I had been dating the boy I was supposed to marry. We had our whole lives planned out. We had been together since we were just kids. Then our world was flipped upside down. We found out we were pregnant right after my 17th birthday. Both our parents were going to absolutely lose it. We told them right before Christmas, and we were right. They instantly decided for us that the only option was abortion. His parents said they would send him away to live with relatives and we would never see each other again , my parents said I would be out on the streets with nothing. Even my boyfriend chose the parents side and I eventually had no one to support me. The appointment was scheduled for January 21st and there was no further discussion. My mother drove me that morning and I checked in. I remember everything from what I wore to sitting in the back room with all these other women waiting to be called. Everyone was older than me, from all different walks of life. I sat quietly with hot tears rolling down my face when the ultrasound person told me I was 8 weeks and 4 days. Afterwards I was so hurt and betrayed by everyone in my life that I couldn’t even look at my boyfriend anymore. He hadn’t stuck up for me or protected me! I hated myself and everyone involved. I broke up with the love of my life and married the next guy I met. I immediately got pregnant as a way to make it up to myself and I was never able to bond with my baby after she was born. This decision has affected so many things in every way. My mental health and family life. I have suffered with depression my entire adult life. I still see that boy and he is so unaffected and I just want to scream at him and make him go through 1/8th of what I have. It’s so unfair that he has been so unfazed.
My mom had me when she was young but at least she was married. Even then my grandmother was very open about how my mom wasn’t ready.. that she was close to 30 when she had kids and because my mom was so young the burden of raising me often fell on her. As I grew older my mom never expressed much interest in becoming a grandmother but made it clear every year that she was too young. I had wanted children but after my mom expressing this opinion and basically saying that I most likely wouldn’t be motherly (like her) I wasn’t sure if it was right for me. Year after year I also saw how harsh the world was and further questioned whether gaining a child was right for me. Around 16 I met my (now) husband and have basically been by his side since, except for a short break around 17. After getting back together, we dated for a few years before he proposed and moved into my grandmother’s house, which is where I had been staying at the time. We didn’t get married right away for a variety of reasons but simply put we decided we weren’t ready to take the steps that traditionally came thereafter (moving out, having kids,etc.). Soon after getting engaged, my grandfather passed away so I felt drawn to stay with my grandmother as she needed help and started to go down hill. This further changed my relationship with my (now) husband and postponed how possible wedding. At one point, he even expressed that he didn’t see the big deal in getting married because it was just a piece of paper and he didn’t think we were ready to buy a house… “what would change? Then we found out I was pregnant. Even though I had been religiously on birth control, there was a lapse in my dose considering the stress and distractions I was experiencing.. I was hysterical and unsure how I was going to face the shame of getting pregnant before marriage.. being so careless.. and how I could possibly be a mother when everybody seemed to think it was impossible. He looked at me and asked, “what are we going to do?” I thought to myself ‘I don’t know” and verbally said “I can’t do it.” He said “okay” as if to give his consent to take care of it (get and abortion). I just remember thinking how low and scared I felt. There wasn’t even a thought that I’d have any support and if the father wasn’t confident (either) then I wasn’t. Soon after finding out and determining we would “take care of it”, I found out what I needed to do and took the proper steps.. along the way not telling anybody or looking back. To this day I never told any of my family but since then I got married to him and had a child. What I did is with me every day.. sometimes I look at my son and think about how I could have an eight year old if I didn’t end its life. I don’t even know if it would have been a boy or girl. Overall, I regret not having the strength to go on because now I realize how precious conception is.. as not everybody has the opportunity.. for some it’s a miracle and it took 7 years for me to experience it again. Thank God and thank him for the heathy baby boy he has given me.. even after spitting in his face the first time. Being a mother is what I was meant to be, even if others don’t think so.. God thinks so.
