Shame

When I was a teenager, I was using what I thought was solid birth control and, as it turned out, I was wrong. When I learned I was pregnant, my boyfriend left me... he was 18, and he just left. I felt very alone and very sad, because I knew how angry my mother was going to be when I told her.  I was very sad about going to school pregnant and, in my family, pregnancy of a young person was an embarrassment. I went to my mother after a few days, because I wanted to share my feelings and needed help with how I would get through the pregnancy and graduate high school on time. My mother said there would be no pregnancy and no baby. She said there would be no baby in this house.

She said I was having an abortion we weren't going to talk about it anymore.  No one was going to know and, if I wanted a place to live, I would do what she said, and I could not discuss it again.  She said I was going to act normal and just forget it.  

At 8 weeks my mother drove me to the clinic, and it was the worst day of my life. I had to watch an abortion being performed while the person was awake. I asked my mother if I could at least be put to sleep. The thought went through my head—maybe I would just die here. They took me into a room to talk to a lady, and she asked me if I wanted to do this.  With my mother sitting next to me, I said yes. They put me in a room that looked like a regular doctor’s office, put an IV in my arm, and brought in a machine. The next thing I remember I was bleeding and in pain, and they gave me smelling salts.  They got me up and walked me into a huge room with lots of dirty couches and had me lay there in a room with many other women, who were in pain like I was. After 15 minutes they gave me birth control pills and sent me home with my mother. 

I tried to have a normal teenage life and, according to my mother, the abortion never happened, and I could never breathe a word of it.  My mother for some reason did not understand that I would not be normal again. She didn't see what she was asking of me. She was asking me to forget the baby they just threw away. The emotional pain I felt was so bad that I became a depressed teenager. I felt so guilty for going along with what my mother said to do. I always felt that I had failed my son or daughter and that I was the guilty one. I felt like I should have fought harder for him or her. The guilt was very bad.  The physical pain I was in was ignored, and I bleed for weeks with no recovery and attended school on Monday, as if nothing happened. The pain I felt because I had blamed myself was something I lived with every day. The emotional pain lasted many, many years, and at times it grew into anger. The shame I felt after the abortion was so much worse than the shame I felt at being 15 and pregnant.