My name is Pamela and...GOD seems to be moving me in a direction to participate in healing services for women who suffer from the shame and sadness of abortion.

When I was 20, I was serving in the U.S. Air Force during the first gulf war while living in Italy. I found myself smitten with a young man and became enamored by the attention he gave me. We quickly became intimate and I found myself pregnant two months into the relationship. The man I thought I was so deeply in love with convinced me the only way he could continue to love me would be for me to have an abortion. Air Force doctors provided me with an Italian doctor’s name and address on the basis that I was confused and didn’t know what to do.

Looking back, the pregnancy didn’t seem real. I wasn’t sick and the pregnancy had not affected my life in any other way than threatening my relationship with the so-called love of my life. The Italian doctor spoke to me in broken English and gave me a date and time to meet him at a local hospital. I arrived the night before the procedure and was placed in a large room with 15 empty beds and had to stay overnight by myself.

The next morning, my boyfriend arrived with a hangover and spoke harshly telling me to stop crying or he would leave. I so didn’t want to do what I was about to do. The room quickly filled up with Italian women who were there to have the same procedure. They took us out of the room one by one. They wheeled me downstairs and placed me just beside a very large metal door. I was hysterically crying, but no one spoke English and I couldn’t make them understand why I was so upset. I was taken into the operating room as another woman was wheeled out. I kept thinking, “This is an assembly line!” I had been given a sedative earlier in the morning and couldn’t seem to express myself to the nurses or the doctors.

A nurse came over and held my arm down while I was put under general anesthesia for the procedure. I can still so vividly remember staring at the bright 3-light operating room lamp above my head and repeating over and over just go to sleep, just go to sleep, just go to sleep. It’s too late and it’ll all be over with soon.

When I woke up from the procedure, I was in excruciating pain. I was taken home about two hours later. Two days later, I was experiencing fever and unbearable abdominal pain. I was sent by the Air Force to the same Italian doctor that had performed the procedure. During the pelvic exam he lifted, up his hand to show me a hand full of tissue and said "I didn’t get it all…I have to do it again." I WAS DEVASTATED!

That afternoon I was placed in a room on the maternity ward at the local Italian hospital to be treated for an infection and have the procedure performed again. My roommate had just given birth and her little baby boy would stay in our room with us. I could hear babies crying. I was in the hospital from Thursday evening until Sunday morning. My boyfriend was sent back to the U.S. on Monday morning.  I’ve seen him only one time since then.

That was back in 1992. I saw him in 1995 and when I attempted to share my experience and pain with him he called me a liar. He thought my sadness was just a way to guilt him back into a relationship when all I wanted was closure.

Well I got it! I basically self-destructed over the years until I became a Christian in 1996. My abortion was the experience that broke my spirit and brought me to God. For that I’m grateful. If I had taken the time to step back, breathe and really take stock of "I’m pregnant...there is life inside of me" I wouldn’t have done it! I am still convinced my baby was a girl. Today she would be 11 years old. It’s funny because, after talking about it as many times as I have, I still cry for her. There is such incredible, unexplainable shame, guilt, sorrow, and heartache involved.

No one tells you about the after effects. I would be willing to bet that the majority of people that are pro-choice have never been touched by abortion. I would like to get involved with your cause. I want women to be made aware of ALL of the implications.

Again...I know from experience that when abortion is considered, women haven’t truly been affected by their pregnancy yet other than the fear of what a child might do to their life. I just think women need so much more than the lies that they’re given at Planned Parenthood.