Please help - post-abortion grief / regret support needed

[Lavender84]

Hi there,
Looking to hear from people with similar experiences.
Very soon after getting pregnant with a planned pregnancy, I developed depression and my history of OCD also flared up. My mind was consumed with negative thoughts about the pregnancy and my partner (obsessed that he was the ‘wrong’ person). I was so anxious and depressed for so many weeks I couldn’t get excited. I wasn’t excited about telling anyone or preparing in any way. I didn’t want my stomach to get bigger, I was filled with dread.
I felt like I couldn’t cope and that terminating was the only way I’d survive this - I started idolising my previous life and single people without kids. I saw kids negatively when out and about.
I kept explaining all this to my GP but she didn’t really do anything just told me to get some counselling and started me on antidepressants. Counselling didn’t help as they just told me to do what was right for me and antidepressants didn’t have long enough to kick in. What I needed was someone to explain to me what was happening to my mind and how this can happen in pregnancy.
I terminated yesterday and now I am (predictably) consumed with regret. The pain is immense. I can’t lie still or be alone, I can’t sleep, I’m panicking. I feel bereft, I can’t believe what I’ve done. I don’t know how I’m going to ever function again or move past this. I’m in my late 30s as well so no guarantee of ever having a baby, but even so it won’t be this one.
Looking to hear from people who have experienced this and hopefully to hear that it gets better?

I had termination a year ago due to what seemed like valid reasons. I regret it ever since and no day goes by without me thinking about it.
It does get easier in a way that eventually you get busy with your life and grief is somewhere in the background - it's not all consuming anymore.
I wish women were properly informed that abortion is something they need to be sure of. If there are serious doubts and difficult feeling, if the woman is attached to pregnancy then it only gets 10 times worse after termination. It's just how mind works. We tend to exaggerate what we're afraid of and miss what we don't have.
I'm really sorry you're going through this OP but believe me you're not alone. You made the decision based on what you knew back then and the only way forward is to make peace with it and focus on your goals. It does get better 💐

Oh and just to add - it takes a while for hormones to go back to normal so those first weeks are the hardest.

This is me
💔 how are you now? X

@Forgiveness thank you for asking. I am doing much better although I have my down days. I still struggle with guilt and remorse but reading my post again makes me realise how ill I was during the pregnancy (and after) and how I was backed into a corner with my own mental health.
Do you mind sharing your story? X

@Lili132 thank you so much for your message. I think at the time I didn’t have the strength to respond but your words were a comfort. You’re right, the first days / weeks were awful, I would wake up in severe (emotional) pain and I just thought my life was over, but I have seen how life goes on. Sometimes I feel so upset and angry, and sometimes I feel a sense of hope and I feel like my child is all around me, in all the beauty in the world.
Do you mind sharing a bit more of your story with me if you feel comfortable to? X

I resonate with this so much. Glad you are doing better, how did you find ways to help?
been with my partner 3 years, we planning our wedding for next year more likely the year after now.
both stable and want kids, but said In the next year or so. Also want to buy our first home, as we’ve just started a good business which is taking off. But needs 24/7 work, so very demanding but rewarding and leaves me no time. On top of that I’ve just got over the shock of losing my step mother who passed in September. My mh suffered so much, I have only just started to smile again
so when we found out I was pregnant it was such a shock, and we felt it was so awful as this was what we dreamed of and spoke about over the past 2 years.
however we both wasn’t excited, we were petrified and so scared. We kept going back and forth I was 50/50 but then looked at all the factors of wanting to sort my mh out, move into a bigger place as we have no room, sort finances and have more time to build the business we’ve just started.
ive been in such a dark place, i acted in such pain and fear, quickly making what we thought was the best choice. Since now to realise my heart is broken and i panicked. I was all over the place and didn’t get any real support from the clinic, I took the first pill and say I wouldn’t take the rest and they told me to proceed with the termination. No support at all. Since then I’ve asked for help, because I am so Broken, angry and riddled with grief and regret and I’ve never known regret, I’ve had a hard life. And I know pain and depression so well, but this is unbearable 💔
how are you coping? My heart goes out to you
all
x

@Forgiveness I’m so sorry. It’s an awful situation to be in - to feel so terrified and in pain (plus first trimester hormones) and to do what you think is right at the time only to find the emotional pain afterwards is even worse. In the first days I couldn’t get through the night I had to keep calling the Samaritans and was signed off work for weeks. I didn’t believe it could ever get better but I time has helped. Getting back to work, looking after myself (running, yoga), talking about it with those close to me (plus a therapist) have all helped. I try to reframe it in my mind that I had a mental health crisis which made me blind, and that I deserve compassion not blame.

Most days now I feel okay, we are also buying a house and I like my job, but we are trying again and every time I get my period I sink really low again and it takes me a day or two to come out of it.

It’s funny that I’m back writing this on Mumsnet, because after the termination I hated Mumsnet with a passion, purely because I had spent so much time on here when I was pregnant trying to find the answer, obsessing, staying up til the early hours reading forums. I sort of then came to blame it a bit.

How long has it been for you? It’s been 6 months for me and my baby would have been due in July, that was very hard.

Please feel free to pm me x