An Abortion Story.

I started this evening by settling down to watch my go-to, all time number one TV show – Call the Midwife. Many may roll their eyes at this, but the scenes of women supporting each other in the purest way possible, peppered with intervals of tea and cake, community spirit and beehive hairdo’s, to me, makes the most comforting programme on the box. I am always struck by the stories told, of new life and tragedy but tonight, the episode unexpectedly hit home.

I had my abortion in September 2018, on a nondescript Saturday, two weeks and a day before my wedding. I was full of every type of emotion, along with the sort of pain I had never experienced before, both physically and in my heart.

I had made the decision a year and a half before to come off the pill, after realising, like many other women, that my mental health was suffering and the anxiety that I thought was simply part of me, could be avoided by making the difficult decision to come off birth control. A couple of months after coming off the pill, I felt as though I had made one of the best decisions of my life – I would tell my girlfriends over and over (often when lubricated with a few G&T’s) that they didn’t have to go through the monthly ups and downs that came along with taking the pill.

My partner and I, over time, we got cocky. We went from using condoms every time we had sex, to using one of those bloody ridiculous apps to track when I was supposedly fertile. Bloody ridiculous now – at the time I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. We would use a condom around the time I was ovulating, but otherwise we became complacent and either used the withdrawal method or just went for it completely. Idiotic, I know. I thought I was being responsible whilst being able to have sex without a condom at some points during my cycle – I would often fill my girlfriends in with the detail (we are very close…). They quite rightly always had their doubts, but I thought I had this down to a T. I want to make it clear that it was my decision to not use condoms at the points where I believed I wasn’t fertile – my partner never pressured me or even gave a hint that he would prefer not to use them. He was extremely supportive when I came off the pill and could see the difference in me almost immediately.

Anyway – fast forward a year. I’m sat on the loo, staring at the stick I have just wee’d on and within seconds, the unmistakable ‘+’ appeared. I was pregnant. Wave after wave of emotion hit me. I couldn’t believe how stupid we had been. After telling my husband to be (I’m sure he has had better alarm clocks to wake him up with…), I called my local Sexual Health clinic who invited me in that afternoon.

I cannot fault the care I was given by those women – after going through the formalities and doing another test, to which she said “Yes – you are most definitely pregnant!”, I told her that we were due to get married in a fortnight and I was going on my hen do in three days’ time. It was at this point I broke down – not because of trivial things that some readers may assume, but because I couldn’t unravel and make sense of my own thoughts, about the morality of the whole experience. I knew in my heart of hearts that I couldn’t carry on with this pregnancy – my husband was not in work after he had closed his business earlier that year due to his mental health (alongside other things). I work as a self-employed PA, and I am studying to be a counsellor. And we are bloody skint. There is just no way we could conceivably bring a child into this world. I was profoundly sad that this was our decision, but I have never doubted it once. But I didn’t know how to make sense of what I was feeling about these huge, upcoming life events – and a question that was buzzing around with all the other thoughts was, should I drink alcohol whilst pregnant, even though I knew I would not be having this baby? The nurse took my hand, looked at me in the eye and told me to go and do exactly what I would under normal circumstances. It may sound like a silly thing to worry about – if I was having an abortion anyway, why would I question such a thing? I still can’t make sense of it now, but if it wasn’t for that nurse, I wouldn’t have been able to immerse myself in the most wonderful weekend that my bridesmaids had arranged for me. I was open about my situation with my girlfriends – they are one of the main reasons I got through those weeks. Talking about it and hearing their personal stories and experiences around abortion, was hugely cathartic for me. I am not one to hide things away, and I’m glad I didn’t with this.

The hen-do came and went, and although I will always remember that this was happening at the time, I will always remember it as a beautiful weekend, surrounded by my most treasured women. There were tears, of course – but I felt safe and supported, and I celebrated my upcoming wedding in a glorious fashion.

The following Wednesday, my fiancée and I made our way to the hospital and nervously waited for my 6-week scan. They assured my I wouldn’t see or hear anything, but I began to panic when the nurse left to ask a senior member of staff to come in and give her opinion. This is when we found out I was carrying twins. I can’t explain the feeling I felt at this moment – I looked at Ben with silent tears rolling down my cheeks.

We went away and spent most of that evening talking it through – even though our chances of conceiving twins again are slim (there are no twins in either of our families), we knew that bringing two babies into our lives at that time was even more inconceivable than one. This abortion was happening. I had my first appointment to take the pill to stop the pregnancy from growing before going to work for a 36-hour shift with my employer. Man, that was tough. Then 12 hours after that, I was in hospital again. They wanted to keep me in because even though it was early on, the fact that I was carrying twins could make things a little harder than usual.

I will say this now – I would not wish that pain upon anyone. I was shocked as I always considered myself to have a high pain threshold, but all the other women in that room dealt with their pain in what felt like a much more dignified manner than me. It didn’t help that every time I went to the loo with the dish to catch everything, I was repeatedly sh*tting like I’d had a bottle of laxatives for breakfast. Those poor, wonderful nurses who had to deal with it every time I rang that bell - I will forever be grateful for how they made me feel, and how much easier my experience was made with their guidance. Husband-to-be sat by me the whole time, feeling utterly helpless and probably quite terrified at the sight of his writhing, sweating wife-to-be on the hospital bed, but he held my hand and fed me a cheese sandwich when I felt I could stomach it. Unfortunately, that was the limitation of what he could do to help.

We left the hospital and I slept the day away on the sofa, exhausted. I woke up the next day, and I felt lighter – I was sad, and I always will but I knew in my heart this had been the right thing to do. The most positive thing to come out of this experience was that one night when I was crying in bed for the babies we could not keep, my partner said to me “This whole thing has made me realise how much I want a family with you one day. One day, we will be wonderful parents.”

I will never forget them, my two that couldn’t be. When I woke up on my wedding day, before the excitement ensued, I took a moment to think of my Grandad who is no longer with us, and of the babies we couldn’t keep. And then I got dressed, and the most wonderful day of my life began.

The episode of Call the Midwife tonight, told a very different story. An unmarried woman who found herself ‘in the family way’, had visited a woman whose trade was illegal abortions. Two days later, she fell extremely ill and although the abortion took place, she found herself waking up in hospital minus her womb and with the threat of being imprisoned.

I am very lucky – I have a supportive, loving, wonderful husband, girlfriends who I would be nothing without and safe, legal access to the right to abortion. The story depicted in the show was in 1960’s East End of London – women are STILL, in 2019, going through the same thing all over the world. Different states in the USA are constantly trying to overturn Roe vs Wade and the right to abortion – some states only have one abortion clinic across the whole state, and still people, from all different backgrounds, are trying to have these closed down. I went to the hospital on that day, safe in the knowledge I wouldn’t at best, be screamed at by protestors, and at worst, be caught up in the middle of a shooting – something that is not as uncommon as one may think in the USA.

I feel as though it is important to share my story – I know there will be many people out there who don’t agree with what I chose to do, but I respond to that with it was no one else’s choice but mine. Not my friend’s, my mother’s, or even my husband’s, and especially not a man whose job it is to legally prevent women from having the right to abortion. By opening up the conversation and sharing stories of our experiences, I hope that women who are terrified and bound by other’s opinions, feel as though they aren’t alone. And that by choosing to have an abortion does not make you a bad person. Every story will be different – different circumstance, different care, different pain, but one thing unites us - having to make one of the hardest decisions a woman can make.