This iReport is part of an assignment:
Have you had an abortion?
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- Posted February 8, 2013 by
- never4getu Follow
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Changed Forever
I was in love with this man for a very long time. I will call him "Roger". When we met we were both married. Soon after our affair started, I fell in love with him and filed for divorce. I had hoped---thought---that he would do the same. But unknown to me, he was not going to leave his wife---not then; not ever. This became all too apparent when I realized that I was pregnant.
I wanted the baby; wanted us in my fantasy world to make a life together. I dreamed that he would finally go to his wife and tell her about the affair, confess that he loved me and most of all tell her that we were going to have a child together. But that whole scene playing over and over again in my head was never going to become a reality---far from it. That all shattered on the day that he told me that he wanted me to have an abortion.
I tried to plead with him, saying that I at least wanted to give our baby life----that I would make sure that our child would go to a couple who would be able to provide our baby with a good life and a loving home. But he said that he didn't want someone else to raise his child. So I wound up giving in to what he wanted---to abort our precious child---- which I have regretted doing then and for every day of my life since.
The abortion clinic was just that----a clinic. It had a fairly packed waiting room, and "Roger" sat in that room waiting for me to come out to tell him that it was over. I might have changed my mind, you know.....walked out of there like I should have and announced that I was going to carry her to term. I could have stood up for my baby against him and the whole world like the mother that I should have been to her. But I was led by the hand of the man I gave my love to all those years to slaughter--both of us---me and my unborn child.
After I paid for the abortion and checked in, I was told to have a seat. The nurses "counseled" me for all of about five minutes, i.e., was I ready to terminate my pregnancy; how far along was I; did I have any allergies to drugs-----it was all done very, very fast. Then I was brought to the room that was supposedly going to make my life easier---going to make all my problems go away. Little did I know that for me instead having this abortion was going to create untold emotional damage, unfathomable sorrow and regret, and leave my heart wounded and scarred even now over 25 years later.
Upon that table in that room I laid my body, heart racing trying to repeat the words that the "counselors" said---that it was just a procedure and that the abortionist was a skilled physician who had done this surgery millions of times, and that it would be over in just a few minutes.....
The nurse asked me if I would like to be put under with laughing gas....Laughing gas, I thought.....that appealed to me because I thought that if I had that gas I could laugh my way through it. So that's what I chose that day.....laughing gas. Suddenly I heard the suction machine that they were going to use to suck my baby out of my uterus making a loud guttural noise and felt the probe being shoved into me. I should have screamed but the laughing gas was indeed working because as weird as something being done to you like that it all strangely felt like I was watching the whole thing being done outside of myself----as if in a dream or as if it wasn't really being done to me at all but to someone else.....
The noise of the suction machine kept whirring for some time as the doctor kept the probe sweeping inside of me, checking to make sure that the life of my baby had been completely sucked out of me---out of her. I was in another world, a world of make believe that this wasn't happening to me at all. Then just as fast as all of this had begun, the whole thing came to a halt, and I was being lifted from the table. The next thing I knew, I was being ushered to a small hallway---a sort of make-shift "recovery room"---where I was instructed to lay down, drink some orange juice and eat a couple of crackers. There were a few of us in there, the others just as numb from the experience as I was. I felt sick....
"Roger" was noticeably relieved when he saw that I had gone through with it and that I was "alright". He took me to breakfast where I continued to feel like I was someone else in my body, still feeling the numbing effects of the laughing gas, joking about it with him as if I had just come from a teeth cleaning instead of an abortion clinic. The real aftermath didn't hit me until much, much later.
So I was dropped off at home---he went back to his wife. The whole surreal experience didn't really unwind until a few weeks later. That's when everything started to hit.....
The first thing I noticed was that I wanted to distance myself from "Roger"---no more sex. But funny thing is that's exactly when he asked me to marry him-----after the abortion----which didn't make any sense to me at all. It is what I had always wanted and now I hated him for it and wanted nothing to do with him. I never understood why he would ask me to marry him after I had the abortion......I still don't.....