Making the decision to end my baby’s life seemed like the easiest thing I’d ever done. Even though I had wanted to be pregnant, I was completely shocked to find out I was. Going to the college health service was one of the worst things I’ve ever done. There, a woman of a different race told me that an abortion could help me learn a lot about the relationship I had with my boyfriend, that it might help me to see things more clearly. Later, I would realize that this woman “advising” me had probably never even been pregnant. She was just telling me propaganda. And I was believing it. I couldn’t help but wonder if she was encouraging me to get rid of my baby because of my race and the assumed race of my baby. She was not alone, however, in her encouragement for me to terminate my pregnancy. I had always just assumed I’d have an abortion if I got pregnant. A doctor had once told my mother, when I was a teenager and thought I was pregnant, that it wouldn’t be difficult to just “go in and get it out.” Unfortunately, I was surrounded by “friends” who’d had abortions and seemed unscathed by the experience. One had just had an abortion, being that her boyfriend at the time was a waiter and she didn’t think he was making enough money. Another “friend” got pregnant a few months before her wedding and got that baby out of her so that she could wear her wedding dress. Another had an abortion with her future husband, being that she was still in school. Nobody seemed to have any regrets. So, I figured I could do it, too. I had my baby daughter killed on Good Friday, 1996. The abortionist and his helpers were no help. I said something about being nervous and an older nurse smiled at me and said, “It’s just nerves.” Later, I would realize that it wasn’t “just nerves,” but rather, it was my baby’s attempt to save her life. If only I’d waited a few days, but I was trying to get the procedure done as quickly as possible. I was never the same. My boyfriend stayed with me, although we had killed his baby. I went into trauma, dumped my sweet boyfriend that I loved, and immediately started sleeping with a guy I ended up marrying. He and I have three children together, and are now considering divorce, as I was in trauma as I started dating him. I tried to make him into the father of my daughter and that pressure to make him into another person placed a tremendous strain on our marriage. I began to drink a lot of alcohol. I miss my daughter. She would be almost 27 now. I did something so wrong to my sweet boyfriend and his family. I am so sorry. My boyfriend is a genius and I can’t help but wonder what our baby would be like now. I’m so sorry I will never know that on this earth. Yes, it seemed like such an easy decision. Killing my baby seemed like the right decision. I realize now that the only reason it seemed that way was because of the massive amount of pro-abortion propaganda. God has forgiven me, but sometimes, it is tough to forgive myself. What have we gotten to as a society, where it’s okay and even encouraged to kill a baby? Please take some time and ask God for advice. I certainly wish I had done that.
I completed one post-abortion group study at a pregnancy center and one post-abortion weekend retreat. I have read post-abortion books and went to individual therapy. Nothing helps in the long run. These things help temporarily but the pain and grief always comes back. In a lot of ways I have my life “together”. I completed my bachelors degree, I work a full time job teaching, and my husband and I have a good marriage. I was born again five years ago and a lot of things in my life have been completely renewed since. I am very active in the anti-abortion movement and speak out against abortion. But deep down the pain and grief of what I did when I was eighteen is still present. A lot of trauma that I have been through I have healed from, but the abortion does not feel like that. I believe the other trauma was much easier to heal from because it involved me being the pure victim. With my abortion, even though I may have been victimized in some ways, I ultimately was the one that committed the evil against someone else, my child. It’s much harder to forgive yourself for evil you consented to then it is to heal from others hurting you. I know I have been forgiven through Christ but regardless that dark hole of a feeling always seems to creep up once again.
I found this platform after going through something I would never think I would do, even if my life depended on it. I recently had an abortion and I can’t fathom the way I feel. I feel lost, angry, and sad. I did this for a number of reasons, but looking back, none of those seem valid anymore. My heart is broken and this is by far the biggest regret I’ve ever had. When I did the ultrasound, I told the tech that I think the baby is about the size of a blueberry. After she looked at it, she said, “Yes, think of it as a little blueberry.” I can’t get that out of my head. I am beyond traumatized and I’m so disappointed in myself. I thought I was doing the right thing at 28 years old by not bringing a child into a broken marriage, where we are not financially, and emotionally stable. I was wrong. In this life, I wanted nothing more than to be a mother. I failed. This will forever linger with me.
