I need to share my experience. My first pg in 1989 was so bad that I went down to 6 stone 8 pounds. I spent most of it in hospital on a feeding drip and unable to lift my head from the pillow. I won't go in to what other things HG did but by 4 months I think I'd lost some mental awareness. I begged for a sterilisation after giving birth but was laughed at by some of the doctors who suggested I was putting my illness on. 1991 and a contraception failure saw me pregnant again. HG sufferers will know that sex is not much fun with the threat of a difficult pg a possibility but like most ladies, trying to keep a relationship going makes it a necessity. So mentally sick and tired with the aftermath of HG I couldn't recognise a bad man when I saw one even if I had been living with him for years. Within a few weeks I was ringing around for help with looking after my son. I couldn't cope with the sickness already. Ironically, my partner left and neither my son or myself have seen him since. Looking at having a baby on my own was not the problem, I felt I could have handled that, my partner had stopped caring for me and had no interest in our son as soon as I got pg the first time, but the threat that it would be HG given the statistics terrified me. I had already taken to the sofa and parents and sisters were already round helping. But, nothing is free and with their help which I couldn't do without came unwanted 'advice' . Termination was a word bandied about plenty and I'm sad to this day that I wasn't strong enough to ask myself what I actually wanted. I had to make the choice quickly, was this HG or just severe morning sickness? HG in my last pg lasted 8 months, feeling just very sick in the 9th. In all honesty, I don't think I had recovered from the first HG pg mentally or physically. Looking back I can see that I held a huge fear towards pregnancy and giving birth which I didn't recognise at the time. It got so that when somebody announced their pg my first thoughts were of total pity that they were going to be so ill. That's how I associated with pg. I couldn't see pg any other way. To this day, remember this was 1991 I regret with every fibre of my being that I went through with the termination that others thought would be best for me. I didn't have any strength or moral standpoint to argue with. My partner had left and was untraceable. He wasn't paying maintenance for his first born. None of my family understandably had a good word to say about him. I didn't have a home to call my own, and had to leave where I was living as I had lost my job as I was too sick to go in so couldn't pay rent, and was still recovering mentally and physically from my first pg. The very people pressing me to terminate were the same people I would have had to lean on if I had gone through with it. I felt then that I didn't have a chance. I was also so ill with sickness that I wasn't strong enough to look at the bigger picture. It didn't occur to me to consider how I'd feel 25 years later, just that I felt so awful now. I sleep walked into the termination on everybody else's advice and have never got over it. The termination has ruined my life and I am not exaggerating. The knowledge that the sickness would have come to a close a long time ago torments me daily and I have spent the last 24 years in a very sad depression. Back then, there wasn't the support on the web like there is now and even if I could have accessed it I wouldn't have been anywhere near able to use a pc as any movement was enough to cause another vomiting session. I could not even have focused on a written word without being ill. I am not anti abortion because everyone must tread their own path but it was not something I ever thought would be right for me. To those people shaming those of us who have gone ahead, I beg you to please think how hard this has been for us and that you maybe don't know the extent of shocking HG and if you do and have been through it then you were very lucky to have had the support you would obviously have needed. To those people considering termination, please consider as I have had to do every day of my life since, whether a termination would be easier long term? I am tormented by thoughts every day that maybe, just maybe, the sickness would have gone away and not turned in to the HG I so feared. This is a grief like no other I have ever felt.