My abortion story

[Anonymous]

Oops I meant pro life position.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m very sorry for your loss, but it sounds like the abortion almost killed you. How was it your old choice? Why couldn’t you have waited to see if your body naturally miscarried?

Bleeding and sepsis. Waiting and seeing can be fatal.

My high school history teacher’s wife had a late-term pregnancy loss that culminated in this. She desperately wanted the baby and was in total denial that it had died. There had been no movement for days. He said he could smell that she was septic—I don’t know how, exactly, but I don’t doubt it. When she finally collapsed he called the ambulance. His only request to them was that they not take her to the Catholic hospital. The procedure she needed was either a D&X or a D&E and this hospital had no one who could or would do either.

I was 16 or 17 when I heard this story and doubt I will ever forget it. A lot more people will be living it soon. Everyone involved in achieving this can go directly to Hell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I delievered twins at 20 weeks and obviously they lived only a few hours, so I am truly sympathetic to your loss. I also endured non-stop and dangerous bleeding after a different delivery. So I understand a little bit what you went through. So please understand, I don't mean to be callous or dismissive. But, I am trying to understand how the abortion saved your life. It kind of sounds like the abortion endangered your life. What would have happened had the pregnancy been left to end on its own? Yes, it would have been difficult to know you were carrying a baby that would not survive, but it may very well have been a safer decision. Sometimes in life we suffer through very sad things. I have had my share. But I don't think it's accurate to say that abortion saved your life.

I mean I’m not a doctor but all my doctors told me I would be at higher risk of placental abruption if I waited. So maybe it hastened the inevitable but at least I was already in the OR when it happened.

What it hastened, by probabaly only a few hours, was delivery. In fact, my 20-week twins were born because of placental abruption and when that happens, so does spontaneous abortion--at 20 weeks, that means delivery of babies, non-viable babies. Trust me, I held mine. They are not a sack of cells as some people like to believe. I love that OP gets all kinds of sympathy for her choice to end the pregnancy, but mine ended without a choice and all I get is argument. I asked a thoughtful question, shared my opinion--which includes believing strongly in OP's and everyone else's right to abort their pregnancies--for any reason--but it's not good enough. Evidently, you're either with them on celebrating abortion or you're against them. Got it.

I'm very sorry for both your losses and the OP's loss. It must have been -- and still is from the sound of it -- very hard, and not something you get over.

However, this is where my sympathy for you ends -- in that you cannot respect OP's decision, based on the medical advice of her doctors, to terminate her non-viable pregnancy before a life-threatening situation got worse.

You both suffered losses, but you did not walk in her shoes -- you were not faced with the decision she was, or given the medical advice to terminate she was given, because your placenta abrupted and that was that.

Can't you even have a little empathy for the OP and put yourself in her shoes? What if your placenta had abrupted or your waters broke and you *hadn't* gone into labor on your own? What if your fetuses (babies) had decomposed within you, putting you at risk of lethal infection -- or an infection that could have necessitated a hysterectomy such that you could never have another baby? These were all very real risks that you faced and, very luckily for you even in a tragic situation, avoided.

The OP is not "better than you" for making the terrible choice she had to make. But similarly, you are not "better than her" because you didn't even have time to face the hard choices she had so you didn't have to make any choice at all. It's not a pain Olympics, and it's also not a virtue Olympics.

[Anonymous]

Here's my abortion story. I grew up in a very loving, close family. That was Christian. Abstinence only, no sex before marriage, pro-life, etc. When I was 14 I got asked out by a boy I'd known since I was 11, who was very sweet. Also came from a very loving, close Christian family. A month after I turned 15, we had sex. Twice. I then got pregnant. My parents left my brother and I home while they went to refinance their mortgage or something, one Saturday morning, and then do errands and have lunch before coming home. I got an abortion that morning. I used money I got from babysitting for families we knew through church. When my parents came home I was in bed, told them I didn't feel well and needed to sleep. Went to school that Monday.

[Anonymous]

I was 20 got pregnant second time I had sex. Just knew I couldn't raise a baby.

