10.04.2021
Media
Boheme
My abortions are my biggest regret in life and the one thing I would change if wishes could come true. If, like my mother, I was later blessed with children, I probably wouldn’t feel as deep of a regret. She imagined that the souls from her abortions were encarnated later when we were born. I had an abortion in 1996 and again in 1999. My regret colors my life as I am now 50 and never got to be pregnant again, and a series of health challenges have taken over my life following these abortions. The first abortion I had been careless with my boyfriend because I didn’t think I was fertile. Most of my friends had more than one abortion and at 25 I was starting to think I couldn’t get pregnant. A month before I was moving across the country to start grad school, I learned I was pregnant. It the time it was a no-brainer. My life was ahead of me and staying in this small town with this lover boyfriend wasn’t how my story was going to go. So I had an abortion, moved to Boston and became depressed for the first time in my life and have suffered with on/off depression ever since. The second abortion my boyfriend’s condom broke. We wanted to keep our baby but I was too scared since I didn’t have a job or career yet (just graduated with an MFA) and my boyfriend didn’t have his life together. (Don’t sleep with men who aren’t ready to be fathers.) I was scared to become a welfare single mother like my mother had been. I’m not pro-life but I do think more counseling and support is needed for women with unexpected pregnancies. I wish someone had helped me be brave and trust that I could still be a success and a mother given my circumstances. Within two years of that 2nd abortion I was diagnosed with Graves Disease and within 5 years uterine fibroids. I haven’t been able to get pregnant again and I’m now 50 years old.