I had an abortion at 4.5 weeks pregnant. I was a virgin but I got pregnant without actually having sex. I was waiting for marriage to have sex and have children. My bf at the time introduced me to his parents and said he wanted to start a family and have a baby and would get married to me if I got pregnant, should I decide to have sex with him before marriage. I had just lost my job after suffering months of workplace isolation & humiliation. Prior to finding out I was pregnant, I had gotten terribly sick for 2 weeks. When I found out I was pregnant, I told my bf I had something serious to tell him. He then blocked my number and all communication with me. I showed up at his door in the pouring rain, still sick, I had lost my voice, I didn’t know if he would be home or not. I sat down to write him a letter to tell him I was pregnant and asked his neighbors to give it to him for me.

That’s when he pulled up in the driveway. When I told him, he told me to have an abortion, that he wouldn’t be a father to the baby. I didn’t want to raise a baby alone without a father. He paid for the abortion and escorted me to the abortion clinic. The day I was scheduled to take the pill, I asked him before the doctor came in if we could just keep it, but he looked at me like I was crazy. I felt ashamed, I hadn’t told anyone in my family, only a couple male friends who each said it’s best to have the abortion. I prayed with my baby at a religious place to ask forgiveness and to tell my baby how much I loved him or her and how sorry I am that all this had to happen like this.

After the abortion, I buried my baby. I no longer felt a desire to wait for sex. I felt as if a part of me had died with my baby. For the next 8 weeks I continued to bleed. I texted my ex bf to tell him I missed our baby, but he told me to get over it, move on and stopped responding. I finally revealed to a family member what had happened. They cried and was upset that they had lost a lil family member. I asked them if they thought my future husband would believe I was still a virgin after having gotten pregnant and had an abortion. They told me to stop fooling myself. While I was still bleeding, 2 weeks later, I had unprotected sex for the first time with the married man who had encouraged me to have the abortion. I didn’t feel anything. I went on to have unprotected sex with 2 other men in a 3 month period following, all during moments of bleeding.

I got BV, pain in my lower back and was in and out of gynecologists offices for the first time in my life. I began having problems saying no to being with men, especially the married man. It was against my beliefs to have an abortion, to have sex before marriage, to have sex with a married man but after the abortion I felt like I had no direction anymore. Anyone who reminded me of the abortion or who I felt didn’t really care, like during a doctor’s visit or when I read something on abortion, or told someone about my experience and if they responded by leaving me, I’d feel a deep sadness again, and that directionless feeling. I was suicidal but then I read what happens to a person who commits suicide, and I stopped thinking of suicide. I spoke again to the person who had told me to stop fooling myself. This time she found a letter I had written. She told me if I killed myself it would be a life that God breathed life into, who am I to do that.

That God gives us curve balls in our life but it doesn’t mean we stop trying. That he’s in charge of everything and knows your heart, and not to give up. That restored in me hope again. I saw the married man one other time, and then I decided to stop seeing him, and I’m working on waiting for marriage before just having sex with anyone.

I miss my baby and love my baby with every fiber of me. I think that if I could have spoken to a man and known that there was a man out there willing to walk the road with me, in having my baby, I would have felt safer to have my baby despite the shame of not having a husband to have my baby with, or not having a home of my own to settle in, or a job to feel secure in, I think if there was a branch of saving women, who have been abandoned at the moment of getting pregnant, where they could talk to men, who love babies and care about her, and lend their voice to her keeping her baby, even just a little bit, or just meet with her to walk her through it, like adopt a pregnant mommy for 9 months, kind of thing, I think it would make a world of difference for us, when you’re alone, when you feel abandoned.

During that time, a man’s voice holds so much weight and meaning and I think it would mean a lot.