[Anonymous]

Got pregnant at 19 - reckless, dealing with emotional issues from childhood. Father totally checked out and his parents openly hostile to me. My parents (ironically very anti-abortion!) were really terrible to me and basically kicked me out at 18. So I couldn’t count on them for support. With no financial or emotional support system I wanted an abortion and got it.

[Anonymous]

Me: three medically necessary abortion during fertility treatments. Doctors suspected ectopic pregnancies.

Also me: 1 elective abortion when I got pregnant in my late 30s. Husband wasn’t coping like an adult and want able to be the father he should have been. I decided to have an abortion rather than have another child with a man who wasn’t able to cope with it.

Also me: I regret that termination. I’d love to hand had another child. All my choice, though. My choice. My mistakes. My husband, however, doesn’t actually see it that way! LOL. Ha. We experienced that pregnancy so differently.

F’uck you Supreme Court

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP I am very sorry for your loss and all you have been through. Like a PP I had a life threatening loss during COVID, ectopic, but at no point when flagging that my pregnancy may have been ectopic was the term abortion used with me in regard to terminating the pregnancy. I also ended up in the hospital alone convincing ER doctors that it was ectopic because it was so early and my numbers did not present normally and ended up losing a Fallopian tube, so on much smaller scale I can sympathize. Your experience sounds horrific and I feel sad for all women who went thorough these losses during COVID about how much was taken from us because our husbands/partners couldn't be there to truly understand what we went through and the extreme focus on being COVID adverse (necessary) adding levels of stress to these sad situations.

Could you expand on what you had to do in regards to Hyde amendment and paperwork if continuing the pregnancy was life-threatening to you and non-viable? Also, something I am actively doing to keep things in perspective is to acknowledge what I went through was rare, and the doctors didn't understand the situation well. Given that you were also in the DMV and we have access to a larger field of medical professional than a lot of the country, to me this situation and many of the tragic stories of later term pregnancy loss are reflecting how rare those situations are and maybe how little resources we put into studying these pregnancies and training for them vs. access to abortion. As you point out, your situation would play out the same today in this area with or without Roe v. Wade.

The stories that are flooding the media right now with people with these types of pregnancy losses are tragic, but saying they wouldn't have the same outcomes because of the reversal of Roe v. Wade seems disingenuous. I am curious to learning how it does directly impact, and if you could share that would be very enlightening, and may be change minds on some aspects of what is being discussed.

My doctor handled the paperwork for my insurance, but I was informed if they didn’t cover it, the procedure would be at least $10,000 plus hospital costs, plus anesthesia costs.

If I lived in a state that banned abortions and not MD, then the outcome would be worse because I would have had to travel to another state, and what would have happened if I were in the ICU for 8 days without my husband and other children? The logistics would have been very challenging. And I acknowledge my privilege that I probably could have figured it out, but it’s clearly not ideal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agree, OP. I had severe HG - severe enough that I was hospitalized at 9 weeks and living on banana bags. This was a wanted pregnancy achieved through very expensive fertility treatments. I lost 15% of my body weight and have had ongoing GI issues and complex PTSD ever since.

Knowing what can happen to women with HG that severe - stroke, heart attack, organ failure - I begged for an abortion. My doctor refused because I wasn't dying at that exact moment. I ate two saltines and checked myself out of the hospital. I literally crawled out through the lobby. Vomited nonstop for three days while I waited to get seen at Planned Parenthood. They saved my life.

This was at GW in 2012. Not a Catholic hospital. Not 1950. While abortion Roe was still the law of the land.

It's women like me who are going to suffer the most under this ruling. Those of us whose pregnancies threaten our lives but aren't yet actively in organ failure. I'm also very concerned for women who, like me, suffer from miscarriage. D&C is often necessary to clear the uterus. As my doctor explained while I wept over the loss of our first pregnancy, the line between miscarriage and not-miscarriage is not as bright as it seems on TV. Miscarriage, to some degree, is a medical judgement. I worry for those women whose doctors will wait too long to make that judgment and who will experience sepsis and other complications as a result.

