Long story short: I had a termination in 2010. That baby would have turned 7 this summer. I was desperate for children since I became an adult, but my partner and I had only been together for a few months (I was on the pill so can only assume I was the lucky 1%) and I still remember his face when I told him the news. On a practical level I think I knew all along what the outcome was going to have to be.
I now have a DS (with the same partner) but it's brought home to me what could have been – I’m confident now, having been through it, that we could have made it work, although of course I don’t know if it would have broken us as a couple or made us stronger. We would have needed significant financial help as were both on pretty much minimum wage – but I know others who have and do make it work in far worse financial situations. I wasn’t in a good place, and was smoking and drinking heavily at the time, so it wasn’t the best start for any foetus – and I certainly wasn’t taking any vitamins. But again, people do all that and have perfectly healthy babies.
Anyway, it’s all a lot of what-ifs and is totally moot and now fairly distant history, and of course now we have our DS and I’m so happy and wouldn’t change that for the world (and am aware that had that not happened, we wouldn’t have him!) but I’ve been feeling really down about it so just wanted to vent a little bit.
The worst part of the whole process, for me, was when I went to get the second pill (it was a medical termination). The nurse looked at my scan and said, “oh, it’s only a tiddler, it probably wouldn’t have survived anyway”. That more than anything totally broke my heart – which was stupid given that I’d made the decision to end the pregnancy. But that just made me really sad and it’s still the thing that goes through my head constantly all these years later.
I wouldn't call it regret exactly as I still think, overall, it was probably the right decision. But having a child since has definitely changed my outlook. I'm now fairly terrified of falling pregnant accidentally again, as we're definitely not financially ready for a 2nd (although I'd love one) but I really don't think I could bring myself to go through a second termination.
Anyway, sorry, this is a bit of a ramble but it's not something I'm comfortable talking about to real life mum friends and certainly not something I discuss with anyone other than my partner (for whom it's obviously also a slightly sensitive topic) so I thought I'd post here in case anyone else feels similarly.