I expected something non-human looking but it was a fully-formed baby

I had a medical abortion at 8 weeks and 3 days. I am 18 years old with a 5-month-old and a boyfriend that didn’t even want a baby yet in the first place. He wanted an abortion with the first but I was told I was infertile before conceiving him and I couldn’t let him go. Four months after he was born I found out I was pregnant again.

I knew immediately that I wasn’t happy with the news like I was with my last. My body and mind had gone through so much during my first pregnancy and I couldn’t handle another baby yet in any way (physically, and emotionally).

I didn’t know whether to go medical or surgical but by the time I had gone into the office (March 2019) I was a little more than 8 weeks. I had seen the babies little heartbeat and grown an attachment but my numbness and situational induced depression made it easier to go through the situation.

They did an ultrasound and gave me a picture, I paid the $500, and they sat me in a room to take the first pill (stops pregnancy hormones and detaches embryo from the uterine wall), and explained when to taken the four other pills.

They did not prescribe or send me home with any pain medication, basically telling me to take anything I had that wasn’t Aspirin or a blood thinner. I went to eat with boyfriend due to nausea and ended up crying in the car with him.

We got home and around 32 hours later I placed two pills on each side of my mouth between my gums and cheek and let it dissolve for 30 min. They were gone in 20, tasted of nothing.

Around 10 mins later my body is violently shaking with chills and hot flushes. I start vomiting immediately, over and over and the cramps are unbelievable, I honestly think they were either the same level as my bad contractions at labor or worse.

I lightly bleed for a while as the cramps lighten over the course of two hours (due to my use of a hot water bottle).

As I’m sitting there I feel a flush of liquid in my pad. The fear of bleeding onto my mattress kicked in and I jumped up to go to the bathroom. I sat on the toilet and all of a sudden multiple huge blood clots push out of me. I was really surprised at the size and I just watched them come.

At that point, I got severely emotional and thought about the fact that my little baby might be in there (WARNING: this part is graphic). Crying, I got down on my hands and knees in front of the toilet, still just bleeding on the bathroom floor, and gently grabbed the blood clots from the toilet one by one and sifted through them.

I started to panic around the third clot as I’m not finding my baby and my heart would break if I accidentally flushed him/her. I picked up the next clot and the first thing I see is a little gray thing about an inch long. Immediate relief and great sadness washed over me. I think a part of me wishes the abortion didn’t work and a part of me was so relieved that I was not pregnant anymore.

I flipped the little embryo over (as it was on its front, making only the spinal cord visible) expecting to see something non-human looking. As I turned it I broke down crying.

Immediately the first thing I saw was a fully formed little baby. Five perfect little fingers on each hand. Same with the little toes. I saw the baby’s head with both eyes and nose and mouth, the little heart with all the developing organs. The brain. And I saw my little babies genitals. Just a little nub. I can’t tell which gender but I did name the baby Anima, which means "infinite smallness" and "spirit".

My boyfriend told me to flush it but I ended up lying to him and I kept my little baby, I also told him I didn’t take pictures but I did. That is still one of my children and I love them, I want to keep a memory of them and I will be burying the little body. I sound crazy but I generally can’t do this any other way.

Long story short, I was in immense pain, huge blood clots, and my baby was fully formed at 8 weeks. Just a warning to mamas that will be going through this process. If you don’t think you could handle seeing your little baby, don’t look at your tissue. Take a lot of pain medication.