I was terrified and felt so completely stupid. I told my boyfriend and my older sister, that was it. It didn’t even take me a second to decide that I could not have a child.
I am a survivor of multiple sexual traumas and just spent the last year of my life in therapy learning to reclaim who I am and to reclaim the body in which I live in. Even two years into dating, I sometimes still tense up at my boyfriend’s touch. How could I possibly survive having my entire body taken over and used by something else, again? My mental health wouldn’t survive and I had to do what was right for me.
Turns out, I physically couldn’t survive. I had the worst morning sickness ever. I couldn’t hold anything down for a solid week and a half. I felt like I was dying. My stomach, even empty, would gurgle and I would just throw up bile and stomach acid. It was the worst experience ever.
Thankfully, I discovered I was pregnant very early. I went to Planned Parenthood with my boyfriend, made an appointment for a week later. I was only 6 weeks at my first appointment. I then had to wait a whole two weeks until I could actually have the procedure (which for me was simply popping some pills). I dreaded the wait. I felt so sick, I just wanted it to be over.
My boyfriend came to every appointment with me and held my hand, gave me so many words of encouragement. I remember looking around and feeling so lucky in that waiting room to have him because so many of the other girls were alone.
I took the first pill at the clinic and was sent home with the four tablets that would force the pregnancy out, a bottle of Ibuprofen, and some anti-nausea meds.
The next night I took the four other pills and literally thought I was dying for a second there. I read all the stuff they gave me which said there would be cramping, but I was no prepared for how powerful the cramps where. Basically just severe period cramps, the kind that can make you vomit (which happened to me). But an hour or so, it died down. I fell asleep and woke up to it working.
This was Friday. It’s only Wednesday. I’m through the worst of it with some light-medium bleeding still, reminds me of my usual period now.
I have a lot of mixed emotions, mainly due to the fact I live in a state that is completely against bodily autonomy. But I don’t regret the decision I made. It was the right choice for me. I want to be a mother, I’d love to have my boyfriend’s child, but that time isn’t right now. And that’s okay.