Can I tell you my abortion - 20 years ago still on my mind

[icrossedthesea]

I am 36 years old. When I was 16 I had an abortion and I still think about it a lot more than I would like to.

Basically I was 16, I got pregnant by my then boyfriend who was 21. I knew I didn't want to be with him forever. He sort of said ya ya what ever you think.

I looked everything up then booked flights etc. When I got to Dublin airport I remember looking out at the planes taking off and think I don't want to do this. I called my boyfriend 20+ times. He didn't answer, he was on a lads holiday in Spain.

So I got on the flight, did what I did. Stayed with a relative - who didn't know. Then flew home a few days later. I told one cousin who then when drunk a few years later used it in an argument with me at a family party so all my family know now. One was disgusted with me and wasn't shy about showing it.

There was A LOT going on in my life then. I have been seeing a counsellor now a few months. There was addiction, emotional abusive, control, lots of other words I've just learnt along with a small amount of physical abuse and sexual abuse in my 'home' growing up.

I found the referendum very difficult, but was 100% in favour of it.

What sparked it in me tonight was a post asking about how many 'angel' babies you have. I had 4 miscarriages, but I often want to count 5. But then remember that 1st one was only down to my decisions so I shouldn't grieve. I then feel like the other 4 were punishment.

I did see the GP when I got home a week later, I was told to by the clinic. He basically looked at me and said why was I telling him this.

I don't think you should beat yourself about it anymore.
But it is something that happened and I understand the feeling of not having the right to grieve. It's awful.
Wishing you peace.

I've never been in your position OP but I find many people are very flippant or casual about termination, like it's getting a tooth extracted. I know if I had one I would be guilty too, regardless of circumstances because that's just the way my personality is and the way I'm wired. It's ok to feel what you feel. I hate when people minimise the enormity of it for others just because they don't feel emotional themselves. I also hate that so many young women are now pressurised into it without understanding that they may dwell on it for the rest of their lives.

it's strange, I have quite a few younger cousins 2 female ones who are 17. While I wouldn't want them to, I actually really cannot imagine either of them doing that alone. Don't get me wrong they are both clever and capable girls. But I don't think (even with a smart phone) they would know what to do.
I have always been very independent. Even when I think of my friends at the time, I highly doubt they would have know how to go about it either. They'd have got lost on the way to Dublin!

Op, this really resonated with me. Many years ago, when I was 17, about to turn 18, on my first night out at uni, I was raped. I knew nobody in this city that I’d just moved to, and I dealt with it entirely on my own. At the time, the only place to get the morning after pill was from a doctor, and I didn’t yet have a GP in the uni city, so I sat in A&E for hours to get it. I gave a false DOB as I didn’t want them contacting my parents, as I was under 18. I didn’t really know what the rules on it were, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I didn’t tell them I’d been raped, as I didn’t want them to contact the guards.

Once I’d left A&E, I was on my own with the enormity of it. I told nobody, I had nobody to tell. My parents were extremely conservative Catholics and would have been focussed on my lost virtue rather than offering any emotional support. So I put on a brave face and buried my secret.

I look at my nieces now, who started uni over the last two years, and I think how heartbroken I would be if something like that happened them. But I also think that they would not be able to do what I did. One of them rang her mum to come collect her because she had a cold and was feeling sorry for herself, ffs! But I’m also heartbroken for 17 year old me, who on paper came from a good, stable home with kind, loving parents, but who still had nobody to turn to at my darkest moment. I sometimes wonder how I coped and honestly, I’m in awe of that 17 year old kid.

So I would say, be kind to yourself. Allow yourself to grieve the baby who was aborted. Allow yourself to feel sorry for your 16 year old self but also have tremendous respect for her. Look what she did! She made the best decision she could have made at the time. She did the right thing. Hard action had to be taken and she took it. On her own. Go her!!

@sammylady37 I am so incredibly sorry you had to go through all that alone. You were a tough young woman to be able to do that for yourself. And you are right so was I.

I forgot the morning after pill used to need a prescription! I had to go with a friend or two over the years on a Sunday morning to get it at the out of hours doctors.

Go you too @sammylady37!
What a dreadful experience you went through all on your own.
I hope life has been kinder to you since 💐

Thanks @icrossedthesea and @deeahgwitch for your lovely kind words.

Life has been good since, and I’ve made my peace with what happened. But I do wonder sometimes at just how I managed to cope back then.

I sometimes wonder how I coped and honestly, I’m in awe of that 17 year old kid.

@sammylady37 That's exactly how I feel now. In some ways I feel I've moved on and forgiven myself and made peace with my situation but I still feel a bit of trauma (?!) when I think about what I had to face alone as a young girl.

As I wrote earlier upthread it was because of situations like yours and the sheer fear you must have felt, that I voted in favour of abortion, despite having reservations.
Who am I to stop young girls ( or anyone ) doing what is best for them.

This is what the older ones know - it wasn't as "easy " as taking a morning after pill or similar. It was a full scale op back in the day with a GA and a hospital stay. The feelings of fear, panic and then having to keep it all to yourself. You had to have two doctors agree that the termination could be done. You had to explain yourself. There was no kindness shown by nurses or anyone. I actually remember looking down on the floor at the foot of the operating table and there were blood stains. I got the bus home afterwards and never mentioned it to my mother - ever. Do I ever regret it? Never. And then of course there was the time when terminations were illegal. Unspeakable conditions.

It was pretty brutal and you look back @ozarina

Surgical under a GA was my only option and I was 17. I turned up in a taxi on my own and went home a few hours later in a taxi that I had to call.

I do however remember waking up from that GA to a nurse holding my hand. I don't know who she was but I will be forever grateful to her for that comfort. I must have looked like a baby. I was ID'ed until I was past 30 as I was so young looking.