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It was the year 2009, and I was 19 years old going on 16.
My boyfriend and I were "playing house" and acting mature and pretending that a handful of part-time jobs could make life simple and easy. It was maybe six months of living together when I took that pregnancy test and realized that I had a plus sign looking back at me. I can't say the pregnancy was an accident because we did have our moments of not using protection, but the knowledge of being pregnant made us both horribly numb.
We were going to make the pregnancy somehow work for us, even better is that we were going to get married and show the world that you can have a baby with a handful of part-time jobs and little to no money in your pocket.
I remember the night when I first felt the baby move inside me. Reality kicked in, that this was real, that I was going to be a mother, that this thing inside me was eventually going to come out and take over my life and look at me for support and guidance.
I knew that we were in trouble, that this was no longer a stupid game, and that we needed to make a choice.
I didn't have a good relationship with my parents, but I did have a good relationship with my boyfriend's mother. I had a bit of a mental breakdown with her, telling her my true worries about what my life was slowly becoming, and telling her that I wasn't ready to be a mother.
Now she could have gone a million different ways on telling me how to take care of myself, but thankfully she told me that I still had options and that she would support me with whatever choice I made.
I ended up choosing abortion. My boyfriend's mother not only paid for the procedure but also joined me at the clinic. Nothing about it was easy, the second day was the hardest because I knew that I was going to walk out empty, but I was able to get through it.
It was a few months after that abortion when my boyfriend and I ended our relationship, it never was going to work out, and I thank God that we didn't have a baby that forced us to live a life we didn't want.
Now it's the year 2020, I am 30 years old, and I am the complete opposite of who I was when I was 19. Been a loving wife to the love of my life for the last four years, we have a 3-year-old son together, and we are also pregnant with our second.
2020 was the height of the coronavirus, and it was the height of economic turmoil. My husband lost his job, and my hours were cut from a normal 45 hours a week to 30.
I was 13 weeks pregnant when we had the discussion on our pregnancy, and we had a talk about what was best for us and our family. Abortion was not what we wanted, we were doing our best on finding other ways of making life easier for us, but everything always pointed back to aborting the pregnancy.
My husband was mostly worried about me, he knew about my first abortion and he didn't want me to go through it again. But this abortion was different, I was doing this out of love instead of out of fear, I was doing this for our family instead of just me.
My first abortion was at 15 weeks, my second was at 16 weeks. Both abortions were nearly eleven years apart, both of them for entirely different reasons. Having my first abortion gave me the wonderful and exciting life that I have now and having my second abortion gave my family the opportunity on keeping that good life going.
I think every woman should have the choice on what is best for her. Every life is different and every story is different, and we all have different reasons on what we think is best.
I went through a second trimester abortion knowing that I would NEVER do that again, but eleven years later and I ended up doing the exact same thing, and yet I don't regret either one of them. I am thankful I had the choice, and I hope all women will always have that same choice.
Click here to listen to this podcast and hear an OB/GYN explain the misunderstandings and cruel stereotypes of later abortions. Learn why gestational bans and exceptions to abortion care are cruel and unusual punishment.