Sitting in a doctor’s office at 14 waiting for a prescription for an ear infection I was told I needed to go see an Obgyn. I was confused. For an ear infection? I had no idea I was pregnant. I had only had sex one time. I made an appointment with the OBGYN and learned I was 7 weeks along. I heard the fetal heart beat and got an ultrasound. Pictures were printed out for me to keep. I was scared but excited. The morning sickness hit me hard.. and wasn’t just designated for the morning… It lasted all day. I was vomiting constantly.. I lost around 20 lbs my first trimester do to not being able to hold anything down. My I remained happy about my pregnancy.. putting the ultrasound pictures in my binder at school and showing my baby off. I had even picked out a name Trinity Lynn. I was living with my sister then in Texas.. at around 20 weeks my dad called me and convinced me to come home to Washington. I boarded a plane and at take off as we were climbing in altitude i felt my baby kicking for the first time that I can remember. It was surreal. I was in awe and loved the feeling of my baby inside of me. The morning after returning home I woke up with the same morning sickness had my entire pregnancy.. my dad questioned why I had thrown up and I responded Duh… I’m pregnant. He looked at me with out emotion and said that we should sit down and write up a pros and cons list. He took the lead in naming all the things that having a baby could and would effect. I was left sitting In silence as my dad made my mind up for me to get an abortion. I felt powerless as I had always listened to my dad. He knew what was best. Besides where would I go if I said no.. he said I either got an abortion or I had to go and find somewhere else to live and raise my baby. Where would we live? I had never been on state assistance and didn’t have a clue as to how to go about getting it. I was sad and depressed. Back then you had to have a doctor sign off on the abortion. After being taken in an office by my long time family doctor and asked questions he brought out the paper my dad had handed him to sign and told my dad that he couldn’t sign it because I did not wish to have the abortion. My dad thanked the doctor and told him he would. Find one that would sign it and we walked away. I don’t remember seeing another doctor. But I do remember the first day of my abortion. My dad and my step mom parked the car and walking to the clinic and up the stairs I heard the screaming of the protesters calling me a murder and that my child deserved to live. In the waiting room I sat there watching my parents fill out the extensive paper work and then I was called back to an ultrasound room. I’m not sure but the lady doing the ultrasound didn’t seem to have known prior to the start of the ultrasound how far along I was because when she seen the image on the screen she gasped. Which cause me to flinch and react and stare straight at the screen asking “is there something wrong with me baby?!” Knowing she had made a mistake in showing any reaction she turned the screen away from my view and said… No nothing at all. And proceeded to do the measurements needed for the procedure. I then remember quickly being in a counselors office. But again I don’t remember being given a choice or hearing what the process would be. The next thing I know I was having seaweed rods put into my cervix to help me dialate to send me into labor and was sent home for the night. The next morning I was taken back to the clinic this time with just my step mom. I don’t remember anything but being in the room screaming and having the doctor stop what he was doing and ask me to quit down as I was scaring the other patients. My mom was next to me telling me if I was a good girl we could go shopping when it was all done and over. I couldn’t tell you how long the procedure lasted or even what happened in the following days.. I was told that we shouldn’t talk about it. It was done and over with. If I needed to blame someone then blame my dad as it was his decision. But I couldn’t help but feel as though I was a murdering coward who couldn’t protect my child. To scared to go against my dad and to scared to raise my baby alone and to scared to fail at being a mother at 14. I could have prevented it but I didn’t. It has been 24 years since that day. 24 years of regret and shame and self hate. 24 yrs of wondering what if.. what if I would have had my baby.. would I have been better? Would I have turned to drugs and sex as a numbing tool for the pain that it caused me? Would I have all these mental issues? Would I have turned out to be in relationship after relationship of abusers and narcissists? I will never know. I carry the guilt and shame with me every single day. And I’m haunted by the what ifs just as often.
I am 34 and already have 5 kids we often struggle financially especially with the cost of living in where we are living ,I blame myself for not being more careful or taking some contraception and now I am about 10 weeks pregnant time is going fast and I feel as the baby grows bigger and looks more like a fetus I will feel more connected and worse for having an abortion , but I truly can’t have another one I feel we will struggle to provide the time and money for the baby I’m so sad yet angry at myself for even thinking about abortion but i feel it’s the only way I need help and advice on what to do. Although I read some testimonies I still feel I have to do this for me and my family but I am also scared I will change as a person and feel regret.
