It Was My Fault

[YoungAndScared]

I've been searching for a post like this.

I was pregnant this year. Incredibly pro life and unbelievably against abortion.

My boyfriend, family and his family all said that is was my choice in the end, but they all made it abundantly clear that I wasn't allowed to have my baby.

My boyfriend and I were not sure if I was too late to take the abortion pills. I said to him "If I am past 9 weeks, I am not having an abortion". We chose names, we chose schooling paths, and I even bought him a little hat and some booties. His name was Harry.

I was just shy of 9 weeks, and I knew then I was not going to get out of it. I had to make a choice. I run away, have no support or connection to my family for the rest of my life, or I take the pills.

I loved my boyfriend so much. So much so I went and took the pills for him.

I was 8 weeks and 6 days pregnant on April the 30th of 2011 and today I would be 24 weeks pregnant and my baby would be due on December the 10th 2011.

Instead that night on April 30th, in a strange hotel room, I picked up my unborn feotus when it fell down my trouser leg in the bathroom. I saw his fully formed head. The eye. His legs. The spinal collumn. And the bain of my flashbacks and terrors: His tiny fully formed hand.

All 5 fingers perectly splayed.

I ran from the bathroom and sat by the door screaming and crying while my boyfriend sat motionless in shock. I wouldn't let him touch me. I wouldn't let him speak. I hated him. I had chosen wrong.

After 2 hours of tears and screaming I got up in an air of strange calm, washed out my foundation pot in excrutiating detail, and layered it with toilet paper. I placed Harry in the pot and we drove to a street we didn't know, and placed him by a tree.

I passed clots the size of tenis balls and laughed the whole way home, in shock of what I'd just done. I snapped out when I heard my boyfriend telling the Police (who had pulled us over) what happened. "My girlfriend's just had an abortion, I need to get her back safe and quickly", he said. That asshole. He makes me do it, and then he brags about it?

We told his mum we had left Harry in a box by a tree the next day. I was so horrified hearing what I had said we drove back immidiately and colected him.

I held the box so tight in my hands the entire way home.

We burried him by a tree on a road ironically dubbed, "The Avenue of Rememberance", all I wanted to do was forget.

I was so violently ill during my pregnancy that the first thing I did was ate. And then the months of bleeding came.

I bled for 3 months, heavily. Constant visits to hospital, a blood transfusion and medication so strong I forgot my name and it still wasn't over. I still had tissues from the pregnancy left.

I took more abortion pills and passed the final remains.

I told my friends and flatmate that I had had a misscarriage. I can't cope with the truth.

I remember the whole night in detail. Like I am still there now, and my flashbacks are so bad they are often followed by blackouts.

I took flowers to Harry's grave for a few weeks, but now I buy him fresh lillies every week and have them in my window. With his boots and hat under my bed.

I have lost 2.5 stone and I am struggling to cope. To live day to day. To breath. On medication now that isn't strong enough to hold it all back. I want help but I can't find any.

 

[Lucycat]

YoungAndScared,
seriously well done for sharing that. It cannot have been easy.

I don't know what it is like to lose a baby - and whichever way I look at it, I see it as what you have been through. I cannot imagine the grief and regret you are suffering.

Please try to remember that it was not your fault. You made the decision that you thought was right at the time. I hear that you were coerced into that decision, and that must make it harder to bear.

However, you WILL get better. Of course you will never forget Harry, and I am sure you would not want to. You will find the memories and the horror of that night easier to deal with. The fact that you were unwell afterwards will have just prolonged and extended the difficulties.

I appreciate that you are still waiting for therapy to start, but trust in it. You will feel better, and a therapist will never judge you, just as the people on this forum will not.

Take Care
Lucy x

 

[YoungAndScared]

Thank you Lucy, I've never done anything harder.

It was also the first time I fully acknowledged what happened. I've never fully accepted what happened and I wont for a long time. I have been a month without physical illness and 2 with PTSD. I've been here a day and I already feel so accepted and I've found so much help.

Thank you, so much.

x

 

[KP the nut]

(((YoungandScared)))

You are incredibly brave to write your post. I hope that by acknowledging what happened, by writing it down and sharing you can start and find some peace and healing.

You need to grieve for the loss of your baby, to allow yourself time to grieve and heal. Try and be kind to yourself.

I have been a month without physical illness and 2 with PTSD. I've been here a day and I already feel so accepted and I've found so much help.

I am so pleased you found us.

Take care
KP

 

[YoungAndScared]

I sent it to my parents and boyfriend, I hope by reading what I went through they acknoledge that their reactions did not help.

My father shut down, My mother sent abusive texts and refused to talk to me and my boyfriend became still, and emotionless.

I want them to read it and gather me up in their arms like they did when I was young, and better. I think this will help me.

You have already accomplished in a day, what they haven't in what feels like a life time.

 

[KP the nut]

(((Youngand Scared)))

You are with friends here, you are part of our community. Maybe your family are struggling with their own feelings as well. I hope they gather you in their arms and comfort you. That is what I would do if you were my daughter.

Linking arms and sending cyber hugs
KP

 

[YoungAndScared]

Thank you KP, I imagine you're a wonderful mother.

I crave motherhood, unlike TanTan it is all I think about. I hope when I finally become one I will be like you.

A boy and his father got on my train today and sat next to me, the little boys name was Harry and that would have usually made me weep. But I was fine, smiling at him and playing with him for the journey.

 

[Lucycat]

A boy and his father got on my train today and sat next to me, the little boys name was Harry and that would have usually made me weep. But I was fine, smiling at him and playing with him for the journey.

Brilliant!! That first little step along the journey of recovery - and already you were able to identify it.

 

[YoungAndScared]

My old T (she diagnosed me and moved me to a high intensity T) said that I was the most evolved patient she'd ever dealt with. I understood what I was going through with minimal denile.

She also said she had never met anyone with such complex reprocussions or intense flackbacks that they lose hours of their lives, whilst still concious.

Hopefully doing more things like this will quell those.

 

[Anna]

Hi Tan Tan, that is truly awful what you went through. It happened to me as well when I was very young. What your BF did was wrong. He knew he didn't want children and he did not take responsibility by using a condom. Then he expected you to go through with an abortion. This is terrible. My ex did pretty much the same. I emphasise he is now my ex. To make you go through something so terribly traumatic is horrendous.

You have to think to yourself what has happened. Is he worth this? you sacrificed your child for him. To make him happy. What if something else happens? like illness, would he stand by you?

You deserve someone better than him.

 

[YoungAndScared]

Anna, I don't know if you read down to my post but I think you should.

I was angry at my boyfriend, I was filled with hate and anguish. But when I saw it was affecting him, I lost part of that anger.

I'm still mad I had to endure it but he was there the whole way. He still is. His pain is unbelievable and I have broken up with him and put him through hell since, yet he still wanted to be there for me, even if he couldn't be with me.

We are back together and he takes me to all my hospital visits and brings me lillies each week for our child.

We sacrificed our child for our boyfriends. But our boyfriends wanted us to sacrifice our children for the futures of our relationships.

 

[Anna]

Young and Scared. I also sacrificed for the future of my relationship. I held on another 4 years, but at the end of the day it never made me happy. If people in a relationship have opposing views on starting a family it can cause a lot of conflict. Sometimes it is the man who wants a child but the woman does not want one etc etc... It can be the other way round too. In the end it does not always work. I broke up with my ex and settled down in the end with a lovely man and have a family now. Looking back I wish I had never stayed those 4 years with my ex. It caused me so much pain, but every relationship is different.