Dee

I am here today to tell you that I regret my three abortions! Admitting that I’ve done it once, but three times is really hard for me.

After High School, I moved to Madison to pursue a better job. I was a small town girl and was excited to be there. I had friends there from my hometown. After six months I started dating. I was using the pills from PPH. I was dating this man for two years before I became pregnant. I was shocked and being in my early 20’s dreaded the thought of having to raise a baby.  I feared what my parents would think. I was scared and selfishly loved my freedom.  I was quick to act, and did what I thought was best for me! I didn’t tell my boyfriend until sometime later. He was deeply hurt as I remember.

It was June 8, 1984.  I drove myself to the clinic and I drove myself home too, but life became a total blur after that day! What is not blurry are all the events that I put myself through during that abortion. The waiting room was full. The procedure room was cold and empty except for the basic equipment that was needed. The doctor and nurse are faceless to me now. I remember the nurse holding my hand and trying to comfort me. Any negative thoughts I pushed aside, my eyes turned to the wall. I braved it all by myself!  I’m tough I thought.  I could handle this!  What took God seven weeks to create was taken out so abruptly in three minutes. It was 125 ccs worth, the report said. That’s about 3-4 ounces. After all they told me it was just fetal matter. I needed to believe that, so I did for 18 years and more. That day I was told that when it all over you will never have to think about it again.

Fast forward to 1998, I’m married and blessed with two young boys, 2 ½ and 6 months.  There was heavy drinking with much sadness, bouts of crying, and thoughts of killing myself.  Never did I connect the dots until I saw someone else suffering from an abortion.  Why did it bother her so much and not me?  The crying, the sadness, and the intense anger I felt. It was all starting to make sense. By October1999 I checked into Alcoholics Anonymous and kept going. In March 2003 I was at a Rachel’s Vineyard Retreat.  Finally I could except by my abortions! It was very hard and exhausting.

I had two more abortions and one miscarriage before I met my husband. He still chose to love me. I don’t remember much about the abortions, except how I got myself in the trouble again, only to go through with aborting my children—again!  I remember the dates these abortions took place and I am glad to have found those papers, even though they were hard to read. It was like I had two lives. These dates are totally gone from my mind.  But the paper forms say I did it, I was there! Even though my mind is blank! On one paper the clinic calls it a Therapeutic Abortion. I have no clue why or what shape I was in at the time, but I am so glad I saved these papers because they have become part of my healing process. They have helped me to remember how old these children would be.
 
After the first abortion, I didn’t care about myself anymore. I did things to hurt my boyfriend. I left him and got in more trouble with other bad relationships. There were many haunting thoughts over those years of suppression as I look back. Especially in my marriage when our boys were both born, I just pushed those bad memories away. Much sadness was there when my Dad died because I was too ashamed to tell him.

God has lifted all of that shame and sorrow and is healing these wounds.  The healing from Rachel’s Vineyard has saved my life. I have gone to separate retreats—three times for each baby I have murdered.  

Women need to be given the opportunity to hear our stories so they can make choices they won’t regret.

I was lied to by the nurse that day.  I DO think about my babies and what they might have become! I suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome on most anniversaries of those abortions. A dark cloud covers me, but I give it to God and have a good cry and move on!   Now, they are my children and I miss them dearly and know I will see them again someday! I will not be silent about my regret to choose death over life!

Laura

When I was a teenager, I thought abortion was wrong. I didn’t know why, I just had a sense that it was. I had gone to church until I was twelve, but things like why abortion was wrong were never discussed. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, other than prove to my parents I could handle it on my own.

When I met an older, married man, I let myself fall into a relationship. He was completely opposite of who my parents thought I should be with. I gave in to the pressure for sex, and while I used birth control, I was not thorough. I had that teenage sense that nothing could happen to me that I didn’t want to happen. I soon realized that he was more than opposite of what my parents wanted for me. He was a con-man, who was manipulative and emotionally abusive.

When I found out I was pregnant, it was right after the father’s wife died – after a long illness. It was clear I had gotten pregnant before she had died. I was filled with shame. I was pregnant by a man whose wife was dying. Could I be more despicable?

The father’s response was “You need to get an abortion.”

I was deeply ashamed. I desperately wanted it all to not be real. For it all to just go away.

I went to Planned Parenthood. The woman was not a medical person. She talked with me for a few moments, and reminded me abortion was legal. Then, without ever coming closer than the other side of the desk, she diagnosed me with a tubal pregnancy and told me I could die. She gave me information about the abortion clinic and told me I should make the appointment quickly.

I wanted a different answer, so I went to a “real” doctor, but he confirmed I was pregnant. Then he told me he didn’t do abortions. That was it, no information on WHY he didn’t do abortions.

I didn’t talk to anyone else. I was desperate to hide my shame; if I told anyone then they would know what a terrible person I was.

I made the appointment, and the father drove me to the clinic. It was a miserable place, filled with miserable, silent people. All dark blue, with old, ratty furniture. It cost my entire life savings. The nurse didn’t make any effort to talk with me. When I was on the table and the doctor started the procedure, I cried and told him it hurt and to stop, that I didn’t want to do this. He spoke the only words he ever said to me: “You should have thought of that before”. I got sick and threw up.

In the recovery room, the silence was replaced with crying.

Later, all I felt was relief. For a few days I even felt giddy. It was all over. Like an eraser. Now, no one would need to know what I was. I could go on with my life. Then, in that giddiness, the father swung me around, with his arms around my waist. I felt a gush of blood, and my relief was crushed.

We got married. I felt like used goods. On our honeymoon I got pregnant again. But. This time it was all okay. I was married. I didn’t have anything to hide now.

Except the depression. And the nightmares. And the fear. And the suicidal thoughts. I became convinced God was going to punish me for the abortion by taking this child away. The nightmares increased.

The baby was born, healthy. I didn’t understand why God didn’t punish me. I functioned in daily life, but at night, I would stand in the dark, looking out the window, crying. I would look at the other windows with lights, and wish I was behind any of those windows – instead of mine. I couldn’t let anyone see how my husband treated me, and I couldn’t let anyone find out what a horrible person I was, so I isolated myself.

What was supposed to be an eraser, a “do-over”, hadn’t erased anything at all and it was destroying me from the inside.

My sister-in-law collapsed with an aneurysm. She was put on life support, but she had no measureable brain activity. She was declared legally dead and the life support removed.
Many years later, my beautiful, strongly pro-life 14 year old niece was hit by a car. She was put on life support, but she had no measureable brain activity. She was declared legally dead and the life support removed.
My child had measureable brain activity, but he was not considered legally alive. The woman at Planned Parenthood had said it was just a blob of tissue. But blobs of tissue don’t have brains. And hearts. And fingers. And toes. A baby at six weeks gestation does.

I believed God could never forgive me, but I was so desperate, I went to church. I began to read the Bible. I began to find out who God really was. That maybe He wasn’t sitting up on His throne, with a lightning bolt in His hand, aimed at me.

I began to hope that God might be able to forgive me after all. I began to let myself grieve my child. I met a couple other women who had had abortions, and we learned of a Bible study called Forgiven & Set Free.

Once I believed God could forgive me, I began to move past my shame. I began to face the choices I had made, and see how God was able to turn that darkness into light. Without God’s mercy and grace, I do not know if I would even be alive today. I would certainly not be here in front of you today.

Psalm 103 says: Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not His benefits – who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, Praise the Lord, O my soul.

What I once hid in shame, I will expose to the light. I am silent no more.