Hi, my name is Heather.

I became pregnant at fifteen years old, and I had an abortion when I was sixteen. While other girls my age were celebrating their sweet sixteen birthdays and stepping into womanhood with excitement, I was lying on an abortion table, ending the life of my first child. That was my tragic entrance into womanhood.

To understand how I got there, you need to know a little about my story. When I was nine, my parents divorced, and my world fell apart. I went from a home that felt safe to a life that felt unstable and lonely. I went to church, but I didn’t have a personal relationship with Jesus, and I didn’t know how to bring my pain to Him.

I was desperate to feel loved and chosen, and I began looking for that in relationships at a very young age. I became pregnant the summer before my junior year of high school. I was terrified and felt completely unprepared. I wanted to finish school, and I didn’t believe I had anyone who could help me care for a baby. When my dad found out, he told me he would support whatever decision I made, but he also encouraged me to have an abortion and offered to pay for it. Feeling scared and overwhelmed, I agreed.

I remember sitting in the waiting room, and my boyfriend’s sister asking us over and over if we were sure, telling us it was okay to change our minds. I wish we would have listened to her. I remember feeling sad that I wasn’t shown the sonogram screen, but I have no memory of the procedure itself.

What I remember most clearly is my boyfriend and I coming home and crying for hours. The silence afterward felt heavy, and the grief followed me for years. I carried my abortion in secrecy, shame, and self-blame. I believed God forgave me, but I could not forgive myself. In rejecting myself, I was also rejecting the mercy God was offering me.

Years later, I finally shared my secret and learned that healing was available. Through Surrendering the Secret and a Deeper Still retreat, God met me in my grief. I was given permission to mourn my child, whom I named Kiley Marie, and to receive the healing I had avoided for so long.

Today, my abortion does not define me. God’s redemption does. And that is why I am Silent No More.