So we broke up and I tried to put everything behind me---tried to forget him and the abortion. I went on trying to put meaning into another "dead end" relationship. A few years of that one and I ended that one, too.....
Finally I opened myself up for the possibility of getting married again. I fell in love and thought everything was going to be just fine. And I was happy and remained so until one night about 7 years later I was up late watching a network I had discovered called Eternal Word Television Network. That's when it hit---hard....that's when the tears over what I had done to my baby came from out of the depths of my heart....from a time and a place...from a long time ago....
And I cried and I cried until I couldn't cry anymore. It was the middle of the night and I jumped out of my bed and to my computer where I logged on to the stories of thousands of women just like me who had lost their unborn children to abortion. I read and read and read again the stories, for they all were telling my story, too, the story I could never talk about with anyone....until now.
I immediately found a Rachel's Vineyard and signed up for their weekend retreat of spiritual healing. There I was able to mourn the loss of my beautiful child, give her a name and attend her memorial. I know now that she is with the angels in heaven and that she understands everything. She also knows now how much I loved her and wanted to keep her. And I also found forgiveness---forgiveness for "Roger" and forgiveness myself for what we had done.
I still struggle with that and probably always will, for that is the lie about abortion. Abortion is not a woman's rights issue, it is a moral issue. As women we are meant to bear life, not have it ripped out of us! Please tell every woman out there who is thinking about having an abortion that she will regret it the rest of her life. The damage caused by an abortion may not come out for years, such as it was with me. But it will come out...this I promise. Abortion is so shameful it requires us to keep it hidden from everyone, including the woman herself, because it is murder, plain and simple---that is what killing your own child is---murder....
I will spend the rest of my life carrying my unborn daughter's memory---the child I gave the world permission to throw away--- in the wound of my heart.
Thank you for listening. I hope that if my story along with the many others gets aired that we will be that much closer to stopping the culture of death from growing in the world and finally put an end to abortion. I will close by repeating something I recently read....
"Seems to me that all the people who are for abortion are the ones who have been already born". I couldn't have said it better myself.
Let's End Abortion Now!
Sincerely Yours,
Julie
I wanted the baby; wanted us in my fantasy world to make a life together. I dreamed that he would finally go to his wife and tell her about the affair, confess that he loved me and most of all tell her that we were going to have a child together. But that whole scene playing over and over again in my head was never going to become a reality---far from it. That all shattered on the day that he told me that he wanted me to have an abortion.
I tried to plead with him, saying that I at least wanted to give our baby life----that I would make sure that our child would go to a couple who would be able to provide our baby with a good life and a loving home. But he said that he didn't want someone else to raise his child. So I wound up giving in to what he wanted---to abort our precious child---- which I have regretted doing then and for every day of my life since.
The abortion clinic was just that----a clinic. It had a fairly packed waiting room, and "Roger" sat in that room waiting for me to come out to tell him that it was over. I might have changed my mind, you know.....walked out of there like I should have and announced that I was going to carry her to term. I could have stood up for my baby against him and the whole world like the mother that I should have been to her. But I was led by the hand of the man I gave my love to all those years to slaughter--both of us---me and my unborn child.
After I paid for the abortion and checked in, I was told to have a seat. The nurses "counseled" me for all of about five minutes, i.e., was I ready to terminate my pregnancy; how far along was I; did I have any allergies to drugs-----it was all done very, very fast. Then I was brought to the room that was supposedly going to make my life easier---going to make all my problems go away. Little did I know that for me instead having this abortion was going to create untold emotional damage, unfathomable sorrow and regret, and leave my heart wounded and scarred even now over 25 years later.
Upon that table in that room I laid my body, heart racing trying to repeat the words that the "counselors" said---that it was just a procedure and that the abortionist was a skilled physician who had done this surgery millions of times, and that it would be over in just a few minutes.....
