On New Year’s Eve 2013 I found out I was pregnant. I knew I needed an abortion. The next day I was hit with all the emotions. I pictured what my life could be if I had this child. For a month, I went back and forth not knowing what to do. I was a mess. I read pregnancy books, I googled pictures of what the fetus looked like each week. I scheduled and missed two appointments with abortion clinics. I desperately wanted the pregnancy to make sense, but it didn’t.

By February, I knew it was time. I was 10 weeks along when I sat on that table. The nurses put warm blankets over me, gave me the laughing gas, put on the soothing music. During the last minute of the procedure I started crying so hard the nurses had to calm me down. One of them held my hand through it all. I will always be grateful to that woman. Afterwards I wasn’t in any physical pain, just emotional. I drove myself home 30 minutes later.

No one knows about my abortion. The guy was awful to me, we no longer speak. I didn’t want my family to worry about me, and I don’t have friends. I’m 24, unemployed, still live with my dad. I have struggled with depression, ADHD, and borderline personality disorder my entire life. I can’t bring an innocent child into my difficult world.

It’s been a couple months and I don’t think about it as much as I did. Going to the doctor is still hard. I see the exam table and I tear up. I know I made the best possible decision. An impossible decision. I have no guilt, shame, anger. I have empathy for everyone who makes this choice.