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Heather
Florida,
United States
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My very first pregnancy at the age of nineteen had a very happy ending. I wasn't ready to be a mother; I was single and on the verge of being homeless, but God had blessed me with a family who couldn’t conceive. They wanted to adopt that child. Today that little girl is happy with the mother who adopted her. She will be turning eleven years old in May, and she is my pride and joy. I went through several years of disparity and homelessness after giving birth to her.
Finally, in 2012, God sent another blessing my way. It was my present boyfriend and his family who had taken me in as their own. In 2013 I received still another blessing, my now two year old son, the light of my life and my angel, Spencer. Family members of my boyfriend came together and set us up in a nice house with accommodations much nicer than I was used to. We had our great little family, and I was looking forward to marriage, and all was well.
Then, in 2015, I got pregnant again. But this time around, my nice accommodations, my new way of life, and my son's beautiful bedroom were all threatened to be taken away if I didn’t abort this new child. I realized that living off of other’s charity put my freedom of choice at risk, and I had no other options. My boyfriend and I worked really hard. I even had two jobs, but it still wasn’t enough to maintain our living conditions without the financial help of my boyfriend’s family. So I folded.
On Valentine’s Day 2015, I had my first and only abortion. After already carrying two children to term, it was the hardest thing I ever had to do. It was, by far, much harder than giving up my first for adoption. My boyfriend accompanied me, which took the edge off a little. Although I had made an appointment, the wait to be seen was almost four hours. If it weren’t for the hand of my man holding mine tight, I would’ve walked out more than a few times during that wait. They injected me with some type of drug that sent me in a haze during the procedure, so I don’t remember much. They then sent me out the back door where my boyfriend was awaiting me in the car.
After, I started the process of trying to forget, trying to tell myself it wasn’t that big of a deal. I had no complications with healing physically, and I went straight back to work the next Monday. I felt like I was on my path to being whole again.
That summer, just five short months after my procedure, my boyfriend left me for another woman. I was to be a single mother now, at 29 years old. It was more heartbreak. Things between them didn’t last, because in December, 2015, he came to me, begging me to take him back. I had to consider this carefully. I decided to spend a month out of state with my mother and son to clear my head, pray, and make a decision. I was out in California when I discovered I was yet again pregnant. With this finding, I gathered up strength and forgiveness in my heart and came back to my beautiful home and my boyfriend. Still under much financial assistance, I was again coerced to have yet another abortion once I came back home. This time, however, I wasn’t going to budge. One of my three sisters had been married for five years and had not been able to conceive, although they had been trying really hard. I sat down and had many discussions. With no threat of having "yet another mouth to feed" from those who had been supporting us financially, everybody is on board with this new situation.
Today, as I write this, I am eighteen weeks pregnant with a child who my sister and her husband have been growing in their hearts for years. There is no threat to my or my son’s stability, and I will be able to carry this child to term for my sister. Because of the fast pace life seems to happen, I have still not properly been able to grieve for the loss of that eight week old unborn child who passed last Valentine’s Day. But I trust that God will send the right healing program my way, and I will testify forever, on behalf of my child whose voice was ripped away. On that child’s behalf, I will be silent no more.
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