I Regret My Abortion: I am the Silenced Mother

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Dear Baby,

This is your mother writing to you. I wrote to you to say that I miss you. We miss you.

I miss feeling you inside me, even though I only had you for a short time. Even though most of that time I was sick, I still miss you. I know we gave up on you and I know we shouldn’t have. I didn’t know what I was losing.

I am so sorry and I wish we could go back in time.

Sometimes I wonder if I kept you, how everything would be different. I wonder how life would be with you in it. It would have been beautiful. I wonder what you would have looked like, sounded like. I wish I met you. I am so sorry, both your dad and I.

I wish I could touch you, hold you and shower you with love…but alas I can’t.

My baby, my child, you are now with God. You are an angel in heaven. Please pray for your parents, that we improve and never take this route again. Pray for your future siblings. Please forgive us, forgive me for not taking care of you as your mother.

I love you my child! I love you my baby.

You will always be a part of me, you will always be in my heart.

Love,

Mum

It’s been a little while now, but I will never be able to forget that day. In less than 24 hours I had found out I was pregnant and now being driven to an abortion clinic. I was tossing around the options in my head, not sure what I wanted. At the abortion clinic I told the doctors and the counsellor that I wasn’t sure about my decision. The answer I got from the counsellor was “Would you rather lose your future and your family and have this baby?”.

I was lost. My heart was telling me one thing, but my mind was telling me something else. 

At the abortion clinic they did an ultrasound to see how far along I was. It wasn’t until I saw that ultrasound that I realised the beautiful being that was growing inside of me. I was mesmerised by the picture of my baby on the screen and broke down in tears.

At that moment I hesitated. I was scared to go through with this, but I knew my boyfriend didn’t want the baby. Upon seeing my hesitation, the doctor asked me to take ten minutes to think about my decision. Ten minutes! Ten minutes to choose whether I wanted to change my life. Ten minutes to choose whether I wanted to raise a child. Ten minutes to choose my baby’s fate.

During those ten minutes my boyfriend convinced me to go ahead with it.

Ten minutes. That’s all I was given.

No one told me those ten minutes would plunge me into a deep depression. To dramatic hormonal changes to my body. To painful periods that felt like childbirth. To fighting off thoughts of ending my own life.

The thought crossed my mind that if I ran away and waited then I couldn’t be pressured anymore by my partner. Imagine if abortion was legal right up until birth – that would have given him nine whole months to pressure me.

After the procedure was over, the nightmare didn’t end. The clinic staff didn’t care about me. Once it was done they made me get up and walk out of the operating room. They didn’t even offer me a wheelchair and I was still affected by the anaesthetic. I was vomiting and no one batted an eye. I was in pain and no one cared. When I started crying the nurse told me to stop.  

My heart mourns what I could have had. If I could go back in time I would not have allowed anyone to pressure me. I would have left the abortion clinic, that cold heartless place, and gone home to my parents to tell them the good news.

I am a woman and I have my rights, but that baby had his or her rights too. He or she wasn’t part of my body. It was a person growing to take its own journey.

There are many women out there who regret their decision to have an abortion, but they are silenced like me. We are the silenced mothers.