My Abortion Story

Warning: this post discusses my experience with domestic violence and abortion, and the details can be distressing. This article was originally posted on Medium.com

On a Friday morning in the fall of 2020, I walked into an abortion clinic. By the time I came back out, I would never be the same. I have always been pro-choice, and to this day I still am. This was the choice that I was given: get an abortion, or I’ll kill you.

I was in the process of leaving an abusive relationship when I found out that I was pregnant with my second child. Morning after morning, I woke up to vomit and read the countless threats texted to me from the father of my children. I was ready to love this child, and I was fine with doing it alone. As the threats continued to roll in, getting more and more colorful, I finally made the phone call to schedule an appointment at the clinic. I went blank. I had to do what I had to do in order to survive and take care of my child who was already earthside. This was not my choice. This was the choice of a violent and careless man.

Two days before my abortion, I held my breath as we pulled into the clinic for my initial appointment and ultrasound. I had to have one done 48 hours before the abortion. I can only assume that the time frame is necessary so that abortion-havers have a solid 2 day window to wallow in guilt, and maybe even change their minds. I did my wallowing. I didn’t have another choice, but I did try to do the logistics in my head of how I could get out of this and not die. I never found an answer.

On that Friday, I had a false sense of safety because there were no protestors when I came to the clinic earlier that week. As it turns out, the pro-life crowd knows that abortions happen on Fridays. While my abuser waited outside in his car, I had to be escorted in by a security officer as hysterical women shouted at me to stop, “please don’t kill your baby!” A handful of silent but intimidating men stood there with guns. They didn’t have to say a word for me to fear them. Nobody noticed the man waiting for me in the car. Nobody tried to stop him.

While I waited in the clinic, I did my best not to look up. I was feeling so many emotions. I wondered what the other people in the room felt. Would they feel relieved when they left here? I hoped that they would. I wished I could just run out of the building. In a panic, I asked them to just give me the pill rather than going through with the procedure. I took it, and ran outside where I was greeted by the remaining two people from the protest that had stuck around waiting for us to come back out. An old woman and a young man flagged me down and gave me a card for an “abortion reversal clinic.” I knew that it wasn’t possible; the first abortion pill prevents the fetus from developing any further. It was already done. Despite this, I hung on to that card for a long time. I wished it could be true.

As if someone heard me pleading for a way out, I vomited all over myself. The pill came up whole. Just as fast as it came up, we were pulling right back up to the clinic to get another one. I was in crisis mode. And then, before I could process, I was alone. We had arrived at his parent’s house. I had just taken the second pill. I was covered in puke, tears, and I wanted to disappear forever. Eventually, I walked up to the door and asked for clean clothes, only to be looked at like I was a zoo animal. It was by far the lowest moment of my life.

These things are tricky to talk about. From what I’ve just described, abortion sounds like a horror story. It was for me. It may have saved my life, but it also took away my own autonomy. It took away a child that I was ready to love. A child that had a name. And now, I find it hard to talk about them. I fear sounding like a pro-life lunatic, or my pain being perceived as me warning women from getting abortions. What was so traumatizing wasn’t the abortion itself, it was my inability to make that decision for myself without putting my life in danger.

Three years have gone by, and I still struggle with “what-ifs.” I visit a graveyard where mothers and babies were buried a long time ago and I talk to a child that never got to exist. This is just what motherhood looks like for me some days, as crazy as that might sound. I like to think that their spirit rests there, nurtured by the spirits of the mothers that were reunited with their children. I like to think that one day I will get to reunite with them too, and soak in moments of what could have been. Grief has made me do some strange things, like going back to the clinic to request copies of my ultrasound, or hanging onto that abortion reversal clinic’s phone number despite knowing it was too late. I just needed to acknowledge that they existed. I needed to talk about them. I needed a place to hold my grief.

Their name was Laine.