Abortion Story/Keeping the Baby Story

I have friends who mention abortion sometimes and I usually don’t say anything because I feel like we probably agree that abortion is necessary in several cases. That being said, I absolutely do not trust the government to be in control of determining whether it’s needed or not. Neither party. It would be like the DMV then. Or Canada with their socialist healthcare that kills people because it’s so inefficient and inhumane.
Anyways, personally I’ve always felt like abortion takes a major emotional toll- at least on me. Yes, I had one. I was very young- just turned 15 years old and I was pressured into the decision to abort. On the one hand, it’s haunted me ever since. On the other hand, I had just started high school and there was a girl my age who also was pregnant and she had her baby- the boyfriend stayed with her- unlike mine- but anyways she started working full time at Dairy Queen and truly she seemed miserable and possibly not ready for a baby. Not ready to be a mother.
I also knew a girl who continued the pregnancy and then gave it up for adoption. She was more screwed up than anyone I knew bar none. She got addicted to all sorts of things and basically went nuts. I don’t know what became of either of these two girls.
But I do know that after the trauma of the abortion for me- I was pretty much never going to do that again. I say “pretty much” because during my last pregnancy, my heath was endangered. Plus I was being stalked and harassed by the father. My blood pressure was frighteningly high and I had preeclampsia and was on bed rest for half of the pregnancy. So at one point, I made the decision in my head that since I already had my son who needed me- if I had to choose, I would choose my life as a mother to a young child with special needs.
So really I was sort of always hesitant about it. I really delayed on telling anyone when I was a kid. And even then, I had to be majorly coerced into doing it.
It’s not because I’m religious. It’s hard to explain to men or women who’ve never been pregnant- but for me- I could FEEL that life inside me. I felt a connection almost immediately and I felt awful even considering abortion. I also don’t think there are enough resources for women who choose not to have an abortion even when it could be a life or death decision. Life or death of the mother.
I made the choice to keep my daughter against all odds but I did consider either abortion or giving her up for adoption. Only one person in my life encouraged me to not have an abortion- my father. Because he may deny his Catholic beliefs now but he still has them. Since I kept her, already having a child with special needs and knowing it was going to be extremely hard with the father- well- it HAS been extremely hard. He remains abusive to both of us. Even my son wasn’t able to escape his traumatic behavior.
It took me years to get it together again after her birth. Of course, during that time- I was also not legally allowed to work without risking a stroke or heart attack since I’m an RN and our state decided that I should gamble on my life in order to be able to support my family. So that delayed my progress.
But I STILL obviously have major problems with the father- or more like I should say- he seems to enjoy continuing to harass me and make life difficult for my family and daughter. His own daughter! She once told me she wished I had never met her father. At that time, I felt guilty and selfish for NOT having an abortion. The feeling mostly passed but I didn’t know that the courts would listen to who lies best. Family court, that is.
That’s why I considered having her out of state and giving her up out of state. So he couldn’t track her down. Even though he tried to poison me because he did not want a baby. Once I had her- he’s been seeking vengeance ever since.
So if I didn’t have my parents to help me financially- I don’t think I would be seeing her at all anymore. He would have taken her without grounds and ruined her life too. There MUST be more support and resources for women who choose to keep the baby under these sorts of extreme circumstances.
When I was pregnant with my son, my mother once again tried to get me to abort. Why she’s so crazy for abortion- I have no idea. I was 26 years old and just graduated nursing school. It was a planned pregnancy, they all were.
When I went in for a prenatal visit- they offered the genetic testing. I was surprised because I thought they only did that in circumstances where there was some sort of risk. I couldn’t have been more healthy. So I declined the testing because I didn’t want the stress of either a false positive or even a true positive because I knew I was keeping my baby no matter what.
And Kieran was not an average baby. I started wondering about his behavior before he was a year old. He wasn’t speaking but he could spell a sentence- an entire sentence!- in bath foam letters before he was a year old. I was so astounded I couldn’t process that. And being a worrier- well- I worried more and more as he didn’t talk and instead got frustrated and had tantrums.
I brought him to some autism center when he was maybe 2 years and some months old. They told me that he had the IQ of an eggplant. It didn’t make sense to me. The kid couldn’t talk- how could he possibly respond to an IQ test? I was furious that they even did that.
This is before autism got popular. My son had autism back when it was still regarded as a “mental retardation”. Yes, I was literally told by multiple autism “experts” that he would never be average intelligence, let alone above average. But I KNEW…I could sense he was intelligent. He would build these complicated structures out of legos in a minute or two. He would assemble an entire marble run tower that spanned 3 by 4 feet and 4 feet high also in minutes and not even paying attention to the assembly of it.
And yet- he seemed physically incapable of speech.
Well- haha to those who told me he was “retarded” because his GPA is 4.0, he’s on the Deans List and he’s going to graduate from a high achieving public school with honors. He could have done college for math at any time really but his social support needs are still there. The boy is a genius.
My daughter is extremely smart also. Also in math. Well, she’s very smart generally but math comes naturally to her just as it does to my son. Math doesn’t come naturally to me lol. I am smart but not like my kids. Or maybe smart in a different way. My brain is always planning even when I’ve shut down my thoughts.
Anyways, so I feel like the government shouldn’t be in charge of abortion because they’d screw it up of course, like they screw everything else up. And I also personally have found that abortion is something I get really traumatized by. Not all women feel this way, I have found. Personally, I DO believe it’s a life in there but also some circumstances make abortion a necessity.
I don’t care at all for the way abortion is pushed on women sometimes. It seems suspicious. But most importantly, for those of us who had every reason to abort but still couldn’t do it- there should be more resources and more understanding. Because those extreme circumstances that caused me to consider it- are going to continue for another 10 years.