Like all women on here, I signed a declaration when I had these abortions that I was having them of my own free will. But, while I was signing the documents, I felt like I was dying inside. Even thought the procedure had not begun, the abortion was hurting me already. But this was the easy way out and was my boyfriend's desire. I truly wanted my child.
When I first found out I was pregnant I was overjoyed with the fact of starting a family with the man I loved and was living with at the time. He, however surprised me with "Well, do you really think we should have it? You have to consider abortion." I was devastated that he even considered killing a product of our love. Over the next week he proceeded to give me every reason why I have to have the abortion and then pushed further stating that he would leave me and not help at all if I kept her. Finally, I relented thinking "Well, we can always have another child when the time is right." I even purchased a baby book prior to that and remember the day I picked up the 300 pages of excitement and joy and threw it away in the garbage. I felt as if I should jump in that trash and join that book. My soul was deeply, wholly and forever soiled from that point on.
When we drove up to the clinic, there were protesters lining the streets and the parking lot. One woman came right up to the window of my car as my boyfriend put his vehicle in park. As I opened the door, my heart was heavy and I said to her in a voice full of emotion "Please, this was a hard enough decision to make." Her next statement to me and my pleading eyes was a top of the lungs ear shattering scream that I was "going to hell." I shut down from that moment and did not hear another word she said. Little did she know that my hell was here on earth. My hell was about to begin.
I felt alone while walking up to that clinic and if one person would have taken a stance of compassion and empathy, put their arms around me and told me I did not have to do this, I would have my beautiful 4 year old little girl today. That day I lost both my child and myself.
Oddly enough I felt relief when I first left the clinic. I felt as if I was "unpregnated" as if my child never existed in the first place. I vowed to go on with my life and excel at work so I can create the best time to have a child and overcome all of the fears that my boyfriend was experiencing. I became a work-a-holic and was rarely home.
Two month later, even while using birth control, I was pregnant again and ended up in the same clinic. I There were no protestors that day and the walk in was peaceful. After signing the papers, my boyfriend and I sat waiting in the lobby. As the seconds ticked across the clock, my emotions began building stronger and stronger until I felt this overwhelming sense of hopelessness and sorrow. Fearing a breakdown in the lobby, I went to the front to ask for the key to the lady's room. Seeing that I was upset, the receptionist told me to come around to the back of the reception desk. She gently held my hand and said "You know, you do not have to do this." I started sobbing uncontrollably and she held me close to her heart. I thank her for her compassion in the most ironic of places. After a few minutes, I walked back to my boyfriend and told him that I was not doing this. I was keeping the child and there was no discussing it.
Twelve days later, I lost the baby to a miscarriage due to complications from my previous abortion. I was given RU 486 and had to "flush out" my dead child. My child was 6.5 weeks old and I held that little baby in my hand, looking at its dead eyes and white skin and sobbed uncontrollably. It felt so wrong to flush it down the toilet but I had no idea what else to do. Here was a life I fought to keep and God took him away from me. I lost even more of myself then. Hate entered my life that day. I started to despise myself.
As the days passed, I sank into a deep depression. I wanted nothing more of being at home. Our relationship was becoming more strained day after day because I refused to talk to him about anything and everything. I began to become deeply vengeful of my boyfriend because it is a man's duty to protect his family and I felt that he was not strong enough to do that. I understand his reasoning for pressuring the abortion was based on fear and I forgive him for that now but at the time I needed him, he failed me entirely.
One day I woke up and I realized he was a stranger to me. A month later I found out he was sleeping with another women (his ex-wife) and kicked him out of our apartment. A month after that, I realized I was pregnant again with his child.
I pleaded with him to take this opportunity for us to become a family. He refused but said I could keep it and be a single mother while he and his ex-wife moved back to Pittsburgh to try to amend their relationship again. Overcome with rage over his abandonment and extremely fearful of single parenting, I lost another child.
My self-hate after that point was exponential. I drank every day to the point where I blacked out and could not remember anything. I neglected everything in my life. I worked non-stop to fill the void and hate that was filling my soul. One of my friends even stated to me that they could feel the demons that surround me all of the time. I was lost.
Then one day I woke up and decided that I would become the extreme opposite. I built a brick wall around the loving and hurting part of my soul. I decided that those areas would never be touched again. I would not hurt or be hurt ever again. I deadened all intimacy and emotions. During this time, I felt so guilty about taking a life that I could not even kill a fire ant and would cry excessively if I so much as stepped on or injured one. Every life form was overwhelming precious to me except mine. I stopped eating. I wanted to go to sleep and never wake up again. I felt and was dead. I lived like that for years while worked 80-90 hours a week so I did not have to be alone with my thoughts.
I deeply regret my abortions. Years later, my ex called me to apologize to me stating he regrets forcing me to lose my children. He stated he thinks about it every day and what would have happened if we would have kept those children.
Four years later, at the pleading of my first boyfriend since those times, I sought help for post-traumatic stress disorder from abortion at Rachel’s Vineyard. I thank them all every day for giving me back my life and helping me to learn how to honor and love my children willing forgiving myself for what I had done under the protection of the Holy Spirit.
I never expected to ever have an abortion as I was always pro-life. I realize now you can never understand what drives someone to make this decision until you truly walk in that persons' footsteps. I've spent four years suffering with the guilt and agony of my sins. Some of the people I met at the retreat said that they are glad I sought help when I did as they have been suffering for decades. My heart goes out to them as I know how much this affected me over these long four year. I cannot imagine carrying the weight of this guilt for decades.
Before my abortion, I used to be a confident, generous joyful person with a sunny disposition. Now I've been dealing with depression, periods of intense anger, bouts of rage, elimination of self-confidence, sexual fears and disfunctions, inability to make decisions, inability to be emotionally intimate, eating disorders of both anorexia and bulemia and overwhelming intense, sorrow, guilt and regret over what I did.
No one deserves this pain. Abortion hurts. It hurts. It hurts mothers. It hurts fathers. It hurts brothers. It hurts sisters. It hurts cousins. It hurts aunts. It hurts uncles. It hurts grandmothers. It hurts grandfathers. It hurts great grandmothers. It hurts great grandfathers. It hurts generations. It breaks up families. And it kills children. It is not a choice. It is murder.
Children are the greatest part of life. They are the continuation of our lives and of our souls. Children should be celebrated and allowed to live. Abortion hurts women. Abortion kills a child and it kills the mother right along with that child.
It is this reason that I declare that I will be silent no more.