I was 35 years old and involved with a man 10 years younger than me.  It was a strictly physical, based on "chemistry" relationship.  I wasn't exactly a young woman so I knew my body pretty well.  When I first started showing signs that I was pregnant, there was the false comfort of denial that bought me a few weeks.  I couldn't believe that this had happened to me at my age.  When it became impossible to deny any longer, I made my decision almost immediately.  I knew who I was dealing with and it was confirmed when I told him.  He said he wasn't planning on staying in the area (by this time we had stopped seeing each other) and would not be around to help.  I had no desire to go it alone. So there it was.  My decision was based on the whims of a 25-year-old boy, so I thought.   I did not want to be a single, poverty-stricken mother with an interracial child that her family would not accept.

So, I made an appointment and when the day came I was filled with fear and resentment.  He was man enough to take me and even pay for half.  I have a hard time remembering the details. I remember sitting in the waiting room feeling sick.  I remember the intake interview, vaguely, and the blood test to confirm.  It was all very clinical, matter-of-fact, with no counseling on alternatives—like I was having a tooth pulled.  I opted for the "twilight anesthesia" because I remember a friend of mine telling me how horrible hers was.

I didn't want to know it even happened—once again looking for that comfort of denial.

I fell asleep on the table with my feet in the stirrups and an IV drip in my arm.  The last thing I remember was the nurse telling me to scoot down a little.  I vaguely remember walking with the assistance of a male orderly to a recovery ward bed where I guess I laid for about an hour.  I remember the young woman next to me crying and vomiting.  I waved the attendant over and brought it to her attention.  She said to me, "She'll be alright in a little while," and walked away.  I wanted to go over to her and hold her hand and stroke her hair and tell her everything was going to be ok.  She needed her mama.  I was glad that I felt alright.

They told me I was ready to go.  I wasn't so sure about that; they were.  He was waiting for me and gave me a ride home on his motorcycle and stayed with me about 30 minutes. Then he said he “had to be somewhere.”  Now I wanted my hand held and my head stroked, but there was nobody to do it.  I lay there alone in my bed, my roommate in the next room not knowing what had happened.  I remember thinking, "I'm sorry little soul, I just couldn't do it."  

I decided to get an abortion because I believed the lie:  the lie that tells women that "it's" not a person.  That they don't have to deal with the inconvenience, that it's their body to do whatever they wish with.  I was able to accept the lie because the truth was that I believed that I was incompetent, immature, unreliable and irresponsible.  The important question here is, "Where does that come from?"

Looking back, knowing what I know now, I'm sure I could have done it, been a single Mom that is.  I may have believed those things but the truth was that I was a headstrong, hard-working, compassionate young woman.  It would not have been easy, but you know, what else isn't easy?  Thinking about my 15-year-old son, I like to think he would be tall and handsome and funny and a source of constant worry.  Now I'm left with a huge empty space in my heart where all that refrigerator art and little league practices and guitar lessons and Christmas mornings and snowball fights and stray dogs and love should be. 

It took coming back to my faith to help me have the courage to go back and confront this monstrous mistake I made.  My son is dead because I was in darkness and didn't know it.  I did that.  My faith, my merciful God, is the reason I am here today taking this step.  The Rachel's Vineyard Retreat I went on was immeasurably helpful in taking a step toward forgiving myself.  A person should not have to deal with this alone.  I tried, believe me.

The damage that I've done to my body and soul in trying to digest this horrible experience on my own is unfathomable.  The anger and resentment, that "comfort of denial" that I was so reliant on, was eating away at me.  My personal choice of self-medication was alcohol.  I didn't even realize that I was trying to anesthetize myself, but that's what I was doing.  I know that now due to the work that I have done with the aid of some beautiful, compassionate people.

We can't go back.  We have to move forward and dedicate our efforts to our babies.  Let them live as an inspiration to us.  And until this great nation of ours stands up for the rights of every one to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, I for one, will be silent no more.