I was 15 years old when I had my first and only abortion. When I was 12 I had become best friends with a girl who was vivacious and wild, whose lifestyle I wanted to emulate. We started smoking and drinking and stealing. She was always the Jr. High boy’s favorite pursuit. She had several boy friends during Jr. High and the first part of high school. I longed for a boyfriend to love me. I didn’t feel loved by anyone else. Not even by God, who in turn I had told I didn’t want anything to do with you.
My parents, siblings and I were verbally, physically and emotional abusive to each other. My mother never wanted children and she let us know quite often. I wanted someone to want me. I had been sexually abused, raped three times, at an early age of about 5 years old. I was also molested a couple of times by my uncle who was staying with us when I was about 10 years old. He had molested my older sister too. I had frequent nightmares that I pleaded with God to take them away, but I kept having them and in turn became very angry at God and my family. I told God that if he wasn’t going to answer my prayer, then I didn’t want to have anything to do with Him.
My older sister had become promiscuous and was getting into trouble. She ran away from home and was gone for several months. When she came back home she introduced my brother and I to drugs. I hung around several other girlfriends that were also very promiscuous. My best friend became pregnant herself at 14 and had her baby and dropped out of school. On Friday and Saturday nights lots of kids in the neighborhood would all party, usually at whoever’s house that was void of parental supervision for the weekend. Older teens and young adults would buy the alcohol and drugs. I became promiscuous and had sex with several boys the summer of my 15th year.
By late June I was pregnant. I trusted my friends and told them, some had already had an abortion and advised I do the same. I idolized one boy in particular, and was pretty sure that he was the father; at least I wanted him to be. When I told him, he said, “You can have the baby, but it won’t have a father”. This broke my heart; I had thought he might have said I’ll be there for you. I didn’t really want an abortion, and avoided telling my parents. Some of my friends would ask if I would keep the baby, and I would answer that I wanted to, and pictured myself as a young mother. I was scared so I just avoided telling my parents.
When I was about five months pregnant, my parents left for a hunting trip and would be gone for about 2 weeks. They left the four of us kids at home, my sister in charge who was 18 at the time. A consecutive three night party was the result. My sister who had known about it, and participated, when she wasn’t off doing her own partying, finally said it was over. I wouldn’t tell everyone to leave and she called the police. When they showed up, I assaulted one of the officers and was taken to juvenile hall. When my mom and dad were notified, they let me stay there until they were finished hunting.
When I came home I saw the destruction and mess from the party. After I cleaned it up, I approached my mom, who had been giving me the silent treatment since she picked me up at the Hall, and handed her a pregnancy result form that I had received from Planned Parenthood. I was taken by a friend’s older sister who could drive, and taken several of the girls, sort of like the designated driver and had the test weeks earlier.
My mom was livid, asking me how could I do this to them. After she had told my dad, they came to my room to ask who the father was, I didn’t tell them anything. My mom said that she wasn’t going to raise another baby. This part is foggy: I don’t know if she asked me what I was going to do, and I said, “I guess I’ll have to have an abortion”, or if she said, “You’re going to have to have an abortion”.
No one offered support for the pregnancy, my mom did not contact her pastor, and in fact I think that she would not have wanted him to know. I joined the church six years later and told him. Regardless, the appointment was set for my pregnancy test at our own medical facility, in which my mom made and drove me to. There I had my cervix dilated, and told to go to the main hospital the next morning, to have the abortion performed.
My mom drove me again, and still didn’t talk to me at all, and I could tell she was on a mission; she was and had been so angry throughout this ordeal. The hospital experience was awful. I was sick to my stomach, and wanted to bolt and run. My mom had never said, “You don’t have to do this”. I said I wanted to change my mind, but was informed that it was too late, in that I was already dilated. When I was admitted, it was unbelievable how many other girls and women where having abortions that day. We were in small prep rooms, on gurneys, in hospital gowns and it was unbelievably cold. I am very nearsighted and my glasses were taken and put away, this made everything visually blurry. I just remember shaking uncontrollably and started to cry. I remember hearing others crying too.
The nurses, who where Filipino and Hispanic, came in to put the IV in they were verbal and physically abusive. They said, “Why are you crying, it is your fault that your here because you were a whore, shut up your crying”. I have veins that are very difficult to find, I don’t know if because of fear, or what, they were really constricted. There were about three different nurses who took their turns trying to find the vein with force, I think that they deliberately jabbed me a couple of times just to inflict pain, which in turn made me cry all the more. One slapped me and told me to shut up. I became hysterical; some senior nurse came in and finally got the IV in.
