One beating heart is stopped and one is broken
By anonymous on 17/03/2013
One beating heart is stopped and one is brokenIn February my son should have celebrated his 5th birthday....another day of his life that I never let him reach.
When I was younger my aunty once asked me what I wanted to be when I was older...I told her I wanted to stay home and make babies. It was always my dream to one day fall in love, get married and have a family, I couldn't wait to be a wife and a mother. Today I have my what I always dreamed of and so much more...an awesome husband, a loving close family, an amazing 2 year old little boy, a lovely house, nice car, job I love and no financial worries...I couldn't have asked for more so why with all of that do I just want to run away and never come back.
When I was 18 I met my future husband, we fell in love and within 12 months were planning our wedding. 4 months before the wedding I found out I was pregnant and had an abortion. The decision to do this was not thought out, my reasonings were flawed, I still to this day don't know why I did it, we never sat and discussed the ins and outs. Within an hour of finding out I was pregnant I had a consultation booked and all of a sudden the day arrived. I went for the consultation to discuss the medical abortion, I struggled to even talk to the doctor I just cried hysterically, he sent me to the nurse who calmed me down and performed an ultrasound. She confirmed the pregnancy and told me I was 5 weeks and 6 days, upon hearing this the weight of what I was doing and where I was hit home, I was overcome with the realisation that I really was pregnant there was a baby inside me and it was mine, I could not hurt this baby I loved this baby...I was having a baby. At this point I was hysterically crying, 'don't worry' she said 'its just a sac, it's not a baby' I was gutted, I thought of this thing inside me as a baby but it wasn't yet it was just a sac. In that moment she gave me the power to reverse this situation, this became simply a more complex morning after pill, it was a little later but did the same thing essentially by stopping the pregnancy before anything was formed. I went from loving this baby and being upset it wasn't a baby to realising life could go back to normal. The nurse convinced me to have a surgical abortion instead, she said this was easier to get over and had even had one herself. I had the abortion, I was wide awake, the most excruciating pain in the world and was sent out with a hot water bottle and a questionnaire to a room that was soon filled with a number of young girls. After the abortion I felt relief...life would be normal.
We married, we had the perfect day, life was great.
There were times I thought what if and it was upsetting. One night I sat in the bath and Coldplay fix you came on, I heard the line 'when you lose something you can't replace' and I lost my mind, I went back to that theatre and I felt that pain, I heard that noise, I relived that moment, the regret had finally hit me. After a few months being married I was still thinking of what life could have been if I was now pregnant, I started to look up the stages of pregnancy online. Aside from the actual abortion this became the worst moment of my life. When I reached the 5 week mark I read that my baby had a heart. I realised I had killed my baby, I died inside, I knew my life would never be complete, I would never be happy I needed my baby back. We named him George, it's a long story but we knew he was a boy, a fact that was later proved when we went to see a medium and her first words were 'I have Georgie here'.
When my little boy was born it was the best day of my life coupled with hell. I loved him but I saw the baby I didn't keep, I repeatedly called him Georgie by accident, I didn't want to look after him, I couldn't face him. After a couple weeks the baby blues faded and I settled down with my new baby. To this day I still struggle with him now, it's not as bad as it was but when he turned one I couldn't bare the thought that I was planning him a party and I should have known what to do as I should have had parties already for Georgie.I didn't want to come home from work at night, I was petrified of looking after him on my days off, I wanted to run away, I sometimes still do, sometimes I worry I'll do worse.
At night I still cry for Georgie I imagine walking into the other room and seeing him sleeping in a bed next to his brother. Sometimes I go back to that day and that pain and I now understand that the pain was him being torn away from me, I hold my stomach and try so hard to keep him but he's not there. The guilt eats me up so much that I wonder how I will go through the rest of my life like this, but in the same way I'm scared of the guilt going away, I need it to remind me of my boy and my mistake. I love my husband so much we've been happily married over 5 years, I can't tell him about this because I know it upsets him too and I can't handle the guilt of the pain I will cause him. Eventually we told my parents, we couldn't bare for Georgie to be left a shameful secret he deserved recognition it wasn't his fault. They were devastated and have never brought it up since we told them. I can never tell them how I feel as I can't handle the guilt of the pain that I caused them killing their grandchild let alone have them know it took my heart with it.
I'm 25 and my husband is too, our son is 2 years old, I know if I left them now my husband could find a new wife, a good wife and mother but I'm too weak to leave them.
The mistakes I made that day not only affect me but the people around me. Consider how you will feel in the future if you have children, knowing you took their brother away from them and left you family forever broken. It's not just the here and now that matters.
My son is growing up without his older brother, my nephews and nieces are going to school without their cousin, my parents are missing a grandchild. Most importantly my little baby is in heaven feeling unwanted and unloved, having never felt the warmth of a cuddle, the love of a kiss, he is alone and he will never be given the chance to smile, laugh, love, have babies of his own...I took away his right to life and happiness. Every day for me is heavy with guilt, every aspect of my life a comparison to what should have been. I would have been on maternity leave when I saw the vacancy for my current job so at times I sit at work and think I shouldn't be here I should make mistakes because I shouldn’t be here I should lose this job. I think of leaving my husband so he can move on and find a wife that can look after him as a wife should, to find a wife that can be a mother to my son....but I'm too selfish for that, I couldn’t live a day without them.
I'm posting this in the hope that people considering abortion will be prepared for the consequences. My job as a mother was to protect my baby and I failed so now I have to live with that decision. I have achieved so much more than my fairy tale happily ever after but in truth I'll never be happy....my soul is shattered, my life is broken and my heart is missing, its gone in search for the thing I long for most, the thing that I gave up, left in Manchester and can never get back...my baby
Editor's Comment
Yours is an agonising story of sadness and regret, and very sad that you have lived with this pain now for years and been unable to move past it. This is sometimes called unresolved grief, and reading your account it feels as though you have been constantly tortured and punished. You finally went through with your abortion because you were told something that wasn't true, "it's just a sac", and finding out the stage of development at 5 weeks must have been terrible.I feel you owe it to yourself and your family to seek help now. You have taken an enormous step in breaking the silence and posting your story. Now I would encourage you to do **The Journey** programme for post abortion recovery. There may be a centre near you where counsellors are trained to help women walk through The Journey. Please check the website, watch Rhianon's journey, and call the helpline if you need more help on accessing this support.