The most empty feeling I have ever experienced, like my soul had been stolen.
By anonymous on 30/01/2015
It was 12 years ago when I was 18 that I had my medical abortion at 9 weeks, I didn't want to do it, but my mum and then boyfriend emotionally blackmailed me into it.I was booked to see a doctor, my mum came with me, the doctor I had been booked to see was 7 months pregnant, the words just wouldn't come out of my mouth, my mum told her and I just nodded and it was booked.
I went to the hospital on the Thurs morning which to be honest my head and heart were in such a mess that it passed by in a blur and all I remember is taking a tablet, which she checked my mouth to make sure was gone, and being offered an sti test to which I refused as I thought it was highly inappropriate at that time.
For the next 2 days I was in such a mess emotionally and couldn't stop talking to my little bean telling it how much I loved it, that I was sorry and hoped it would forgive me when I reached the other side.
Then it was d day on the Saturday morning I went to day stay at the outpatients department, was given a brief rerun of what was happening and then lead to a large room with 20 reclining chairs, within 30 minutes each chair was filled. Some girls were with females, others partners were waiting in the corridor and some were on their own.
I had gone with my mum as she couldn't let me go by myself as my then boyfriend refused to go. They gave me another tablet and said it would take a few hours to start working and when I needed painkillers to ask. After about 3 hours I started to get a tummy ache and it just got worse, I couldn't stay still, I had started lightly bleeding and was given a cardboard bowl to sit over as they said they needed to see everything that I was passing to ensure that the foetus had come away.
The pain was incredible like all my insides were knotting up, I took some painkillers but they just made me throw up which just made me feel so much worse than I already did. The room didn't help either, watching and listening to 19 other girls go through the same experience was no comfort to me. At one point I was sat in the chair and as a girl was walking past, she stopped suddenly, doubled over, let out this awful noise and then suddenly there was a splash and the floor was red. I was horrified, frightened for what was to come for me and just pitying the girl in front of my eyes.
I couldn't even look at my mum by this point I was far too angry to think she wanted me to go through this. I then started getting these sensations which I couldn't describe then but now know through experience of child birth were contractions. These were so painful that they made me delirious, turned my legs to jelly, sent me into the maddest fever (high temp, sweating and shivering) that I have ever experienced.
I then started bleeding a lot and large clots were coming out, they told me that the worst of it would be over very soon, they were right and not long after my foetus was in one of the cardboard bowls and the mad frenzy had subsided into an intense ache from the waist down.
After a few hours of sitting curled up in a blanket on the chair in a painful daze I was sent home, with a bag of paracetamol and the most empty feeling I have ever experienced, like my soul had been stolen. I can still remember it all if I think about it, all the physical and emotional pain.
My 2 natural childbirths (my first I had no pain relief and my second I had the injection in my leg due to complications) were less traumatic and less painful (except the burning when the shoulders come out and it didn't last too long). I do not want any more children but I would not choose this method of abortion again.
I don't know what other methods are like but this was torture and I'd rather be asleep if there was ever a next time. I'm not here to scare anyone just to tell the truth about my experience. I only forgave my mum once I had my first born (she was there for the birth and I was 25). The experience deeply affected my mum she feels we were not given an accurate account of what to expect and said from a spectator's point of view, the abortion was like watching something from the exorcist and left her feeling helpless and racked with guilt.