Regretted abortion and now want a baby

[Owl82]

I'm looking for advice I dont want to upset anyone but I'm in such a hard place, I had a termination 4 weeks ago! It was the biggest mistake of my life I'm 37 (I have 3 children) and now feel I have thrown my chance away, we have thought about trying again but I feel like that it would be so wrong, and also I dont want to be judged, I feel like an evil person, is it wrong to try for another child I cant leave it a year or to I'm getting to old now, or should I forget about the whole thing and try and move forward, it's so hard!

Dear, dear owl - they let you down. What you describe is also how I was treated. It was like they just wanted to get the forms signed and the cheque cashed. I'm so sorry. And no, they done help after either.

You've come here for us to help. I've been there. The same as you. Also deliberated for ages. Also cried. Also felt I was being sensible. Also nothing could have prepared for how I felt after.

But at the time it happened to me, there was no internet and no accessible info and no place to talk like here. Now you can talk to me or anyone so easily. And I'm sure we are all here for you. ❤️

The hormones will calm down. To be honest it takes about three months to really feel more level. About nine in total I found, before I felt physically recovered. May not be so bad for you.

I did only then want another a baby. A baby. It was my first child, who this happened to, so I didn't have anything to distract me, or another child needing me.

I do believe that having another baby helps a lot to heal the wounds and help you move on. It's poignant too, and I did go through more grief and guilt as I realised more and more what I'd done, the more I experienced of pregnancy and motherhood with my second.

I thought: how could my mother, knowing all this, have ever countenanced me having an abortion?

It really shook my world. But I'm crying now so I'll stop and just say: I REALLY wasn't your fault. The very questionable 'system' let you down.

Now you can make your own decisions. You don't need them. You choose. A proper choice, because now you're more informed.

I'd suggest giving it a few weeks or months, then if you want another baby, just have one. Xxxxxxxx

IT really wasn't your fault. X

Lottelupin, please dont cry I dont mean for you to go back to that time, you have been very supportive and I'm very grateful for your kind words. I'm glad you went on to have your baby.

I think from all the advice I have received, maybe time is the best thing and see where I'm at in a couple of months, maybe I'll get a second chance or maybe not, I just hope one day the weight isn't so heavy to carry and I learn how to live with it a bit easier. x

What made you have the abortion surely those reasons haven’t changed in 4 weeks?

I chose to terminate. I didn't regret it.

Years later I miscarried between Ds1, and struggling to conceive Ds2.

It's a complex issue babies etc. Please cut yourself some slack.

Patrick educate yourself.

Stop making this lady feel worse. That's not the point of Mumsnet.

And read the thread. This isn't about words. Or education. It's about learning through experience.

@lottelupin What, exactly, do I need to educate myself on?

I've said nothing to make her feel worse. I don't agree with you comparing abortion (choosing to discontinue with pregnancy) compared to miscarriage (natural death of embryo)

And read the thread. This isn't about words. Or education. It's about learning through experience.

Is it? I thought it was about post abortion feelings of guilt and regret, which is pretty common.

Patrick I'm not sure what your problem is. Please don't be so bizarrely patronising. Yes of course I understand, and replied earlier and apologised/clarified.

I don't consider abortion a proper choice where the 'chooser' isn't in a position fully to understand the options. Therefore, the choice is flawed and to some degree the baby has been lost.

Purple learning through experience aka post abortion regret.

There’s nothing to suggest the op didn’t understand the options. She just feels she made the wrong choice.

I don't consider abortion a proper choice where the 'chooser' isn't in a position fully to understand the options. Therefore, the choice is flawed and to some degree the baby has been lost

I agree with this completely. And quite often, the woman feels like she’s in a crisis situation beforehand, hence the choice to have a termination. A termination feels like the only option she has, and quite often she chooses not to talk to anyone and feels alone.

It is only afterwards that it truly hits her. Her baby is gone and that’s when the grief sets in. Before the termination, you have both cards on the table and looking back on my own experience, an abortion seemed like the logical choice even if it’s something I didn’t want to have to go through. I expected afterwards that I would be ok.

I was not.

The choice I made when I was not in the right frame of mind and didn’t seek support, resulted in a loss. Abortion is painted as this rosy way out, but it’s not. I don’t judge any woman for having one, but I also know for a fact that a lot of women suffer with the feelings of loss and grief afterwards.

To say it’s not a loss when you can’t look at the bigger picture, makes that person extremely narrow minded. And I find that an insult to women who have suffered after having an abortion.

I had 3 children when I found myself pregnant. I wanted the baby, but my mind shut that away. I blocked it out. I focused more on what people would think of me having a 4th child and I was really scared. I was scared about how a 4th would affect my existing children. I thought long and hard and I knew I still wanted that baby in the back of my mind, but I thought no I can’t I have to have a termination. I didn’t speak to anyone apart from my partner.
After the termination, I thought why? Why have I done this? I didn’t want to do this. We could have made it work. But it was too late and the baby was gone. That to me is a loss. Only I can never talk about it like it’s a loss because people are still so ignorant about the whole picture.

What if a woman is going through domestic violence, and wants her baby but has a termination because she feels forced? Or to
make sure her baby isn’t brought in to the situation? Is that seriously not a loss?

Abortion is not a black and white issue and there is more to it. People need to understand that fact.

