5 days after the abortion I don't know when I will start to feel better or if I ever will

For the past few days, my mind has constantly been going back and forth questioning whether I did the right thing. A conversation yesterday concluded that I had done something that I will potentially live to regret for the rest of my life.

I am 20 years old, studying at university, still living at home with my family as I am very close with them and haven't managed to fly the nest yet, have an amazing job where I am lucky enough to promote clothing for companies on my social media/ blog and have an amazing boyfriend who I have spent the past 6 and a half months with.

I had an abortion 5 days ago.

I first had the feeling I was pregnant while I was on holiday with my family. I have always had relatively random periods where they can be 1 or two weeks late, but this time I just had a feeling that my period wasn't coming. Mentally and physically it just didn't feel like it was going to happen.

I hadn't really thought about the idea that I could be pregnant until one day after eating I noticed that my stomach looked extremely bloated. I am someone who is slim but after eating bloats out immediately, but never like this before.

I kept putting it to the back of my head making myself think that I am probably just late for my period, if I just kept track of my periods I would've had a better idea!!

When I arrived back from my family holiday I told my boyfriend he should go and get me a test, he went and got one that night and I took it. I saw it was positive and was half shocked that I was actually pregnant and not shocked at all because deep down I knew I was.

I came out and told my boyfriend. He immediately told me it was impossible and explained that he has always thought he couldn't have children despite telling me that he got a girl pregnant once when I told him that maybe he should go and get himself checked that he is able to have children, which he told me he said just to get me off his back because he was embarrassed about it and didn't want to scare me off.

I showed him the test and told him that I am, I took another test to prove it and he was in shock. I think half because I was pregnant and half with the joy that he could actually have children. I broke down at that point, I was scared.

My family were home so when I calmed down we had to act like everything was fine.

That night before we went to sleep we talked about it and mutually decided that abortion was the right thing to do. I was sort of surprised that he would want that as he is 26 years old but he said he wasn't ready financially, and it was true neither of us was financially stable enough to give our child everything we wanted to, and we both still lived with our parents.

He left me the next day and I felt fine, I think we were both still in shock but we were trying not to think about it. Our consultation was booked for three days after and he took me and all went fine.

We found out I was only four and a half weeks pregnant, which was a huge surprise as I thought I was much further along. We were both happy as it meant it was still just a tiny sac but disappointed that we couldn't see a scan of our child as it was so tiny that it didn't show up on the ultra scan so I had to have an internal scan.

Looking back now, that should've been something we should've questioned, why did we want to see our child that we were aborting? Maybe if we had it would've changed our minds, thinking about it, I think it would've.

About two weeks later my boyfriend took me to have the abortion pill. At this point, I was 6 weeks 5 days pregnant. Still early enough to have the abortion all done in one day. Four pills placed inserted vaginally and one pill that was taken orally.

It all went fine, despite having a wobbly moment after having an injection due to my blood type.

Looking back it was sort of a blur. I feel like I went in and the nurse gave me a load of pills (at least eight pills including the four and one abortion pill) and that was that.

My boyfriend and I stayed at a hotel near my house as we were aware that I would have severe pain and as I hadn't told my family anything and he hadn't told his, they would definitely suspect something.

As soon as we got into the room the pain started. I went to the loo and noticed that the bleeding had started, that was when I remembered that the nurse told me to take 2 codeine pills as soon as I got home so I did.

I have never felt such pain before in my life. I was in so much pain that I was physically sick, I think because of the shock of the pain and all the pills I had taken. The pain I felt was unbearable and almost just as hard was seeing my boyfriend feeling helpless and guilty for what I was going through and like it was his fault.

After about 2 hours or so I passed a large blood clot, I will always remember that as it was so large. Later after reading about post-pregnancy, I would learn that that was the sac, the fetus. After that I continued to take the codeine pills every 4 hours as I was so scared that the pain was going to come back.

We tried to sleep and all night we both seemed to drift in and out of sleep as I was up and down to the loo and waking up as I would have waves of bearable but uncomfortable pain.

The next day I felt relatively fine, still had a bit of pain but it was bearable.

He took me home in the morning and we had a nap before he left in the afternoon. I was sad that he was leaving me as I didn't want to be on my own but we had to keep up the act with my parents that everything was fine.

While being on my own and the pain continuing for the next few days and sometimes being unbearably bad, this became extremely hard. It was four days on and I was still experiencing bad cramping and was just telling my family that I was suffering from bad period pains. My mum knew something was up and kept asking me if I was sure it was just period pains, her way I feel of begging me to confide in her and tell her the truth.

The main reason I didn't tell my mum was because I didn't want her to worry about me, I also think it was because I didn't want to make it into a big thing because I knew if I told my mum she would ask me the questions that would make me think harder and properly about the decision and would, therefore, make the whole situation more real.

So it was four days after the abortion and I was still in pain, it would come and go as long as I was taking medicine but would still hurt a lot. I was speaking to my mum about feeling unwell and I just broke down. I had been thinking to myself about my choice but would keep putting it to the back of my mind as I didn't want to think about it. But I just broke down.

I was in tears and she asked me what was wrong and I told her I had had an abortion a few days ago. The first thing she said was that she knew. She pulled me towards her and cuddled me and was in tears and told me I should've told her.

She then said something that changed the way I felt about my decision. She told me if I had wanted to keep it then it would've been fine, I'm 20 and an adult and that I could've worked things out and that my family would've been here for me no matter what.

This is when I realised why I really had the abortion. Not because it was the right thing to do, because I know my boyfriend and I could have handled it financially if we both worked a bit harder at what we do. I had the abortion because I was worried about what my family would say, what my friends would say, what people at university would say about me.

After having the abortion I realise that none of that is important. I was carrying mine and the person I love child inside me and I gave it up because I was worried about what people would think of me.

It has now been 5 days since the abortion. I'm sitting in bed at 1:43 am thinking about it. I almost resent my boyfriend for not forcing me to think more about my decision but I know that is just me putting the blame onto someone else to make myself feel better about what I have done. I feel guilty that I have deprived my boyfriend of his child for my stupid, selfish reasons. And I am sad that I have deprived myself of my child. I don't know when I will start to feel better about everything or if I ever will but as of now I can't help but feel like a part of me is missing.