HEART
I was nineteen years old and a sophomore at James Madison University. I went to the clinic on campus to confirm my pregnancy. The physician on duty examined me and gave me two telephone numbers of abortion clinics. One was in Roanoke and the other was in Richmond. I chose Richmond because I had heard of several girls from my high school that had gone there and they seemed to have done fine with no ill effects. It’s funny, for a procedure that is supposed to help women and be so safe and easy, why was there so much shame and guilt associated with it? You know if you have any other procedure done you discuss it with others that have been through the same thing…..but not with abortion. You get your wisdom teeth cut out and you mention it the next time you are with your friends. Everyone shares about their own experience. But if you terminate a pregnancy, you don’t dare mention it the next time you are with your friends and if you do they change the subject very quickly. Now why do you suppose that is?
I went to a women’s clinic in Richmond. It looked like an old colonial home that had been remodeled into a professional building. When I had made the appointment on the phone I was told that I would be talking to a counselor before the procedure. So as I walked up the steps I thought, “At least I’ll be seeing a counselor who will help me sort through my feelings to see if this was really what I wanted.” What a joke! She explained the procedure (what was going to happen to me physically) and asked me what kind of birth control I wanted. She said I could have a baby later when the time was right. She didn’t tell me I could never have THIS baby. Or that THIS baby could never be replaced by another. She did say a very small number of women have emotional problems afterwards, but they were women who were mentally unstable anyway. My mind clung to that statement later because when I started having problems after terminating the pregnancy I thought, “OH, my God! I’m one of those mentally unstable women!” It set me up to hide my emotional devastation inside myself.
The unemotional professional atmosphere of the clinic helped me to stay detached from my emotions and what I was about to do… It was as if everyone I came in contact with at the clinic treated this as a routine procedure that I could put behind me as soon as I left the building. We were herded in like cattle and escorted out the back door where my boyfriend was waiting in the alley. We didn’t even leave by the same door we came in. I felt so empty inside. Like someone had removed my soul along with the “tissue”. Tissue! That’s what she called it when the counselor explained the procedure. It sure helped with my detachment. That empty hollow feeling lasted for years. It became a part of me that I wasn’t even aware of until my healing journey began many years later.
When I got home I thought I could put it behind me and pretend it never happened. But I couldn’t. It would seep through the recesses of my subconscious and plague me when my mind was quiet. So I would push it back into my subconscious and make sure my mind was never quiet. Do you know how much energy it takes to keep something that horrific in your subconscious? I would be taking a shower and sob till my eyes were swollen. Then I would come out and tell my roommates I got soap in my eyes. I got a lot of soap in my eyes in those days. I couldn’t say anything to anybody because then I would be unstable.
I did pretty well while I was in school. In college everyone is partying and going to classes. No one seemed to notice that I was doing more than I used to. I thought to myself: Well Karen, you have already done the worst thing you could possibly do so what is there to hold you back from anything else. My relationship with my boyfriend had been an open intimate relationship where we shared our thoughts and dreams. Without our even noticing it, it became superficial. I think it was because we were both trying hard not to bring up the subject of the baby that we didn’t realize we weren’t discussing other things as well. I found out many years later neither of us wanted to hurt the other one by bringing up the subject of the baby. One of my friends had a baby the same month mine would have been born. I took her a baby gift but I couldn’t bring myself to hold her baby. It was as if I wasn’t worthy. For many years I would have to brace myself if I was going to hold a baby. I couldn’t walk down the baby aisle at the grocery store because it would remind me of my loss. I avoided anything to do with babies if I could help it.
When I was pregnant with my son I loved being pregnant. I thought the feelings of torment and grief would end because I was having the baby at the right time under the right circumstances. Remember the counselor said I could have a baby later when the time was right. Well, I was married, I had enough sick time accumulated for a maternity leave…The time was right…right? But the feelings didn’t go away. Though I loved my son and thought he was the most precious thing in my life, the feelings of shame and grief still didn’t go away.
By this time, 12 years later, I had become a master at pushing the thoughts of that other baby back into my subconscious. But why do I still have to push it back behind that closed door of my subconscious 12 years later? That is a long time to still be dealing with a “procedure” that I was told would be an easy out to an unplanned pregnancy. If I had chosen to have my child there would have been difficult times, no doubt, but I would have had joys over the years as well. All I got out of terminating my pregnancy was years of shame, guilt and grief.
When I was in my thirties even pushing it out of my consciousness was too much for me when I went through a divorce. You know your mind can only handle so much pain before it all comes tumbling down. My mind couldn’t handle hiding from my baby and a divorce at the same time. I found myself attending a post abortion recovery group through my local pregnancy help center that helped me come to terms with “my choice” 12 years after the fact. Would anyone have thought that one choice would take so many years to heal? I wish someone had told me then that it is not a simple surgical procedure that you can forget about as soon as you exit the clinic. I wish someone had told me that once you are pregnant you can never be unpregnant again. It just can’t happen. You are either a woman who was pregnant and had a baby or you are a woman who was pregnant and chose to not give life to your baby. Regardless of your choice there was still a baby. I wish someone had told me about the brokenness I would feel. How my self image would change.
I encourage anyone who is hurting from an abortion to seek out their local pregnancy center so they can begin their own healing journey. Post Abortive women are in all walks of life, every socio economic class. She is even the woman next door or the woman sitting next to you in church. She might even be your child’s teacher. I myself am an elementary school teacher in Staunton, Virginia and have taught for 22 years. It’s been 10 years since my healing began and now I lead the post abortion recovery group at my local pregnancy help center. It is called HEART: Healing Emotions And Restoring The heart.