Oh, and nobody is comparing a termination to other forms of loss and saying they are the same.
A termination is a different form of loss, but a loss all the same. It might not be in the same category because it was a choice, but it’s still a pregnancy loss to many women.

Funinthesun ❤️ Thank you. You have put it so well.

Nobody can properly understand the option of abortion until they have been through it. For some it is manageable, for others it is an intense, horrific event which also involves feelings of bewilderment that this could ever have been proposed as an option.

As Fun says, it is routinely processed like any minor surgery. That is misleading. And life and death decisions are based on that. It's not funny at all. And happening every day.

Patrick it sounds like you are voicing the anger and frustration that a woman suffering from miscarriage and loss of a baby through, for example, still birth might feel towards women who chose to act in a way which result in the death of their baby. How can those women call it the same loss as a woman who had the choice taken out of her hands by nature or accident?

I understand and what I'm trying to communicate is that there are women who also wanted their babies, passionately, but were shamed into abortion on the grounds of: having an abortion is sensible and decent and the unselfish way to proceed; having your baby would be foolhardy, selfish and verging on insane.

These women have also lost. Through a different intervention, but still lost.

The cases are so specifically different, though, and so acutely sensitive, that I agree the blanket use of the word 'loss' is too general.

At the end of the day, though, we are all sad 😞

I felt obsessed with babies for about a month or two after my abortion. I know my niece went through similar. For both of us it was a temporary phase before getting on and being grateful that we had this option and saw the benefits. It is a monumental hormonal mess at the moment, similar to the baby blues hormone crash. I do think more women should be aware that this can and often does happen, and that it doesnt mean that you made the wrong decision.
Be kind to yourself. Your reasons were valid. If you decide a bit later you want to try for another baby, you can prepare more so youre not thrown into it like you were this time.

OP. Its so bloody hard. I have 3 DC like you and the same age, have had a late miscarriage and then finally I had a termination which for me, was more devastating than the MC. Not because I compare for one moment the horror, shock and loss of a baby through MC or stillbirth to the decision to terminate a pregnancy but because every.single.situation.is.different and personal.

My choice was devastating to me because I would never have dreamt that I would have to make that decision and it was unbearable to feel it was better for our family at that time to terminate than keep the baby. We made our choice because our youngest DC has severe learning difficulties and I am full-time carer to them. I didn't feel I could cope with a baby too and risk another child with difficulties.

I'll forever feel guilty though and I have moments where I hate myself for what I did but we made the rational decision we did at the time which we felt was best for our whole family.

What you're feeling is so so normal OP. I'll always wonder what that baby would have been like, sometimes torturing myself with it but we can only ever do what we feel is best at the time which is what you did. We can only do what why feel is right in our hearts and heads. Wishing you lots of unmumsnetty hugs and best wishes for you OP.

Funinthesun, everything you have said is very similar to how i felt, and your reasons were very similar to part of the reasons i had to. When I spoke over the phone to the abortion helpline the lady was very kind and explained that I was suffering disenfranchised grief, I felt I had no right to grieve, at the end of the day I was here through choice, but reading about it made sense of what she said. It's a very hard situation and one i would never wish on anyone.

OP, whatever you do wait a while before trying to get pregnant again. It could be the hormones making you want another baby. They will settle down in a month or two and then you can make a more informed choice. Give it some time.

Also, therapy can really help if your regret stays with you.

I'm sorry, Owl 😥

It will lessen in time, but yes, counselling, or self-counselling, will be the way.

Owl it is a hard situation, and people still think women walk happily in to the clinic and then feel nothing but relief when it’s done.

I wish people would understand that feeling a loss after a termination, is taking nothing away from women who have suffered a miscarriage or a still birth. It’s grief and loss in different circumstances, I’m not sure what is so difficult to understand about that.

I’m probably coming across as a bit emotional, but that’s because I am. Not as much as I used to be, but it’s still very painful. I don’t like the thought of people minimising my experience just because it was a choice. I really wish people would go and educate themselves fully on the subject of abortion before they think they can tell women who have been through it how to feel and think.

And at the end of the day we are all going through our own journeys in life. I can’t take anyone else’s pain they have been through as much as I wish I could. All I ask is that people aren’t so vicious about my own experiences when it doesn’t affect them whatsoever.

Abortions can really mess with your emotions and hormones.

I aborted what would have been my third child about 9 years ago. I knew it had to end on abortion the moment I saw that positive test and it was done by the time I was six weeks pregnant. But my mind found it very very hard to let go. I described it as a battle between my logical and maternal sides - the reasons for having an abortion were logical and never went away, but the maternal side was looking at my two existing children and cried out in pain as if I had lost one of them instead. Abortion was the one decision that no one else could help me make, it was also the only decision that had absolutely no right or wrong answer.

I got pregnant a year later and miscarried and that brought me back to reality. I got well past the stage I had with the abortion but the circumstances I was still in meant that when I miscarried it was a total relief. That completely surprised me, just the strength of that relief.

I'm not going to lie- there are still twinges of pain when I think about the abortion. But my life is at a point where the problems have disappeared and I could easily now have another baby. I don't want to though and that also feels like guilt.

My advice would be to grieve and mourn and then try and move on- distraction, new hobbies etc. Plenty of self care, plenty of rest, exercise and good food.