This story is published at My Abortion My Life.
I'm 23 years old and have had 5 abortions, for different reasons.
I was 14 with my first. I was sleeping with a 16 year old who was special needs. I wanted it but my parents scared me by telling me about all the disorders my baby could have, that it wouldn't be like raising a normal baby so by 7 weeks and 3 days I had a medical abortion that was very painful. I was cramping and bleeding, I think, for 3 days. I thought after that I wouldn't be able to have any kids.
I had grieved but then became addicted to cocaine. I had started dating this guy; he was 18 and sold drugs and had a few troubles with the law. I was very physically attracted to him and I was 15 and not using protection because he never wanted it. And I liked the sex more when we didn't use it.
Well, I start getting sick and I knew automatically I was pregnant. I spoke to him. He said he wasn't interested in having a child, that abortion would be best. I felt I had to choose between him and our child. I didn't want to be a struggling single mom and not have him in my life the way he was. I would do anything for him. I thought I was deeply in love.
Well, I was scared but told my parents I was pregnant and needed an abortion. I was 5 weeks and 5 days. They scheduled an appointment and when I was 6 weeks and 3 days. I had the procedure, this time a surgical abortion which was less painful.
Well, 3 months later he starts cheating on me. I didn't know until 6 months later when I was 16. I got pregnant 2 months before that. I didn't know because I had no sickness. I thought it was possible but was waiting. Well, he dumps me after 3 weeks of not me hearing from him/him avoiding me. I told him then I thought I was pregnant and this time I claimed I was keeping it. I guess since I felt he was getting rid of me I'd keep his child with me. It was like a punishment but no child should be kept to get back at someone else.
I kept it secret for 4 weeks after that. My parents found out by some friend of the family. I was asked to give it up for adoption or get an abortion, told that I had no reason to want my child. Looking back it seems like it was the best choice but I was upset, really upset that they made me abort. I was 12 weeks and 6 days. I felt so bad. I became more of an addict. 6 months later I decided to try to commit suicide. I found myself in a psychiatric ward and 2 months later came home.
I was still addicted. I had struggled with the addiction and I quit school. I had my first lesbian relationship with a girl my parents highly disapproved of for other reasons. It was a very dangerous relationship. It lasted a year before I found a guy I wasn't attracted to or liked but it was like he sucked me in. And by that time I was nearly 18. Like my ex-girlfriend, he was an ex-convict. He said he didn't do it. But I more and more disbelieve that.
Well, in the beginning of our relationship it was always this way: he beat me when he was drunk, wanted sex when he said, so no matter what, and I felt like a slave but I think a bit of me thought I deserved to be tortured, to be hurt like I hurt my children.
I hated myself more than anyone for choosing a guy who had by then long forgotten me over my child. For falling for the lies about how unhealthy my child would be because of its father. For just being too weak to actually say I wanted my baby and that was why I could never face my parents with a pregnancy again.
Well, I live with him and time goes on and he loses his job and he goes to drugs and I go worse and eventually we end up jail. Shortly after this, I'm pregnant again and he has a small job and no space really for a baby. We intend to make it work but I just can't seem to quit for this one. I could no longer get off of it. And he then lost his job when I was 12 weeks pregnant and we eventually got evicted. I was in a shelter; my parents wouldn't even help me.
Well, he found a place that would fund a later term abortion. I didn't want to do it but I felt he was the last person at least present for me and I had a year and a half where I had done everything he told me to do. So at 18 weeks and 3 days I went ahead with the abortion.
This time I really had carved out the last part of me inside me and I was all dead inside. He decides from then on that he doesn't want kids with me and I get Implanon. So life gets better and he marries me at 20 and life is still the same with how he treats me. He only gets worse because he feels he owns me. He isolates me from family and I'm not allowed outside much for fear that he will beat and abuse me. We move often and I feel like a shell or robot: nothing is how I thought I'd live at 20 years old. I am more addicted than ever. And my life is just like waiting to die because I felt I was no longer alive just waiting for my body to follow really.
Well, my IUD times out. 3 months later I'm pregnant for the 5th time and there's no question on what to do. It just is done a fifth time at a different clinic, different doctor, different faces, same result. I was 7 weeks and 4 days. He wanted me to get my tubes tied but instead got Paraguard. I somehow just felt intuitively I had to leave him.
Well, I just left 3 months ago. He left for work and I just never walked back. I have since tried to focus on fixing my life even if it's alone. I can still will myself to never have to be in these situations again. I know I lost me, that I'll never be the same but I just want to not be that person.
God made me survive a serial rapist for a reason even though I feel the choices I made were horrific. I don't know if God can forgive me or if I can I will always look at myself as a failure to my kids, but I know that if I were who I am now, I'd have never gotten myself in those situations.
I don't regret the abortions exactly; I know with my soon-to-be ex-husband it never would have been good life with a dad like that. I know that as a recovering drug addict I could never have raised them alone. I know with my first three I was too immature and not thinking of what I should have all for the wrong reasons.
But they were all so avoidable and I feel I failed my kids by getting pregnant with them in those situations. I am guilt stricken and so much of me has died because of this.
I believe in choice for everyone. Getting used to what I did is harder though, but I'm getting through because I have to if I want to survive.
—Jamie