I don’t think that I have ever screamed or cried at one time as much. I remember asking the doctors: (there were actually two) the doctor and his female PA, if they would tell me if the baby was a girl or a boy. They said that that didn’t really matter. I think that I remember physical pain during the procedure; I know I did while I was recovering. I had come to in a large; I mean really large room with lot of other women all recovering too. I got up to soon to use the bathroom, and while I was in I passed out and hit my head. The nurses had scolded me and got me to lie down again. I don’t know how long everything took.
I slept in the car as my mom drove us home. When I was home I slept until the afternoon about . When I woke up I made up my mind that I was going out to visit my friends to smoke and get a little high. I noticed that about the shirt I was wearing was wet with breast milk. I was confused, what was happening, no one told me this would happen. I guess the reality hit me pretty hard that my body was saying that it needed to nurse a baby. I went home into the garage, crumpled down of the floor next to the washer and dryer and just cried. I was crying so loud that my mom and dad came out to ask me, “What is wrong with you now, why are you crying”? I told them that I was so sad that I had an abortion. They said, “Well you should have thought about that before you ever got pregnant”. I lashed out at them screaming, yelling and cursing them and to just leave me alone.
That night I was so mad, I went into the back yard crying, screaming, and asking God why he let all of this happen to me. I was disoriented, my thoughts were confusing and I thought I was hearing voices. I said that I wish I could have died instead of my baby, and that I wish I were dead. I didn’t know if I was hearing a voice telling me to just repent and ask Jesus into my heart right then and there to be saved. I knew that I had prayed to receive Christ when I was about 6 years old after my sexual abuse. I know that I had always had a hard time really trusting that the Lord had saved my then because I never felt secure. I got angry and said, “I don’t need to be saved, I’m already saved”. I think I was really being attacked by the Devil or demons and they were the real source of the voice(s).
I did something very serious then, I said in my head, not out loud, if you are the Holy Spirit or God I don’t believe in you. (For the longest time I had thought that I had committed the unpardonable sin). I have never said those words to anyone in person, and didn’t really believe it myself. At that moment, I really felt like the Holy Spirit had left me, and the demons were celebrating out loud, it was just major confusion. I just wept with all of every bit of my energy used up. Then in a still small voice clear, I heard Jesus say, “I will never leave you nor forsake you, I love you”. I couldn’t believe I heard it, and thought how could you?
I went to bed that night and lived the next years completely going my own way, drinking, parting, doing drugs, trying to numb the pain. During this time I became pregnant again at 17. My mom again told me that I didn’t have to have this baby, I could just have another abortion and I didn’t have to marry the father. I got so angry at her and said, “I should never have had the first abortion and I won’t abort this baby. You don’t know what it is like to live with having had an abortion. I am going to get married and raise him myself”.
I graduated High School in May 1977, was married to the baby’s father in August, and had my son in November when I was 18. We still partied, more than ever, I was also anorexic, and neglecting the baby, and when he was 11 months old he became very sick one night. I was too drunk and drugged to know that he was so sick, I heard him crying and got up to see that he was having seizures and turning blue. On the way to the hospital he stopped breathing all together. At that moment, all I could do was to cry out to Jesus. I called on his name over and over to keep him alive, and he started breathing again. They had him on medication and about my mom and her pastor walked in to the room. He asked me if I wanted him to pray and I said yes. This was a major turning point in my life; I rededicated my life and have tried to live out my faith since then. I haven’t been successful a lot of the time, and I have made plenty of mistakes, but God is going to get me to the other side.
I still don’t know what my mother really thinks about her part of the abortion experience… (Later on, when I was in my 30s when I started getting some counseling about my past abortion experience, and had expressed anger at my mom, I told my sister and It got back to my mom. She told me to my face…that if abortion was legal when she was pregnant, that she would have aborted all of us). I have been told by others that they thought that what she said was probably the most hurtful thing that they ever heard. I think so too. I love my mom, and I do forgive her, and know that this is just one more hurdle to jump.
I know that God has forgiven me. I have been a member of a group study, “Surrendering the Secret” and I am also currently a member of “Celebrate Recovery”. Both of these resources have helped me heal from these hurts I have experienced. God is so good, and I believe that He will make all things new day by day. I should probably include more about what God has done in my life since this time...remarriage, three beautiful daughters, obtaining a BA in college, knowing that God has a work for me in ministering to others who are hurting. This is my story and if it can help others, then God never wastes a hurt. I just pray that if you read this and realize that God may be speaking to you to seek the help He offers, and that you’ll reach out. You will find the help you need too.
