I just feel so lost and hurt by what happened
I found out I was pregnant on the 13th of June. I knew that I couldn’t keep the baby because it would never have worked as I’m 19 and just finished my first year at university.
So I finally called up Marie Stopes on the 19th of June and a lovely woman answered the phone asking me for my details before booking me in for a telephone consultation for the following day between 9 am - 10 am.
The next day I waited eagerly for this phone call which came around 9:40 and had to answer some medical questions before finding my nearest clinic and seeing what appointments were available. To my relief, the nearest clinic was a walking distance from my house and I was booked in on the same day at 1 pm. I honestly thought I was going to wait at least 2 weeks for this appointment from what I was reading.
So I arrive at the abortion clinic on my own as my boyfriend couldn’t make it as he lives some distance from me so he wouldn’t have arrived on time and I didn’t want to miss this appointment. And once I sat down waiting to get called, that is when I burst out crying because I realised what I was getting myself into.
They called me in, 10 minutes early, and I was followed into a room with two nurses. They confirmed my details, did an STI and blood check and went through the procedure.
It was time for my ultra-sound and the nurse told me that I was 6 weeks and 5 days pregnant. That was when reality slapped me around the face because it was a confirmation that I really was pregnant and up to that point I didn’t want to allow myself to believe this. Looking back at it now, I wished that I did get to look at the screen, I missed my chance at looking at my little seed.
As I was still in my early days of pregnancy, it was recommended that I did a medical abortion and was given the option to get it all done in one visit or over two visits. So I chose over two visits, with 24 hours apart as it had the highest success rate. I was given an anti-sickness tablet and the first abortion pill. All in all, I was there for less than half an hour.
Once I got home, I couldn’t stop crying. I kept apologising to my unborn child. It felt like someone pulled my heart out of my chest. Physically I was fine the whole day, I didn’t experience any side-effects from the pill. I came for my second appointment the following day for 1:30 pm. Again, my boyfriend didn’t come with me because I knew that I was going to be in physical pain and I just wanted to be in my bed when all this happened.
I was given four pills to put between my gum and cheek and an anti-sickness tablet to swallow and was told that I could go home. In total, I was only there for 6 minutes.
Not soon after leaving the clinic, I felt this shooting pain but it didn’t last long. I reached home and after 30 minutes I started to get slight cramping. It felt like cramps I would get before I started my period. It stayed like this for some time, I honestly thought this was it.
3 hours later I had to run to my bathroom and had diarrhoea. I started getting shivery, sweaty, with cold and hot flushes on the toilet. I stood up feeling extremely dizzy to wash my hands and while I was walking to open the bathroom door, I fainted.
I woke up completely confused, there was this clear liquid on the floor, my knickers were soaked in it causing my pad to come off. I quickly rushed to my bed, trying to get my head back to normal, all the while my cramps were getting more severe. And then I had to quickly go back to the bathroom for more diarrhoea. I felt so weak on the toilet, I could feel the clots slipping out but I didn’t even have the energy to even look at them.
I was getting so hot and I was trying to un-strip but I felt cold when I was doing this. And that is when the contractions came, I couldn’t move. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to make it on my bed so I lay on the bathroom floor, having the most horrible contractions. It felt NOTHING like a severe period. It was like someone was pulling and tugging my lower abdomen and electrocuting my uterus from all directions.
I kept having to move my legs up and down, I couldn’t take the pain. I really wanted to cry out but the pain was so much that it just got stuck in my throat. My mum was downstairs, completely unaware of what was happening. Even if I wanted to call out to her (I was so close to doing it), I couldn’t, the sound wouldn’t have come out.
I was praying to God for it stop, it felt like it was never going to end. I felt so lonely, I really needed someone to hold me and tell me that it is going to be all okay. I could never live with myself if my own daughter going through something like this on her own.
Somehow I managed to get myself onto my bed and the contractions continued, coming and going. I savoured the moment when it dulled, only for it to start back again. Blood kept leaking through and it ended up soaking through my mattress too.
My mum came into my room and I complained to her that I had 'food poisoning' and that I needed some painkillers for my 'headache'. Stupidly enough I didn’t keep some in my bedroom and I didn’t have it in me to go downstairs with all this pain I was enduring.
Once I took some painkillers, the pain sort of dulled down and was less severe. Eventually, I fell asleep for a little bit. Once I woke up, the cramps that I had at the beginning of this came back and I just watched some films to calm my body down.
This was by far the most painful thing I ever had to go through. The nurses at the clinic did not prepare me for what was coming, all they said was that I was going to get severe cramping and bleeding. Nothing about the contractions!!
The following day I woke up, feeling a lot better although I kept on bleeding and there was still cramping but I knew that the pregnancy was over because I no longer had the morning sickness. But that is when the emotions kicked in and I spent the whole day grieving for the loss of my baby. I couldn’t stop myself from crying. It felt like a part of me was dead.
At some points, I wished that I died with it too so it wasn’t alone. I kept imagining what the baby would have looked like and how I would never be able to see its face or hold it in my arms or see it grow up. I hated myself for what I did and I still do. I just feel so lost and hurt by what happened. There isn’t a day where I don’t think about what happened and how I don’t have my little seed growing in me any more.
This is definitely the worst experience of my life - emotionally and physically.
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