I just wrote and submitted my testimonial, but immediately realized I submitted it too soon. There is something else— and I feel it is SO hugely important, that I Pray it too will be posted. Aside from the lifelong paralyzing pain, guilt, shame, sorrow, graphic nightmares, and fear of going to Hell for MURDERING my own child😭😭😭, there is THIS😭: I never again in my life was able to become pregnant😭 A little girl who all she ever wanted was to be a MOM😭— that little girl is now a CHILDLESS WOMAN😭😭 ME.😭😭 I view it as God punishing me for what I did😭😭 God feeling He gave me this gift once before— He saw what I did with that precious gift😭😭— he’s not going to take that chance again😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
I was 19, living with my cold Stepfather and overprotective Mom, who still saw me as a child. I had no self-esteem & no self-worth— STILL DON’T. I had my first boyfriend at 16– he abused me in every way. I was alone, had no strength, & thought I loved him & would die without him- so I allowed every bit of it and never fought back. This included losing my virginity to him. I was a terrified little 16-year-old, alone & afraid what my Mom & Stepfather would think of me/do if I lost my virginity. But this boyfriend that was like air to me— he forced himself on me. He made it very clear that if I didn’t allow this he would leave me that very second and easily find it somewhere else. Three years later— age 19– I was dating a 24-year-old man who had his own house. I was still that terrified little girl of 16. I had been told by a Doctor that I had medical problems and would have a very hard time getting pregnant. As was the case at age 16, just three years earlier, I thought I’d better have sex with this man or he’d leave me. WHY did I care so much if a boy or man left me????😭 I believe it stems from severe bullying, a Stepfather who clearly hated me and treated me with such coldness and like I was WORTHLESS😭, and from having no self-esteem. Also from being alone and having no support. I had sex with this man one time—and I guess that Doctor was wrong, because I became pregnant. When my period didn’t come and I was feeling differently, I tried so hard to not let myself even go there. I so feared what my Stepfather would do. I so feared my Mom wouldn’t love me anymore or would think differently of me. I just COULDN’T be pregnant. I Prayed and begged for my period to come. It never did. Full of paralyzing fear, I went to a clinic and had the test. I was pregnant, 7 or 8 weeks along. I scheduled an abortion for the VERY NEXT MORNING. Those fears I wrote about were all that was driving me😭, & I didn’t even give my baby and I 24 hours😭😭😭😭 By the way— I don’t feel I even have the RIGHT to say ‘my baby’😭 or to even speak of him or her😭 or tell him or her how sorry I am😭😭😭 Anyone reading this: DO NOT THINK ABOUT WHAT *ANYONE* ELSE WOULD THINK. If your Mother views you differently then that is HER PROBLEM. If your Stepfsther throws you out of the house look at it as a GIFT. If co-workers, college teachers/classmates, other family members, ANYONE— if they look at you with SHAME for having sex out of wedlock and being pregnant, just TURN AND WALK AWAY FROM THEM *ALL*. All that matters is you and your baby. THEY do not have to live the rest of their life feeling they murdered their own CHILD😭😭😭 And wishing time travel existed so they could go back and NOT do it😭😭😭 Or fear they are going to HELL for what they’ve done😭😭😭😭 Sobbing daily at not being able to hold and kiss their own baby😭, and the REASON they can’t is because THEY MURDERED THEM!!!!!!!!!😭😭😭😭😭 This is decades later and I still sob and have graphic nightmares and keep screaming in empty rooms to PLEASE LET ME GO BACK!!!!!!!😭😭😭😭 I died the same day I murdered my helpless baby😭 I was instantly and forever changed😭 I fear going to Hell😭 I want to tell my baby how SORRY😭😭😭 I am and how much I love him or her😭😭— but I don’t feel I even have the RIGHT to do so😭😭😭 SCREW EVERYONE ELSE AND WHAT THEY MAY THINK— *DON’T* MAKE THE SAME MUSTAKE I DID😭😭😭😭😭😭