I was 16 when I met a boy that treated me like gold and loved me for who I was. Our relationship moved quickly, I was so in love with him that we got intimate within months of our first meeting. Five months later I started feeling that my body was changing, and it was confirmed I was pregnant. I had just finished grade 11 at school, and I was pregnant. What were we going to do? I was scared and so was the father.  I knew I needed to tell my mom.

Scared of her reaction I told my mother that I was pregnant and all I remember was her saying, “I will talk to Dad.” I knew she was disappointed in me, and I knew my dad would be as well. But I loved the father of this baby to my core, and we needed help and guidance. Unfortunately, help and guidance was not what we got. My mother went to one of her long time friends and got the number of her sister who was a doctor in Regina.  That is where it all turned much worse.

I remember going to the office in Regina and the doctor talking about how, “If we got it taken care of quick enough, it isn’t a baby yet, it is a fetus.”  This was the ticket for my mother to jump on it and get it moving at top speed. Next thing I knew, we were going to North Dakota on a “family vacation,” my parents, my little brother and sister, myself, and the father of my baby. There was no discussion except, “This is what we are doing for your own good.”  It was so that I could finish high school. Not once was the question asked of us, myself and the father, of what we wanted.

I remember walking through the picket lines with the father and my mom, head down and scared to death. I kind of remember sitting in the waiting room, then my only other memory is very vague of lying on the table. I don’t remember leaving the clinic, I don’t know if we stayed in the hotel that night? I do remember laying in the back of the station wagon driving home very tired and sad with the father next to me. Honestly, it took me almost 10 years to remember any of this; it was after my first son was born nine years later that the memories started to come. The abortion was never spoken of in the family, no one knew about it other than mom, dad, myself, and the father. It wasn’t until my first born was born that I even mentioned it to my mother, and she wasn’t good to talk to because she tended to play the victim.

I was numb after the abortion. I started drinking on the weekends a lot because I just couldn’t function. I clung to my boyfriend because he seemed to be all that I had left. My relationship with my mother got worse and worse, and all she could do was talk about was how I was being mean and cold. Not once was I asked how I was or if I needed someone to talk to.  It was like it never happened, and I was supposed to be like I was before. I really don’t remember much of grade 12, I do know that I would not have graduated without the support and help of my boyfriend. He was my only life line, which put a tremendous pressure on him.

We broke up not long after graduation, about a year and five months after the abortion. Devastation! The only person I was connected to didn’t want me! I had to move home because I couldn’t hold a job, I was beyond a mess. When I moved back home (small town) I started drinking again to drown the nothingness of ME. I started to sleep with boys to feel something, anything. I just wanted to feel loved by someone again, I was empty.

The summer of my 19th birthday was completely messed up. I was drinking so much then and had no self worth that when a man that I felt I could trust decided to take me home and have sex with me, even though I said no, I went limp. I was done, what did it matter anyway. That summer I was raped again, and I gave myself to many men, developing the attitude that if they were going to use me for pleasure I would turn it around and use them (not me at all, because I really just wanted to be loved again).
I developed a tough exterior, partying and sleeping around continued for years. My relationship with my mom continued to be strained. My relationship with my dad didn’t seem to change a lot, because I didn’t blame him like I did my mom.

In my destructive behaviour I met a boy that had his own destructive habits of drinking, and we decided having a relationship and then getting married would be a good idea. We both wanted kids and a family so why not. I needed to be a mother so badly. I had my first son at age 26, and he was an angel.  It did stir up the feelings of the baby I didn’t get to have, so I held him tighter and loved him more. Three and half years later my second son was born, and he was a handful. My marriage was falling apart, and my second son was really struggling. I was a single mother of a seven year old and three year old with special needs. I had been working part time at a retail store with two women of strong faith.  We talked about God a lot, and I questioned what a relationship was with God.

I had always gone to church as a child and went to Bible Camp but didn’t understand what a relationship with God was. I started going to the Regina Apostolic church and really enjoyed it. I did fall back into destructive habits of drinking and men but only on the weekends that I didn’t have the boys. I was a full time mom, working full time and caring for my boys’ every need. But on the four days a month off I was a single party girl again. My youngest son was diagnosed with Autism going into grade 1 which was a devastating blow. Buckle up sister and do it all, survival mode. Crying myself to sleep most nights and getting up in the morning to all that needed to be done. Four days a month care free and didn’t want to feel anything but fun. But still going to church every Sunday morning and enjoying it.

