Regretful abortion and breakup

[ZingyBlueHelper]

I am sorry if this is insensitive to post here.
I fell pregnant last year with an ex partner who I had just reconciled with. Great guy but was wrestling with my sexuality and questioning if I was gay, but found it hard to let go of him.
He was happy and wanted the baby regardless of our relationship status. I was extremely conflicted and went back and forth for weeks due to the instability of our situation. It was a truly terrible time and I almost lost my job due to poor mental health. I terminated at 13 weeks but I remember thinking I didn't really want to do it but it was best for all involved if I was so unsure as a baby should be really wanted. Myself and my partner ended things again in August.
The termination was 7 months ago and I struggle every day with it. I feel like I have ruined my life. I'm 35 now and miss my baby so much. I feel I have limited time to have a baby now especially if I date women and am now having to deal with this trauma, I am certainly not ready to date again and feel like it'll be a long time before I can. Feel like I have just trapped myself in a childless life because I was so scared of the unknown. People say be a single parent but I have no village (another reason I decided against keeping it).

Please has anyone any encouraging words for me. I feel like I've lost my best friend and baby and it's too much to cope with and I don't see a happy future. I did have some therapy on the NHS which I'm thankful for, but this ended as soon as I was deemed as doing "better".

I’m so sorry you’re going through this. I’m going through something similar in that I ended a pregnancy and a relationship at 8 weeks pregnant and since then me and my partner have come back together to process what happened. I made the decision to end the pregnancy due to our relationship not being in a good place and the fear of being left to do it all alone. He desperately wanted to keep the baby and I was the one who went ahead with ending it. Like you, I now really miss my baby and being pregnant and I feel so sad that it’s all gone. I also feel so much anger at everything that happened between me and my partner.
I just wanted to say that I get it. Those emotions are so complicated and there aren’t many people out there who can understand what an abortion feels like emotionally. I just hope you know you’re not alone and what you’re feeling right now- allow yourself to feel those emotions. It’s really tough and can be so isolating especially as abortion isn’t something people talk about openly.

And I'm sorry that you are going through it too, it's really so hard, and I do take comfort in that a lot of women seem to have made the same choice. We are good people that want the best for ourselves and our potential children.

Have you and your partner made amends?

When I made my choice I took comfort in that we could try again on future but I think I was trying to convince myself of that when I knew we wouldn't end up together. And now I've taken that option away from myself by breaking up (but I know we would never work as a couple).

It’s so isolating feeling this way. I know I made the decision based on the information I had at the time and I’m grateful
to have had the option to end a pregnancy when I felt like I wasn’t in a happy and emotionally safe relationship. I already have a child and so I’m very aware of how difficult pregnancy, childbirth and infancy is and you need such a strong relationship to survive all of that, or at least I know I do. So I remind myself I made the right decision for me and all those involved but I don’t think anything prepared me for feeling like this after the abortion. It seems like there are quite a few threads on here of women feeling so strongly that they wanted an abortion and then when it’s done there is a sense of grief and deep regret. I feel fortunate that my partner and I have been able to come back together and talk through our experience of the abortion and the things that lead to me making that decision and we’re actively choosing to grow from it rather than let the grief of it drag us down. But it’s hard when you can’t just tell the people around you “im
struggling today because I deeply regret the abortion I had”. It’s such a sensitive subject and feels taboo to have made such a big decision and then decide you wish you hadn’t made that decision.

the only place I’ve found for support is here on Mumsnet where people have openly expressed a sense of regret