The nurse asked me if I would like to be put under with laughing gas....Laughing gas, I thought.....that appealed to me because I thought that if I had that gas I could laugh my way through it. So that's what I chose that day.....laughing gas. Suddenly I heard the suction machine that they were going to use to suck my baby out of my uterus making a loud guttural noise and felt the probe being shoved into me. I should have screamed but the laughing gas was indeed working because as weird as something being done to you like that it all strangely felt like I was watching the whole thing being done outside of myself----as if in a dream or as if it wasn't really being done to me at all but to someone else.....
The noise of the suction machine kept whirring for some time as the doctor kept the probe sweeping inside of me, checking to make sure that the life of my baby had been completely sucked out of me---out of her. I was in another world, a world of make believe that this wasn't happening to me at all. Then just as fast as all of this had begun, the whole thing came to a halt, and I was being lifted from the table. The next thing I knew, I was being ushered to a small hallway---a sort of make-shift "recovery room"---where I was instructed to lay down, drink some orange juice and eat a couple of crackers. There were a few of us in there, the others just as numb from the experience as I was. I felt sick....
"Roger" was noticeably relieved when he saw that I had gone through with it and that I was "alright". He took me to breakfast where I continued to feel like I was someone else in my body, still feeling the numbing effects of the laughing gas, joking about it with him as if I had just come from a teeth cleaning instead of an abortion clinic. The real aftermath didn't hit me until much, much later.
So I was dropped off at home---he went back to his wife. The whole surreal experience didn't really unwind until a few weeks later. That's when everything started to hit.....
The first thing I noticed was that I wanted to distance myself from "Roger"---no more sex. But funny thing is that's exactly when he asked me to marry him-----after the abortion----which didn't make any sense to me at all. It is what I had always wanted and now I hated him for it and wanted nothing to do with him. I never understood why he would ask me to marry him after I had the abortion......I still don't.....
So we broke up and I tried to put everything behind me---tried to forget him and the abortion. I went on trying to put meaning into another "dead end" relationship. A few years of that one and I ended that one, too.....
Finally I opened myself up for the possibility of getting married again. I fell in love and thought everything was going to be just fine. And I was happy and remained so until one night about 7 years later I was up late watching a network I had discovered called Eternal Word Television Network. That's when it hit---hard....that's when the tears over what I had done to my baby came from out of the depths of my heart....from a time and a place...from a long time ago....
And I cried and I cried until I couldn't cry anymore. It was the middle of the night and I jumped out of my bed and to my computer where I logged on to the stories of thousands of women just like me who had lost their unborn children to abortion. I read and read and read again the stories, for they all were telling my story, too, the story I could never talk about with anyone....until now.
I immediately found a Rachel's Vineyard and signed up for their weekend retreat of spiritual healing. There I was able to mourn the loss of my beautiful child, give her a name and attend her memorial. I know now that she is with the angels in heaven and that she understands everything. She also knows now how much I loved her and wanted to keep her. And I also found forgiveness---forgiveness for "Roger" and forgiveness myself for what we had done.
I still struggle with that and probably always will, for that is the lie about abortion. Abortion is not a woman's rights issue, it is a moral issue. As women we are meant to bear life, not have it ripped out of us! Please tell every woman out there who is thinking about having an abortion that she will regret it the rest of her life. The damage caused by an abortion may not come out for years, such as it was with me. But it will come out...this I promise. Abortion is so shameful it requires us to keep it hidden from everyone, including the woman herself, because it is murder, plain and simple---that is what killing your own child is---murder....
I will spend the rest of my life carrying my unborn daughter's memory---the child I gave the world permission to throw away--- in the wound of my heart.
Thank you for listening. I hope that if my story along with the many others gets aired that we will be that much closer to stopping the culture of death from growing in the world and finally put an end to abortion. I will close by repeating something I recently read....
"Seems to me that all the people who are for abortion are the ones who have been already born". I couldn't have said it better myself.
Let's End Abortion Now!
Sincerely Yours,
Julie
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