I don't think most Americans understand any of this medicine well enough to truly understand what these laws are going to do to the women who are their neighbors and friends - "good," Christian, pro-life women experiencing very much wanted pregnancies need abortions too.

Op here - Your situation is hearbreaking and also not rare. If we can’t get the medical care we need at GW hospital, what happened to that woman like you in TX?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I delievered twins at 20 weeks and obviously they lived only a few hours, so I am truly sympathetic to your loss. I also endured non-stop and dangerous bleeding after a different delivery. So I understand a little bit what you went through. So please understand, I don't mean to be callous or dismissive. But, I am trying to understand how the abortion saved your life. It kind of sounds like the abortion endangered your life. What would have happened had the pregnancy been left to end on its own? Yes, it would have been difficult to know you were carrying a baby that would not survive, but it may very well have been a safer decision. Sometimes in life we suffer through very sad things. I have had my share. But I don't think it's accurate to say that abortion saved your life.

I mean I’m not a doctor but all my doctors told me I would be at higher risk of placental abruption if I waited. So maybe it hastened the inevitable but at least I was already in the OR when it happened.

What it hastened, by probabaly only a few hours, was delivery. In fact, my 20-week twins were born because of placental abruption and when that happens, so does spontaneous abortion--at 20 weeks, that means delivery of babies, non-viable babies. Trust me, I held mine. They are not a sack of cells as some people like to believe. I love that OP gets all kinds of sympathy for her choice to end the pregnancy, but mine ended without a choice and all I get is argument. I asked a thoughtful question, shared my opinion--which includes believing strongly in OP's and everyone else's right to abort their pregnancies--for any reason--but it's not good enough. Evidently, you're either with them on celebrating abortion or you're against them. Got it.

You were attacking the medical care I was advised to get based on the facts of my health and pregnancy. This is why the decision should not be made by people other than the patient and doctor.

If your doctor told you that you should not wait and if you did your life would be in danger, why would you let someone else make that decision for you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thank you OP.

My abortion story is this:

I was 37. Married with two kids, age 11 and 8, using birth control. Got pregnant, decided I didn’t want to be pregnant, terminated the pregnancy.

My family is perfect as-is, and another one was not right for us. And I had kids young so that my middle aged years wouldn’t be spent caring for littles.

I personally do not believe a fetus (or an embryo) is a human being. I have a human right to make those choices for my life.

This is similar to me. 38, 2 kids (they were younger than yours) and on the pill, which I took every day at the same time. It failed one time and I got pregnant.

The kicker is I had tried to get an IUD a few months before but the dr. was inexperienced, but one in, it broke, took it out, put another in, the ultrasound tech she didn't go far enough. I was not going to go through that pain again and the dr. clearly didn't know what she was doing, so I took the pill prescription.'

Anyway after my abortion I did go on Mirena and it's been great. I support any woman who wants to have an abortion for whatever reason!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I delievered twins at 20 weeks and obviously they lived only a few hours, so I am truly sympathetic to your loss. I also endured non-stop and dangerous bleeding after a different delivery. So I understand a little bit what you went through. So please understand, I don't mean to be callous or dismissive. But, I am trying to understand how the abortion saved your life. It kind of sounds like the abortion endangered your life. What would have happened had the pregnancy been left to end on its own? Yes, it would have been difficult to know you were carrying a baby that would not survive, but it may very well have been a safer decision. Sometimes in life we suffer through very sad things. I have had my share. But I don't think it's accurate to say that abortion saved your life.

I mean I’m not a doctor but all my doctors told me I would be at higher risk of placental abruption if I waited. So maybe it hastened the inevitable but at least I was already in the OR when it happened.