This is were my walk started to change. I had a dream one night.  I was in a bar standing and talking to people and I noticed this black thick tar type substance started flowing across the floor. It kept rising, and I looked over at a man I was talking to, it was coming out of his eyes and mouth. It kept rising, and I got up on the bar to get away from it.  I woke up. I knew the lifestyle that I was living wasn’t healthy. It was evil and preventing my growth in God. It still took me several years to disengage from that life style, but I continued to press into God, attending Alpha classes, 101 and 201 classes at the church, and getting my boys into kids clubs. It took a few years and I was baptised, but things still didn’t totally change.  But as I grew more and read more and attended more classes, I was feeling convicted to tone down the lifestyle. My life was so stressful, being a single mother and raising a child with extra needs and attention. It was a long six years living a life of survival day by day, still not embracing all the feelings and trauma life had been.

In this time I helped and supported everyone, including my boys.  I had a strong need to help others. I was a multi tasker extraordinaire.  Looking back now, I see I had a rescuer mentality that was not healthy for me, my kids, or the people I swooped in to help. I did it for a girlfriend, and then I started doing it for a man that needed me. This was the first real relationship I had been in since my husband, who, by the way, I encouraged and helped to a better life as well. I went to a councillor for the first time almost 20 years after the abortion and talked about it and my mom, mostly. I came to the understanding that when they made the choice that I was to have the abortion, I lost all control over my body and my child’s life. I didn’t hate my mom, but I wasn’t going to let her ever control anything in my life again. The councillor also helped me remember my feelings about the abortion, and I started to recognize some of my life patterns. 

My relationship with this man was extreme.  He called himself a Christian but didn’t live it I started to realize. I was all in when I began to see the signs of control, lies, negative relationships, pornography addiction, and the need to have other women’s attention. When it was good it was great! He needed me so much, his kids needed me, his business needed my money to do well. I worked alongside him, encouraging and supporting, he called me his cheerleader. I didn’t want to see the signs because he was the Christian man I had been waiting for and I really felt that God had put us together (I still struggle with that). It turned out that I remortgaged my house three times to give him money, and after four years he married me, just to have it confirmed with an STD and by reading his text messages that he had been with other women  He blamed me for not putting him first over everyone and God. He left me with over $130,000.00 of his debt and a broken heart, and I mean broken!

You see, I had continued to grow with God through all the years, and now I was put in a situation where, if it wasn’t for my faith and absolute dependence of Him, I would have been in a mental hospital without a doubt. Then God gave me a tremendous gift that most people considered a terrible thing.  I got laid off of my job that I loved, but it was very draining and I was a mess inside. I felt a sense of, “It is time to heal and work on me.”  I read more, I prayed more, and I trusted God more than I ever had before. It was a wonderful year of hearing and feeling His guidance. It was time to embrace my story and my healing. It was time to live without condemnation and focus on helping myself.

I had a dream two months ago.  I woke up knowing that it was time to start sharing my restoration story. “This summer will be 30 years,” I thought. I was keeping this secret for my parents, not for me. It wasn’t going to be hard for me, but the talk that I was going to have to have with my baby’s dad and my parents was going to be the hard part. The baby’s dad was amazing.  I hadn’t spoken to him in over 28 years, and he was supportive and kind. Talking to my parents, especially my dad who I have never discussed this with was difficult, and he finally told me how disappointed and angry he was with me. I accepted that, and he gave his blessing to start to talk about it. My mom was pretty good, I have to admit. I was a little surprised, but after it really sunk in, she started to play the victim again and is now worried about what people will think if I talk (this has always been a struggle for her, and she needs to work that out). She actually said to me tonight that I should really think about telling the entire story because people will talk and think badly of me. “Won’t you be embarrassed and ashamed?” I explained to her that I wasn’t ashamed at all and that everything I have done has come from the trauma. She still can’t see that, and I encouraged her to seek Christian council.

This is my shortened version of my story. There are many more stories of how my life has suffered from my abortion, but I have also done very well for myself with the help of God’s love and the Holy Spirit living inside of me. I have questioned at times why I am so joyful, loving, and kind.  Was I being fake after all the stuff I have been through? But I have realized that when the Lord lives inside of you He shines through even in the hard times.  Most people think of me as happy all the time. It has been a journey and I finally feel restored.

I have become a Life Coach, and my business name is called Restoration Thru Life Coaching. We can be restored on whatever level you need. Restoring women to who they were created to be through self-awareness and renewing of the mind. I work with teen girls in workshops called “Worth It” to help them see their worth in this world and become who they were created to be. As well, there is a self defense component to teach escape training if needed. It all wraps up in my life story package to help others in a healthy way and embracing ME and my gifts.