him i was still waiting for him to call the hole thing off. he didnt and I came home empty,
Now a year later I cant cope with life at all, i feel like i dont deserve my other 2 kids and they would hate me if they knew. I brokle up with my partner as i feel I wasnt the person he met as she would never have done that, and he wasnt the person I met, as the person I met loved me more than anythingk in the world and would never hurt me. I miss my baby every day. I dont lay all the blame on my ex, I have to take responsibility that it was my body and that I did make that final decision, but I do feel that i was so broken down mentally that i was in another world.
If I could get that time back, I would never ever have listened to him, but i will never get that time back again. Im seeing a councillor now and even though it helps I will never ever be the person i was before the abortion. I hate myself for what i did and struggle every day to live with it.
My sister came with me and the doctor there was the same, it was like i was worth nothing. I cried the whole time i was there and not once did anyone ask me if i was ok or if i was sure that i was making the right decision.
I was examined and then shipped off to have a blood test, once that was done i had to go to see one of the nurses to take the 1st table as part of the abortion process. Again i was crying and the only thing the nurse told me was that once i took this tablet there was no going back. I felt like i had no choice, i didn't want to lose my boyfriend and it seemed as though everyone around me thought i was doing the right thing.
I took the tablet and that was it. All i wanted was for someone to tell me not to did it, that there was another option and to tell me what i know now, it can really affect you afterwards.
I had a tattoo in memory of my baby, who me and my boyfriend decided a boy which we would have called Zack, it is a star on my foot. We like to look up in to the sky and see the stars and think that our baby is shining and looking down on us all the time.
Right now, a year on, i am still not handling it very well. My boyfriend has seemed to lock what happened away and never wants to talk about it. I am surrounded by women that are getting pregnant and since i started at my new job in september last year, 4 women have had miscarriages and it just brings it all back. I can't sleep, i cry all the time, my stomach is in knots and i can't believe that i went through with it. I should have had that baby, even if i was on my own, i love children more than anything and i know i could have made it work.
I'm going to my doctor today to see if they can help me because i just feel so alone, even though lots of the stories on here have helped.
I just need someone to talk to that knows how i feel, am i normal to still not have got over what i did? I
My sister came with me and the doctor there was the same, it was like i was worth nothing. I cried the whole time i was there and not once did anyone ask me if i was ok or if i was sure that i was making the right decision.
I was examined and then shipped off to have a blood test, once that was done i had to go to see one of the nurses to take the 1st table as part of the abortion process. Again i was crying and the only thing the nurse told me was that once i took this tablet there was no going back. I felt like i had no choice, i didn't want to lose my boyfriend and it seemed as though everyone around me thought i was doing the right thing.
I took the tablet and that was it. All i wanted was for someone to tell me not to did it, that there was another option and to tell me what i know now, it can really affect you afterwards.
I had a tattoo in memory of my baby, who me and my boyfriend decided a boy which we would have called Zack, it is a star on my foot. We like to look up in to the sky and see the stars and think that our baby is shining and looking down on us all the time.
Right now, a year on, i am still not handling it very well. My boyfriend has seemed to lock what happened away and never wants to talk about it. I am surrounded by women that are getting pregnant and since i started at my new job in september last year, 4 women have had miscarriages and it just brings it all back. I can't sleep, i cry all the time, my stomach is in knots and i can't believe that i went through with it. I should have had that baby, even if i was on my own, i love children more than anything and i know i could have made it work.
I'm going to my doctor today to see if they can help me because i just feel so alone, even though lots of the stories on here have helped.
I just need someone to talk to that knows how i feel, am i normal to still not have got over what i did? I
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