I am writing this testimony in desperate hope that it will prevent someone else from making the same mistake I did. The past year of my life I have been homeless living in an old RV, in a new state. I met a guy and we started seeing each other, and it wasn’t too long before he moved in with me (and my two cats) because he didn’t have anywhere to live either. He had been bouncing around between places before he met me. 3 months into it I find out I’m pregnant. I cried when I saw the positive pregnancy test not because I was happy but because I was terrified. Homeless with no steady income and no family to turn to for help. I was already 34 and never planned on having kids and never been pregnant before. The first three weeks after finding out I kinda just went through the motions of taking a prenatal and eating healthy. But soon the thoughts of abortion started creeping in. I mentioned it to my boyfriend but he really wanted the baby. At around this time, his younger brother who is addicted to opiates got out of jail and my bf left me to go babysit him, and started doing drugs with him. He quickly turned into a person I didn’t recognize anymore. I freaked out and went ahead with the abortion. I didn’t want to raise a baby without a father and in poverty. I went to a planned parenthood and they treated it as just a standard procedure. No one talked to me about what I was REALLY doing. They sedated me and got it over with pretty quick. It happened so fast yet replays in my memory over and over. I went to a friends house after to recover and sleep for a few hours. I didn’t really feel anything that day, the sedatives were strong. When I woke up the next morning the reality hit me of what I had done. I still felt very much pregnant but there was no baby inside me. I felt empty. Like a part of my soul had left me. As the weeks passed the pain grew stronger and stronger and so did the regret that came along with it. I missed my baby and wanted to have her back more than anything. It is now 3 months post abortion and I feel completely empty inside. I do not enjoy life and have no desire to go on. The reason I had the abortion was so that I could get my life together and get out of my situation. I’ve never been homeless before so this is all new to me. Now I don’t even care about that. I don’t feel that I even deserve to have a house to live in . I’m turning 35 in a few weeks and I am dreading my birthday because I don’t feel that I deserve to celebrate my life and be happy. I would have been 6 months pregnant on my birthday. Picking out baby clothes and getting myself ready. I could have found a way to make it work. I could have turned to people for help, there is always someone willing to help. But I took the easy way out because I thought I was doing the right thing. I took someone’s life and I will never forgive myself. I never realized that I actually wanted a baby until mine was gone. But even if I have one in the future, it won’t be the same. It will not be that baby that I lost. If you are reading this along with the other testimonies here- please don’t have an abortion.
I was heavily coerced into having an abortion when I became pregnant with our 2nd child. My situation is beyond complicated and possibly impossible to comprehend BUT here goes nothing….. He and I both belonged to the same church and when we got pregnant with the first child it nearly destroyed us because we were basically treated like heathens for getting pregnant before marriage. My whole pregnancy was hard and it wasn’t until the baby was a few months old that things began to be somewhat normal again in our world. Fast forward a year later and there I was pregnant again and he immediately responded with “you have to get an abortion, there’s no other option”. I never wanted to get an abortion, EVER, EVER, EVER!!! I would’ve rather lived in a dark hole with my 2 babies alone than to get an abortion! He was relentlessly insistent and a manipulative jerk about it to the point that I felt like I had no choice but to go through with getting an abortion. And so I did…….. no one ever knew that I was pregnant again. I’m sure some suspected so but we never actually told anyone. Although I regretted the abortion I attempted to move on with life hoping for the best. Well, we broke up. About 3 months later he was begging me for another chance. I was so over everything that it took A LOT to convince me to give things another try after all that had transpired (abortion, so many issues with his ex girlfriend and another girl he started talking to while we weren’t together, lots of lies, and more manipulation). He told me that he was a changed man and that he was so sorry for all the wrong he had done and the pain that he caused. After a few months of watching for changed behavior and not just talk about it, I decided to give him another chance. Things were going really well for a few months, so well that we started talking about marriage and building a great life together. I felt like all the pain and suffering I had endured wasn’t for nothing! It was great…….until the girl he was messing around with while we were apart said that she was pregnant with his son! My world was shattered! He had no idea she was pregnant even though she was far enough along that she knew the sex of the baby! She told him that she wasn’t 100% sure if the child was his or not because it was between him and another guy but she was almost certain that it was his. We broke up AGAIN! I could not believe that this was happening! I was so done! Or so I thought……. I could go into greater detail but I’ll save everyone another 10 paragraphs. It was rocky over the next year, I loved him and was in love with him plus we had a baby together but I was torn. I never wanted to be just a “baby mama” or have my children by different men. No offense to anyone who is a baby mama with different babies fathers! I just didn’t want that for my life. But I also didn’t want to be a step mom or deal with “baby mama drama”. He made it clear that he didn’t