• Videos / 
• Gear / 
• Blog / 
• Podcast / 
• Substack

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• /abort73

On June 24, 2014, I found out that I was pregnant.

I had been dating a Marine who had only a month left in the military. He was stationed in Jacksonville, NC. We decided to date, disregarding the questionable future that lay ahead of us. I was still in college at ASU in Boone, NC (where I still am); he was planning on returning home to Connecticut once he got out of the service. I was a Christian—but my journey was only beginning—and he was an atheist. A future with him did not look promising. One night, when he had come up to Boone to visit, we decided to partake in adult actions. Although we did not go all the way, it still ended in a pregnancy, which was miraculous in itself.

When I found out, I called him to inform him of the news. Instead of talking it out like adults, he freaked out—instantly telling me that he wasn’t going to be around and that I needed to get rid of it. He proceeded to tell me that an abortion was 100% the right path to take. During this conversation, I was home alone, sitting on my bathroom floor. After we got off the phone, he and I were not on good terms, due to the difference in our beliefs and opinions. He called me two hours later to inform me that he had called a clinic in Charlotte, NC, scheduled an appointment for the next day, and he had wire-transferred money to the clinic for payment. I was in absolute shock.

I called my best friend and informed her of my situation. I asked her if she could come stay the night with me, help me go through my thoughts, and go with me to the clinic the next day. I came to the conclusion that I could just go to the clinic and leave whenever. I could get an ultrasound and just make up my mind as I went along.

That night I told my friend I was 75% sure I would keep the child. The other 25% was because I didn’t want to do it alone. I had been abandoned by my biological dad when I was a baby. I had an “abandonment /unlovable” complex for a large potion of my life.

The next day, we piled into the car and headed to Charlotte. When we got to the clinic, protestors were screaming at my car while holding up signs as we pulled up to the clinic. I instantly felt dirty.

We got out of the car and headed in. I gave the woman at the front desk my name and she gave me a bag for my belongings: a gown, flip-flops, and a number (#43). She informed me that once I go back to the private waiting room, I would not be able to bring any personal effects. No cell phone, no watch, no socks, nothing. I changed and gave my bag to my friend in the waiting room instead of putting the bag in one of the cubbies. I felt bare and vulnerable.

I entered through the door that led me to the private waiting area in the back. Before the nurses put me in the room, they took my blood, vitals, and a pee sample. The women that worked at the clinic were cold and monotone. Each woman was robotic, harsh, and emotionless.

Finally, I was back in the private waiting room. There were easily 50 women in the same gown and flip-flops waiting in that room with me. There was not even enough seating. I had to sit on the floor. Some women were quiet (fearful), some were bragging about being on their 3rd or 10th abortion, and some were just talking about mundane things like the weather. I kept quiet, slowly taking in my surroundings and coming to terms with my reality. I felt confused, alone, cold, and robotic—like a cow just moving through the process. I couldn’t text anyone and decipher my thoughts and emotions.

The clinic had Legally Blonde playing on repeat on the TV. I can remember looking up at that screen and thinking, “how can a comedic romance movie be appropriate for this place, for this moment?” Of course, my mind was thinking many things.

Four hours rolled past and the women that would go would only be replaced by fresh meat. The women ranged from young to old, successful to streetwalker, etc. It was a whole entire other world. The women were only called by their numbers, not their names. I felt like I was in a nightmare. Just going through the motions of being a cow in a meat plant, being led to my death with every call of a number. Finally, they called my number, #43.

The nurse first brought me to a room to give me an ultrasound. It was to provide the doctor with a precise estimate of the baby’s development. When the woman was in the process of conducting the ultrasound, I asked her if I could see the screen. She asked if I was sure and I replied with a “yes.” The baby was five weeks and four days along. He/she had a heart beat.

After we were done, she brought me out into the hallway where a doctor met me with two paper cups in his hands. He handed me one with a pill in it and said take this. I stupidly did, without thinking and without processing everything that I had just seen. It was in the hallway that the doctor informed me that the pill I had just taken would cause the baby’s heart to stop beating within a matter of minutes, possibly seconds. Then, he handed me a packet and a prescription for Oxycodone. He directed me to take what was in the packet within 24 hours. The packet contained a pill that would cause me to miscarry. The miscarriage would be so painful that it was crucial I get the prescription filled. After her was done, he handed me a few papers and said, “you can get changed and head out, number 43.” Just like that, I went from being a human being to being a monster named “43.”

When I returned to the waiting room, I grabbed my stuff and changed. I checked my phone before heading outside and had a few missed calls and texts from the father. His messages repeated the same things: 

“Did you do it?”

“Is it done yet?”

“This is the right thing to do.”

I felt regretful, like a failure, angry, hurt, ashamed, shameful, disgusted, more alone than ever, etc. I kept thinking, “How could anyone, even God, love me now?”

