I had an abortion when I was 17. The boyfriend I had been with for 3 years was older than me and I thought we would marry. But his response was to, “Get rid of it, it’s no big deal, get an abortion." Although I had never heard anything about abortion, I just knew it was a terrible thing, but I was petrified to go to my father and thought he would throw me out.
So being afraid to run away and do this by myself, I had an abortion. A friend took me to the gynecologist. I can still see his face. He told me there was nothing to cry about, it was only a blob of cells. I remember the day that I went for the abortion, I cried all the way to the mill. I was dropped off in front and the boyfriend waited in the car outside. I sat inside the waiting room with tears streaming down my face. When they prepped me, and put me on that cold table with the lights glaring down on me, I thought I was going to die, and when I woke up I was sick. I felt so empty, guilty, in pain, ashamed, and afraid.
To this day I feel panic when I go to the gynecologist, or get IV.
When I got home, I had to make believe there was nothing wrong. Instead of going to school for the next week, I went to a friend’s house, laid down on her bed and cried every day.
I finally got it together, and life went on. I stopped going to church, feeling that I didn’t belong. I went from a very bright and energetic student to just getting through high school and not going on to college; my drive for life was gone.
After a few years, I went on to marry a different man out of a desperate search for a normal life. Unfortunately it quickly became abusive. I became pregnant by my first anniversary and through out my pregnancy I was so afraid that I would loose the baby; I had bleeding problems. When I felt the life growing inside me, in the back of my mind was how my first baby never got that far.
I became pregnant again, but this time I had hemorrhaging problems and felt it was because of the abortion, God was going to take this baby from me as I had taken one from Him. I was hospitalized and I finally made a confession about my abortion to a visiting priest. My husband became more abusive, and I think deep down I felt I deserved it, and I stayed in my marriage.
My healing began during the time I cared for my mom as she suffered with terminal cancer. I started reading scripture and really seeking God. My husband resented my helping my Mother and became even more abusive. I finally got a restraining order against him. His anger was so fierce. And after I won a custody battle in the courts, he managed to alienate my three children against me.
I finally had to let them go and live with their father as I was left with no control of them. For a few years they wanted nothing to do with me, because of his prompting.
Deep inside I felt that God was allowing this because I had had the abortion. I had destroyed one of His children and now he was taking the ones I knew and loved away from me. I was becoming sick from the anger--stomach pains, migraine headaches, even skin problems. I had started turning more to God, I was brought down to my knees. One morning while reading Song of Solomon, I experienced this overwhelming feeling of love--an intense heat sensation, that lingered and slowly traveled my entire being from my head down to my toes. I know it was Jesus showing me that He loved me and He was with me. I started going to church, prayer groups, and finally came to know about Divine Mercy. God led me here to my final healing…he showed me that He had forgiven me, and now I understood that He really had.
I went on to a Project Rachel seminar, shared with other women, named my baby “Hope” and gave her the spiritual burial that she deserved.
Ironically, my daughter called me and was in the same predicament that I was in at the same age of 17. She wanted to come back to live with me, she was pregnant, and her father was trying to make her have an abortion. She came back to live with me, and with trust in God, I fought for the baby’s life and we gave birth to Megan, now 7. Megan is truly a gift, I can’t imagine life without her here. When I see her and think how she almost was aborted. I see how many beautiful kids we are missing because of abortion today.
The guilt I carried most of my life from that abortion had a crippling effect on the rest of my life.
I had blamed only myself for many years, and although I have not let my old self totally off the hook, I know now that many factors were also to blame…if I had heard ad seen the truth about abortion in my church or at school, if it was illegal I would not have had it so easily accessible. My very own government had allowed me to kill my child. If the gynecologist would have told me the truth about it being a human baby instead of saying that it was just a blob of cells and if I had only seen what abortion looks like, that it was a real baby I was to destroy, that beautiful child, that person who would be 31 today, would be alive, the world would not be robbed of this unique child of God, and I would have my child to love with happy memories instead of nightmares.
It’s been a long road. Now I work for Priests for Life in the Speakers Bureau. It is my job to arrange for the priests and speakers to go out into the world and preach about this to the public. I thank God that He has given me a part in fighting this evil everyday.
And that is why I am silent no more.