want the other girl and according to her she knew that he never wanted her and that he really wanted to be with me(I saw text messages of her saying so) but she kept the baby because she thought it would make him change his mind and be with her instead. I made a decision to marry him even though I knew that he was possibly the father of this girl’s child. I married him hoping that this wasn’t his child and we could move on with our lives together. Well guess what, the baby was his! No surprise there huh? We found out a month after getting married! I was devastated and full of regret. I hated myself for being so stupid! Here we are nearly 18 years later and I’m still FULL of regret! I would’ve never married him KNOWING that the child was his! What was I thinking?!?! The crazy thing is that my husband is not the man that he was when he coerced me into an abortion, he’s not the man he was when he was being manipulative and playing mind games! He is NOW the man that I always hoped and dreamed he would be! He would literally do anything to make me happy and strives to do that daily! He regrets the abortion whole heartedly and is beyond sorry for the choices he made when he was 18 years old fresh out of high school and the years to follow (he was 21 when we got married). We have 2 more children together (3 total for us but 4 for him) and he is the definition of the best husband and father anyone could ever ask for! BUT……….. deep down inside I am broken!!! I have never gotten over the abortion! I still feel full regret and wish I would’ve never been stupid enough to let him talk me into it. I regret marrying him before finding out if the child was his or not! Now I have to live with the fact that he had a baby with someone else the same year that our baby would’ve been born. Did I mention that his son with another woman is HIS ONLY SON!!! I feel like his child replaced my child and it’s hard to continue watching him grow up and celebrate life year after year after year when my baby didn’t get a chance to. I completely understand that it’s not the child’s fault and regardless of what anyone may think I genuinely love his son. I don’t wish him any harm whatsoever! He’s a good kid, he’s a great brother, he has such a beautiful smile, and he is very thoughtful and caring. I feel like a horrible person for feeling the way that I do about his son and I wish I didn’t feel this way! I constantly pray to not feel this way! I have so much pain and my heart is truly broken! His son just celebrated his 14th birthday, Our child would’ve been 14 this year! It hurts when I hear people talk about how all of the kids are 2 years apart. I can’t help but think about how all of our kids really would’ve/should’ve been 2 years apart. It hurts when our girls say they want a baby brother and we should “try for a boy” and other family members say the same. I can’t help but think that if we would’ve kept our baby that maybe our lives would’ve turned out differently and he wouldn’t have gotten the other girl pregnant and we’d be living happily every after. I’ve even felt like if we kept our baby maybe we’d still be fine even though he had a baby with someone else! I can’t help but wonder if that baby was OUR SON! My only hope of having a son! We’ve had therapy, I’ve had therapy on my own(I was sexually abused at the age of 7 and it continued until I was 12. It led me to being a people pleaser because I felt like I had no choice but to do whatever someone else wanted me to do so that it kept the peace and I wouldn’t get anyone in trouble like my abusers told me I would if I didn’t do what was requested of me). Nothing has helped, the more time goes by the worse things become for me! With all that I’ve been through I’ve been able to get past EVERYTHING except the abortion. It is the thing that I regret most in this life! I wish I was stronger than I was to allow myself to be talked into it, I regret not telling someone I was pregnant! I feel like that alone would’ve changed everything. All I feel is pain, deep sadness, and regret! On top of that I feel like a failure for not giving my husband a son of our own! I wouldn’t wish this pain on anyone!!!
I had my abortion on August 22, I was 7 months pregnant. I had to fly out of state to have the procedure performed. The moment they stuck that needle in my stomach to kill my child I regreted it. I came home and was sucidal for weeks. I still cry every day and look at the pictures they let me take of my dead baby. I live with the shame of everyone knowing what I did. I was having problems with the father and he wouldn’t let me stay with him when I had the baby. I thought we would have to go to the shelter, I was so scared and confused. I had scheduled 5 appointments before but could never go through with it. I hate myself I killed my son. It shouldn’t be legal to have a termination that late. They should have counseling and make sure you really want to go through with the procedure. I don’t know how I will go on with this pain and grief I feel. If I could take it back I would but I know I can’t. I miss him kicking me all day long. I wish I had kept him. He was so loved I just didn’t know.
Hi, I m 32 yrs old. I was pregnant. I m so happy for this bt my husband is not mentally prepared for this baby. I have a fight with my husband and other family members for this. I am having 1.5 yr old baby boy and this is my 2nd pregnency. I am ready to sacrifice for each and everything for my 2nd pregnency. But my husband is not totally agreed for this . And he is not ready to take this responsibility. So this is very worst decision just becoz of my husband . I abort my baby . Now I do not want to talk with everyone. I feel like this is worst things in my life. And now I m not happy with husband and other family members also.
I was raped when I was a teenager, I took a pregnancy test and I was pregnant. So I had a abortion. I think about it everyday. Then when I was married I had a molar pregnancy. That haunts me terribley. But I had a baby girl after all of that.