As my friend and I walked outside, the protestors were screaming at the top of their lungs about what a piece of garbage I was. Once we got to the car, I noticed I had locked my keys in my car. Ironic. My mind was completely obsessed with confusion and discombobulated thoughts. I had to call AAA for their assistance, which would be a 45 minutes wait. We decided to go wait back inside the clinic, but the woman at the front desk told me that once I left I couldn’t come back inside the building. So we sat outside, next to my car—while several protestors screamed at me for 45 minutes.

The father kept calling me that night. He wanted to know if I got rid of the kid. He wanted to know if he was still free. Free from commitment and free from fatherhood. I ignored every call.

The next day, my friend had to leave due to an important engagement. I was alone when I took the contents in the packet. I hadn’t gotten the prescription filled, because I figured that whatever pain I was going to have, I deserved every bit of it. It was only a matter of minutes until the pain began to explode and the blood began to pour. I did not even make it to the bathroom, when I collapsed on the floor. Blood was everywhere. It was a scene from a horror film. I called my friend in panic and she came rushing over. It was my best friend who cleaned me up and stayed with me during the chaos of the storm.

The contents in the packet informed me that I was expected to bleed for up to two months and that my uterus was going to be an open wound for a while—a wound that was prone to infection.

Four days after the horror that had taken place on June 25-26, 2014, I finally spoke to the father. I told him that I hated him, but that I mostly hated my weakness and myself.

I dropped into a depression that was so great it was scary. For months, I had suicidal thoughts. I kept my pregnancy tests and abortion papers in a pink box next to my bed. Every day, I would wither away more and lose myself in the contents of that box. I would continuously apologize to my unborn child for what I had done and the weakness I had fallen prey to. I stopped talking to my family. I stopped living. I stopped caring about anything and everything. I started to believe that God hated me; I wasn’t worth anything. Not God’s love. Nothing.

The father stayed with me out of guilt. Once he got out of the military, instead of going with his original plan, he moved into my house in Boone. He and I were not happy. I resented him and hated myself. I couldn’t begin to grasp the strings of forgiveness.

However, after a lot of prayer, I found God’s forgiveness and his love. I met a woman who was my age with a little boy. He was eight months at the time. She began to let me babysit him. It was in that child that I found God’s grace. It was in his smile that I began to feel again.

My boyfriend, however, hated when the little boy would come over. He was not religious. The more I started to improve and find God’s love again, the more he felt the guilt for what he had done. I grew stronger and more distant as I grew closer to God. My boyfriend grew more angry and weak. I was still weak though. I could not help him. I was not strong enough to help him yet. Only God could pull someone from the depths of that disaster.

It was a week from my birthday, September 10, 2014, when I came home to see my boyfriend packed up and ready to leave me. He gave me no warning. He needed his family to lean on. I wasn’t enough in his eyes. I would never be enough. I would never be what he could commit to. I was not and never would be the woman for him. He would never and was never the man for me. Our religions and beliefs were too much of a barrier to continue on. We were two broken, wounded souls stuck in a whirlpool of pain and terror.

When he left, I dropped to my lowest point. The lowest I had ever been in my entire life. Being alone at that point was dangerous.

That night I got in my car and drove to my parents. My step dad and mother do not know to this day. The only people I told were my cousin, brother, and aunt.

It took a long time to rise from the ashes. The hell I had created took a long time to clean up. My decisions had destroyed who I was. Those decisions tore my former self to shreds. I had to completely recreate and find myself all over again. I had no idea what joy was anymore. It took multiple talks with God and myself to forgive me.

I realized that what I did didn’t have to define me, that I can become a better person, daughter, student, and future mother to my future children. Yes, I missed out on being the best mother in the world to possibly the most beautiful child in existence. But, I can still take this time to grow, love, care, and trust in God. I can still be that mother I have always aspired to be. I can be stronger. I can make better decisions. I can still make my unborn child proud. I can still live and redeem myself. God loves me. He will love me and has always loved me. He pulled me out of my darkness. I trusted him with my broken pieces and he came through. Every day since that life-altering experience, I think of him/her. I pray to God daily and tell him to tell him/her “hello” for me.

I will make a great mother one day. It took one bad decision to turn me into the woman I am supposed to be. Now, there will never be a single day or situation that I do not use the power and strength that God has instilled in me.

That is my story. I have written a few writings about the occurrence when it happened. They are very real, deep, and some dark. I wanted to share something that is real, honest, and deep. I wanted to share who I am and where I have been.

On a side note, my friend accidentally got pregnant a month after my incident and followed through with having the child. She is now married to the guy who got her pregnant. She says if it weren’t for me, she would’ve ended up doing the same thing I did.

Age: 25
Location: Tennessee
Date: October 21, 2016