Tabatha's Story

I was 22 years old, ready to be let loose on the world after graduating from college in 3 months and after a night of too much alcohol and what I thought was a great guy I found out I was pregnant. I will not use the alcohol as an excuse because it isn't!!

It was March and I was anticipating my period because I was VERY regular. It never came. I was devastated. A friend of mine became pregnant that same evening and she was handling it much better than I. I just knew that if I told my parents they would kill me. Besides, this wasn't supposed to happen to a girl like me. I asked God the why me question but the biggest one was What now? I was away from home, no support except my friend.

The first thing that I wanted to do was call the father of the baby. Everyone talked me out of that, telling me that I would ruin his life, like mine wasn't going to be. I thought of adoption, but I knew mentally I couldn't handle carrying the child for 9 months only to hand it over to someone else to take care of. If I couldn't do it myself, and I couldn't -- I didn't even have a job, then there was only one answer. I went through graduation and pushing the envelope on time. I had my abortion the Monday after graduation.

I tried to drink myself into a miscarriage and drugs to get rid of the baby, nothing was working so I resigned myself to the fact that the baby would be much better off with God. I was raised Catholic and firmly believed that my baby's soul would end up in a child that was wanted and loved by a family that could provide a home for it, everything that a child deserves and all the things that I could not give it!!

After becoming sober, and looking back on things, I still know in my heart that I did the right thing, however it is still really hard to forgive myself for it! Not only that I did not have a support group that I could share any of this with, not that I would have had I had the opportunity. Now, after being sober and clean for 5+ years and married and carrying a child that I never will have to give up for any reason, I feel that God has forgiven me otherwise my prayers for a child would never have been answered. This child is already spoiled and it is not even here yet.

I guess what I am trying to say is that yes, we all make mistakes and yes, some of us resort to abortion. We need to forgive ourselves, love ourselves and help others cope with it. It is a decision that we are ALLOWED to make and should not feel GUILTY about and no one should be able to make us feel that way!

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