What it hastened, by probabaly only a few hours, was delivery. In fact, my 20-week twins were born because of placental abruption and when that happens, so does spontaneous abortion--at 20 weeks, that means delivery of babies, non-viable babies. Trust me, I held mine. They are not a sack of cells as some people like to believe. I love that OP gets all kinds of sympathy for her choice to end the pregnancy, but mine ended without a choice and all I get is argument. I asked a thoughtful question, shared my opinion--which includes believing strongly in OP's and everyone else's right to abort their pregnancies--for any reason--but it's not good enough. Evidently, you're either with them on celebrating abortion or you're against them. Got it.

You were attacking the medical care I was advised to get based on the facts of my health and pregnancy. This is why the decision should not be made by people other than the patient and doctor.

If your doctor told you that you should not wait and if you did your life would be in danger, why would you let someone else make that decision for you?

Also your 20 week sounded like L&D and not a D&E. My placenta was attached to my previous c section scar and I had complete placenta previa so that wasn’t an option for me. But my point stands- you aren’t my doctor and if you were I’d get a second opinion because clearly your opinions are clouding your ability to factually assess someone else’s situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I delievered twins at 20 weeks and obviously they lived only a few hours, so I am truly sympathetic to your loss. I also endured non-stop and dangerous bleeding after a different delivery. So I understand a little bit what you went through. So please understand, I don't mean to be callous or dismissive. But, I am trying to understand how the abortion saved your life. It kind of sounds like the abortion endangered your life. What would have happened had the pregnancy been left to end on its own? Yes, it would have been difficult to know you were carrying a baby that would not survive, but it may very well have been a safer decision. Sometimes in life we suffer through very sad things. I have had my share. But I don't think it's accurate to say that abortion saved your life.

I mean I’m not a doctor but all my doctors told me I would be at higher risk of placental abruption if I waited. So maybe it hastened the inevitable but at least I was already in the OR when it happened.

What it hastened, by probabaly only a few hours, was delivery. In fact, my 20-week twins were born because of placental abruption and when that happens, so does spontaneous abortion--at 20 weeks, that means delivery of babies, non-viable babies. Trust me, I held mine. They are not a sack of cells as some people like to believe. I love that OP gets all kinds of sympathy for her choice to end the pregnancy, but mine ended without a choice and all I get is argument. I asked a thoughtful question, shared my opinion--which includes believing strongly in OP's and everyone else's right to abort their pregnancies--for any reason--but it's not good enough. Evidently, you're either with them on celebrating abortion or you're against them. Got it.

I’m not sure what your objection is. You are not OP’s doctor - OP’s doctor assessed that it was unsafe to continue the pregnancy. *that is what medical choice means.* that the doctor and patient decide. the fact that you delivered at 20 weeks after an abruption has nothing at all to do with OP’s situation.

You're not reading OP's posts very closely. If you had been, you would see what I know: the abortion was worse for her than had she waited. But fine, she made a choice. She was asked questions, changed her story. My familiarity with complications extends beyond my own loss and OP either misunderstood her situation or is changing her story to make this post work. According to the facts of her original story--before she started changing it, and even to an extend afterward--abortion did not save her life.

I am sorry for your loss, but you seem really invested in attacking the OP, who also lost a baby. Maybe you should bow out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had a medical abortion. The embryo heart stopped but because of other issues my body would not miscarry. I’m ever thankful that my doctor was kind and performed it before sepsis set in. People posting here know very little about the dangers of pregnancy.
I have had 3 friends with later MC who nearly bled to death. MC can be fatal.
Up until recently the main cause of death among women under 50 was childbirth or pregnancy complications of which there are many.
But nothing will change the pro choice attitude.

Amen to this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's my abortion story. I grew up in a very loving, close family. That was Christian. Abstinence only, no sex before marriage, pro-life, etc. When I was 14 I got asked out by a boy I'd known since I was 11, who was very sweet. Also came from a very loving, close Christian family. A month after I turned 15, we had sex. Twice. I then got pregnant. My parents left my brother and I home while they went to refinance their mortgage or something, one Saturday morning, and then do errands and have lunch before coming home. I got an abortion that morning. I used money I got from babysitting for families we knew through church. When my parents came home I was in bed, told them I didn't feel well and needed to sleep. Went to school that Monday.

You were very strong!