Emptiness I felt after getting pregnant during COVID-19

Hi, my name is Lanie and I’m 22 years old. I have always been pro-choice and pro-women, because you never know what someone has been through or what’s best for them. I always told my boyfriend that I’m focused, motivated, and would never want to risk our future over an accidental pregnancy. All until I actually got pregnant. My now fiance and I moved in together last March 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. This was unexpected and happened so quickly, but we work together so well and felt really excited about growing more in our relationship. In addition to moving in together, I was also adjusting to living with his 2 year old daughter. She is the sweetest baby and I loved that my fiancé was such an amazing dad. He loved being her dad and we all spent so much time together during quarantine. I truly embraced her as my own family. On March 31st, we found out I was pregnant. My fiance’s first reaction was asking me, do you still feel the same about having an abortion? I told him I didn’t know, I needed time to think. I already felt such a strong connection with this baby, loved being a step mom, and imagined us having one of our own. He kept pushing back against me saying he wasn’t ready to have another kid, we didn’t make enough money, wanted to experience more in life together, get married, etc. I was still in college with another year to go before finishing my degree, so he said he’d be supporting us all. I felt so inadequate, so worthless. I wanted our baby so badly, but how could I force him into fatherhood and our family into struggling? His daughter deserves attention and love. I was suppressing all of my emotions trying to think about how a new baby would affect everyone else. So I had an abortion. The after effects were worse than I ever imagined. How could he not want my baby, yet he co-parents with his baby’s mother every week? I felt so hurt, sad, and jealous. Because COVID-19 quarantine and restrictions were in full effect, I was isolated for MONTHS only with my fiance and his daughter. In a small apartment I was trying to work from home, attend classes from home, all while hearing baby songs playing in the background, hearing his daughter laugh as they played together. I cried and cried… some days I could not get out of bed. She has a mother that she loves very much (50/50 split-custody), so I felt left out and depressed all the time. I had no routine due to COVID-19, so every day was thinking about our missing baby. When everything in society was cancelled or taken away, family and friends became the center of our lives. My last year of college, travel plans, and other hopes (helped me justify my abortion) were destroyed. I felt so empty every day, nothing excited me anymore. None of my goals mattered, they were uncertain anyways during the pandemic. Now I’m graduating college this spring, my fiance and I are closing on our first home, and we’ve grown so much. It still breaks my heart every day thinking about us not having our 3 month old baby, moving into our new house. We really did it, and we would’ve been just fine keeping the baby. Our baby would’ve given me more purpose and love during this stressful time. We could’ve raised our babies together. We’ve been trying to get pregnant for about 3 months now, but nothing yet. Some days are worse than others, but I really hope we can conceive together soon. I wish to heal from this trauma and grow in happiness together as a family.