Kimberly's Story

A few months ago I started dating my boyfriend. I'm 18 and he's 21. Right at the beginning I got pregnant but didn't know. A month and a half later I knew something was up because even though I'm irregular, I'm never this irregular.

A bunch of his friends and my friends were over his apartment and I just had to know right then. Our friends are very pro-life partly because they have never had to deal with something like this. I took a home pregnancy test in his bathroom by myself and it was positive. I just started crying silently and I have never felt more alone in all my life.

He came in acted as if it really wasn't a big deal and said "We'll just have to take care of it". We never told any of our friends. He works for his father and is very well off so we went to the clinic a couple of days later. Of course there were abortion protesters outside and that made me feel even worse.

Because I was only 4 weeks pregnant I was able to have a non-surgical abortion. Also, because I have negative blood I had to get another shot before drinking the liquid that stopped the baby from developing further. After $500 and a lot of waiting I went home. I wasn't allowed to eat anything with folate in it because it might counteract with the medicine. I never realized how much food has folate in it.

After practically starving for five days, I had to insert four pills into my vagina and lay there for an hour. After about two hours the cramping started and then the bleeding. Those were the most painful cramps I have ever experienced. I bled for about two weeks and then had to go back to the clinic to make sure it was terminated. It was, but I felt horrible. I thought I was going to hell and I was so confused. Abortion feels very lonely but it was one of the best decisions I've ever made.

I now have free birth control from the clinic and I'm all about safe sex. I have never been hypercritical about having to face abortion because it just might happen to me. And it did.

Kimberly
4 April 2001