Can a doctor find out I had an abortion?

[JulietNotRomeo]

I'm 19 and I'm 13 weeks pregnant. I live with my parents who know I'm pregnant. They're very religious, anti abortion and for them, abortion is murder.

I've tried to make peace with the idea of being a mother, but I just simply can't. I do not want to have a baby now. I'm panicking with the idea, so I've booked a surgical termination for next week.

My question is: can a doctor find out I had a surgical termination during an internal ultrasound, if I had to go to the hospital the day after I had the procedure? I'm going to tell my parents I had a miscarriage and I bled the pregnancy out. My fear is that they'll want to go to the hospital and the doctors will see I had an abortion and my parents will know.

Any help is appreciated. I'm very scared of their reaction but I need to do this.

Gross. You’re gross.

Iv been through this when I was 18. My mum had an idea I was pregnant as I told her I'd missed a period but was too upset to tell her the truth. My ex was a bully and couldn't wait for the baby to be gone, I couldn't bring it up on my own and felt I had no choice.
I had the support from 1 friend, on the day she took me and I was such a mess, my ex picked me up because I had no one else to and I'd had a general anaesthetic but he was parked outside messaging me to hurry up because he had somewhere to be, the nurse had to walk me out.
Afterwards my mum found out she was gutted, still not sure how but probably because I left the bandage on my arm from the canula. I hated lying and doing it all in secret, she'd have supported me but I felt too young I wanted a career first. I felt so vulnerable and know how OP feels its a scary experience, my thoughts are with you 💐

You clearly have zero insight or understanding of the situation OP is in.

Demand that you want to be seen alone, that’s fine. You’re emotional. You’ve have a miscarriage. Also ask this questions when you get your abortion and see if they can help.

And you @Wife2b are a horrible person.
OP please ignore this poster. You are doing the right thing and wishing you all the best.

You are being horrible to a young woman who is on here asking for help. Do you remember when you were 19?

Says the grown fucking adult who's scared of spiders 🙄

Leaving the prolifers aside, there seem to be a lot of people on here with no understanding, and no capacity for understanding, of the situation of a very young woman with parents of whom she is genuinely, and likely with good reason, afraid. I have this understanding, first hand, albeit different scenario (no religion or termination involved). The way I read it, she is terrified her parents will pretty much march her off to the hospital when she says she's had a miscarriage, demand she's seen and her mother will muscle her way into the room. And having lived under that level of coercive control that I think is at play here, resisting that is not just a case of 'standing up to' her parents. Those who are posting from an assumption that any or all mothers are by definition benign aren't helping the OP at all here.

OP, I get it. The PP who said to raise this when you go for your termination are right. If you already have a midwife, it may also be useful to contact her, tell her what you plan to do and what you fear might happen afterwards. There may be a way to flag this up on the system. Although I do think any medical professional with an ounce of perception or awareness would generally know the score when your mother turns up with you and probably insist of their own accord that she stays out of the room. But I get you don't want to rely on the luck of that happening.

I would recommend, once this is over, that, if possible, you seek counselling or therapy for yourself (under the guise of 'recovering from the miscarriage', if your parents need to know), to help you find ways to escape from their control.

Good luck on the hard and brave action you are taking.

@Valeriekat

You are being horrible to a young woman who is on here asking for help.

I have apologised to OP for any upset caused. I don't have any clue about the religious thing and how awful that can be but I am learning from the thread. I take that on board. I was being very simplistic thinking of OP can go for an abortion without parents knowing where she is then she had no need to lie (I really have problems accepting lying and I know that's my issue so should have said nothing) as she could juts tell them she miscarried and had been seen medically. Again I am sorry if I upset OP my posts were not ok and I was wrong.

Do you remember when you were 19?

Yes; it's was horrific so let's not go there...

I’m not making it about me, it’s about not using stretched-to-braking point health services when it’s not medically indicated or justified. Just how exactly will an ultrasound ‘keep her safe’ @Mirabai ?

Just FYI the same team who work in EPU where I live are the same team who run the surgical abortion list, and the surgical miscarriage management, so they would absolutely know and might not see you. The history will be on electronic patient record.

Another thing to consider is that the GP will receive letters from all of these services the Op receives care from. So although you may fool the gynae team, you won’t fool the GP.

That’s why I think the easiest way out is to say you’ve already miscarried and been in to confirm it but where too scared to tell
mum. If you are going to lie to someone, make it your parents. Not the health service.

I do sympathise, I had very strict overbearing parents and could never cope being in this situation with them.
Good luck whatever you choose to do op x

If that happens you would ask mum to leave ...but it's wrong to waste A&E time so only go if there is a medal cal need otherwise plan a day out then pretend call them when you've been discharged to come and get you.
The whole fact you can't stand up for yourself is very sad I'd hate for my daughter to feel like this. Take care and do what is right for you.

It has very important to OP that her family believe she had a miscarriage. I dont believe a scan will be necessary but I don’t begrudge her an appt, nor would I have done when I was pregnant.

The GP does not need to be “fooled” as doctors are well used to these kinds of coercive situations.

Agreed. This is a very tricky situation. Medical professionals will be used to coercion around pregnancy - either from parents or spouse and wider family.

Hardly an issue of safety.

Agree with the PP that said counselling may be a good idea

Clearly you have no understanding of abusive families. I will leave it there.

Oh how I wish you were right

I was in the type of family the OP seems to be in.

Sometimes you have to lie.

Sometimes you cannot leave the house without a lie, even for something any other child / young adult would be able to do.

Things like visit a Dr.

You might have a problem with lies but for some of us they are or were necessary.

She gives the context that they are from a traditional background. Many families I know particularly traditional Muslim or Jewish families it would be absolutely expected that a parent would accompany an adult daughter to medical appointments, drive them to the hospital etc. Saying ‘just don’t do x’ when within that person’s cultural context it would be effectively impossible to do so is just not very helpful

Well you don’t seem to understand the safety issues in this abusive family.

I thought you were ‘leaving it there’. Have a nice day.

To @GlitteringUnicorn who gave a very helpful response, would the notes from the OP's surgical termination be available to the sonographer at the EPAC? If not then it seems she could go there citing bleeding clots and the surgery wouldn't be apparent. (Yes it's a waste of everyone's time but I for one don't blame the OP at all)
Most mothers of 19 year olds would surely wish to accompany them to hospital for something like this, no idea why people would consider it controlling.
Wishing you the very best OP xx

It depends where the TOP happened but most ultrasonographers are not working through the patients electronic patient record but on a separate radiology system. A doctor will work through the EPR and radiology system.
Regardless EPAC is a place where we have seen everything, give no secrets away and the scenario as described is not that unusual.
If she took herself off to have a termination (to "see her friend" or whatever), returned with low abdo pain and vaginal bleeding (which she will), after 48 hours of saying she had "had heavy bleeding with clots" (there will be a delay to EPAC as they are so busy), by the time she has a scan there will be no viable pregnancy and probably no remaining products of conception (horrible term).
Ultarsonograohers job is simply to report that and not speculate on whether abortion was surgical or spontaneous- nor should they be able to tell.

At end of the day you're an adult and should be your decision. I really feel for you. Have you made any progress?

@JulietNotRomeo hope you are OK and have some support at the clinic. I am sure the nurses / clinicians will help you even if you no-one else goes with you

Hi op, how did you get on?