I got an abortion last month and have been recovering from the physical and emotional toll it made on me.

Little background; I’m 20 and a college student who’s looking forward to her career and caring for her 2 wonderful cats.

So, my period is very irregular and sometimes won’t get one for weeks, or will bleed for 3 months straight. But this was one of those times where more than 2 months had gone by and it really hit me.

My boyfriend and I would joke like, “omg what if I’m pregnant”, like we had done in the past and then next day start my period, however that wasn’t the case this go round.

One evening I woke up to throw up and chalked it up to taking my meds on an empty stomach.

A few days later i started just feeling off. Like just weird and not how I normally feel. I woke up throwing up the next morning and I just knew.

I told my boyfriend and he went out and got me hella pregnancy tests. I took them and they were all positive. It didn’t feel real at first, I could not convince my monkey brain that I was pregnant.

I tried to remember my last period and thought surely I was reaching 10 weeks (I had been 7weeks pregnant at the time of my abortion bc ultrasound).

I am not lying when I say that being pregnant was one of the hardest things I’ve gone through. I scheduled an abortion right away but the appointment wasn’t for another 2 weeks. I couldn’t eat anything without profusely throwing up. It was so bad I went to the ED (which was chaos) and they pumped me with drugs that made me less nauseous :)

But alongside all of the physical bullshit I was dealing with i was just so depressed. I have always wanted to get pregnant and become a mom one day. The idea of a mini me (and my bf) just fills me with such a sweet image that I would love to have. One day. But right now I cannot drop my own priorities for another life.

While I don’t regret my abortion (I won’t bring a human into the world without being ready) I am a spiritual person. I believe there is a soul connected to the embryo that was inside me. I had moments where I spoke to the soul while I was pregnant and told them what was going to happen, and that perhaps I will get to meet them another time and get to be the best mama.

As I continue I want to inform it does get graphic.

I showed up for my in clinic abortion, where a group of protesters were blabbing about Jesus to me and my boyfriend as he walked me in, my mom also came with and she started yelling at them to shut the fuck up. Hahaha.

As I go in for the appointment and the entire process they begin the procedure. Now, I have a really hard time with any vaginal exams (from an IUD that migrated and gave me ovarian cysts) and after about 5 minutes of her goin at it down there she came up to tell me my cervix just did not wanna relax and dilate, so she offered me a few options but I decided fuck this idea, give me the abortion pill. So that’s the route I began to take.

Fast forward thru a lot of bullshit, I take the first pill and go home. Next day, I take the second pill exactly 24hrs after the first one. I expected the awful cramping and for it to be just an all around terrible experience like I’ve heard.

About an hour after I took the second pill, I started to cramp. I laid in bed with a heat pad and wearing a maxi pad and let my body go through it. The cramping lasted about 4 hours for me and felt like period cramps. It would come in HUGE waves of pain, followed by a huge puddles of blood. I could feel blood leaking out of my vagina like a faucet. It was very uncomfy to sit through with a pad on. Eventually I feel one super huge cramp that has me crying and curled up in a ball. After a moment it passes and I decide to take a hot shower.

The shower felt so good and brought me a sense of relaxation through it all. Blood was spilling down the drain, and soon I felt this huge weight fall out of me followed by a loud slap on the bathtub floor.

I’m curious and investigate the glob of blood and flesh that just came out of me as it’s too heavy to be pulled down into the drain by the shower running.

It was not cute, it made me feel weird and I respectfully pushed it down into the drain.

After the huge glob, immediate relief through my body. No more nausea. No more feeling of impending doom.

It was a pretty traumatic thing, however I was supported and loved through it. I communicated with my closest people and never once felt it was the wrong choice. And after a month I feel back to myself and I’m not feeling depressed over it.

Getting an abortion is scary though, and women who get them don’t WANT to have to go through it! I didn’t want to be pregnant in the first place. And then to have to go through everything I went through, it’s no fun. Abortions are not fun, but it is healthcare.