In the long run, I feel that my abortion was one of the best things I ever did for myself. It wasn't fun and I had a lot of conflicting emotions. But, it was the right choice.
I had my abortion much later than I would have preffered. I am a strong testament to the power of an irregular menstrual cycle combined with denial. I could probably serve as the poster girl for the fundie message of "abortions are only performed for convenience" or "don't let this happen to you".
I was in my early 20's and, to be frank, I didn't care about much, including myself. While I've always been fascinated by sex and sexuallity, I can safely say that I was in a bad place at that time of my life. I couldn't tell you who the father was; there were three candidates. I'm incredibly lucky that all I had was an unintended pregnancy. I'm incredibly lucky that I am, to this day, healthy.
After almost four months of praying that my period was just late and would turn up any day, I finally faced facts. I went to Planned Parenthood and had a pregnancy test. When the nice lady called the next day with the results, I was devestated. I finally had to accept the fact that I had a decision to make.
The funny thing is that there was never a question in my mind about what I would do. I knew from the first moment that I thought I could be pregnant that I would abort. Unfortunately, I had been brainwashed into thinking that abortion was such a horrible, destrucive thing. I soon found out that it is not horrible or destructive or any of the things that fundies talk about. That is, abortion can be a positive experience if the woman choosing it is choosing it for the right reasons.
When I went back to Planned Parenthood, they determined that I was too far along to use their servies. Thankfully, they referred me to a clinic that performed later abortions. The only problem at that point was cost. When I called my mother later that day, I was terrified. Even though I had been raised by her to be pro-choice, I was afraid that she would be angry that I was asking for financial help. I was afraid that she would be mad at me for letting the pregnancy go on for as long as I did. The good news is that she was none of those things. She told me to make the appointment for as soon as I could and let her know so that she could fly out to be with me and pay for the procedure. While I had a few close friends that I confided in, I really don't think I could have gotten through it all without the support of my mother.
I was 18 weeks along when I went in for the procedure. It was a nice, semi-suburban clinic just outside of Boston. There was a security guard between the front door of the building and the main door of the clinic, protected by thick glass, who checked my name and ID against the patient list. He was rather nice looking and kinda hot in all his anit-terrorist gear. I felt kind of weird thinking this guy was hot, but I also wondered if he was there because of his belief in the cause, or because he had been assigned there by his rent-a-cop boss. It didn't matter, but I still wondered.
When I met with the pre-abortion councelor, she commented that, at 18 weeks, it must have been a difficult decision for me. I told her that no, abortion wasn't a difficult decision, accepting that I was pregnant was difficult. She seemed to accept that easily.
I don't remember much of the procedure. I was given something (twilight, I guess) that pretty much put me out for the whole time. Coming to in the recovery room was a bit difficult. Oddly enough, I had a brief hallucination of a cat on a nearby counter, playing with a paper towel roll. When a nurse came by to check on me, I asked about the cat and she told me there was no cat. For some reason, that made me really sad. And I'm not even a fan of cats! I prefer dogs. I recognized one of the other women in the room. I remembered seeing her sitting in the waiting room with a man, presumably her husband. Shortly after I recognized her, her husband came into the recovery room. He joined her and hugged her. They cried together as he rocked her gently. I easily assumed that, what ever their reasons for choosing abortion, it had not been their first choice. While I was positive that my choice was the right one for me, seeing that couple made me very sad. I also wondered if my mother would be allowed to come into the recovery room to comfort me. As it turned out, I sat there for how ever long, by myself, and was eventually walked out to the waiting room by a nurse. My mom, who had seen the husband walked back to the recovery room, also wondered when she would be called back to comfort and take care of me. She wasn't. Afterwords, we were both a little pissed about that.
My mother and I went back to a hotel that she had reserved for us - I hadn't told either of my roommates what was going on; I actually lied, telling them that I was going home for the weekend. Mom and I hung out for the rest of the day and by the next afternoon, I was restless and went out to pick up lunch for us.
After the abortion, I had breast leakage (ick!) and felt very down for the following few weeks. What no one, except for my mother, told me is that it is very possible, in some cases likely, for a women to experience post-pardum depression after an abortion. It's so simple but so overlooked. And I'm prone to situational depression as it is. Of course fundie assholes will latch on to this and call it Post Abortion Syndrome. Assholes! I experienced a totally natural side effect of ending a pregnancy and I thougth that I was having serious thoughts of regret and doubt. Thank goodness that cleared up a few weeks later.
Now, I shudder when I think that I could have an almost nine year old child. While my immediate experience with abortion wasn't the best ever, I will never doubt that it was the right thing to do. Given many years of retrospection, I've come to see my abortion as a positive, empowering action. I took the ultimate control over my fertility and am still thankful, on a regular basis, that I had the choice.
Sorry that this was so long, but I think it's important for women to talk in detail, if they want, about their experiences with abortion.