Life Stories

Abortion at 17

By: Tracey H.


I had found out that I was pregnant my junior year of high school on April 24,2010 and I was scared all I could do was cry and that same night me and my boyfriend was going out on a date. I told him that we needed to talk about something, so we pulled into a parking lot and sat in his truck. It seemed like hours passes before I told him that I was pregnant, and he knew I was scared because all I could do was cry. The only thing that he could say was “It will be ok.” After I calmed down we decided to wait till a later date to tell our families just to be on the safe side. Every day he would ask me did you do another pregnancy test, I must have taken about eight of them before I told him “I am pregnant and I am sure of it, there is no point in taking more pregnancy tests. We need to tell our families soon because I don’t think that I can keep this from my much longer. They are going to know something is wrong because I am trying to stay away from them as much as possible.” Then from there, me and my boyfriend agreed to tell our families that Monday which was May 3, 2010 the day before my sisters 20th birthday. When I go up I took one last pregnancy test and I went to my sister’s room to show her. She couldn’t say anything except “O MY GOD.” Then she continued on saying a few minutes later “when are you going to tell mom and dad?” that’s when I told her that me and CJ (my boyfriend at the time) agreed to tell our families today. My sister went into a panic and said “NO! Don’t tell them today you will ruin my birthday tomorrow.” That’s when I had left and when into my parents bathroom were my mom was getting dressed and I showed her the pregnancy test. The only thing she said was “what is this? GO SHOW YOUR DAD NOW!!” and as I left I could hear my mom start to cry. So I walked into the living room and turned on the lights to wake my dad up because he fell asleep watching TV the night before. So when I showed my dad he didn’t say anything the entire time except “Go get dressed for school” and my mom walked into the living room with red eyes saying “I will make her an appointment at the OBGYN for today.” So I went back to my room and got dressed and before I left to go to school I asked my sister to tell me anything that they said after I leave and she agreed. I met my boyfriend at the school and told him what happened, for some reason we both had a bad felling about something but we didn’t know what it was. I was in my 2nd block class when I was called out for an early dismissal and I was scared so bad that I was crying while I was driving home. When I got home I walked inside and put all my things in my room and walked into the living room were my dad was. The first thing he said is “You’re getting an abortion, and that’s that!” I kept arguing and throwing a fit but my dad didn’t care. So after an hour of arguing and telling my dad what I wanted he told me “shut up and go to your room!” so I went to my room and started crying even more and I called CJ to tell him what my dad said, but the only thing CJ could say was “Did you tell him that we would wanted to give the baby up for adoption?” and before I could answer him he had to go back to class because his lunch was over. I went to my OBGYN and he told me that I was about 4-5 weeks after that I paid my co-payment and left. I was overwhelmed and I was happy to see my baby, but my dad was not and neither was my mother. On the way out of the building I told my mom what my dad had said and she didn’t like the idea either. When she confronted my dad later that night, he told her that according to my gastrointestinal doctor my remicade treatment causes major birth defects on unborn babies. My mom then called the number that my dad had gotten from the OBGYN to an abortion clinic in Charlotte, North Carolina while I was in my room on the phone with CJ to update him on what was happening. My mom came in my room and told me May 22nd and walked out. An hour later my dad walked in and said it costs $300 and you and your boyfriend are going to pay for it yourself. I told him that neither of us wants this done so why should we have to pay to get this baby taken away from us. That’s when my dad said “fine I will pay for it but you are going to pay me back,” and then he walked out my room. Well I told my teacher Mr. Cooper who was like a dad to me and a police officer for the county that I live in, and he told me that my dad had no right and told me that if I needed anything including a place to stay that he was there for me. The only reason he said that was because my dad threatened me by saying that if I don’t go through with the abortion that he was going to take everything the is in my name and put it in his, then kick me out the house, and I didn’t have a job or anything at the time because he refused to let me and my sister have a job while in high school/college. Anyway, days had passed and on that morning of May 22nd, I didn’t want to get up because I knew that the one that that mattered to me was facing its death today. When me and my mom was going up to the clinic I didn’t say anything to her I just stared out the window of the car and tried not to cry. When we got to the clinic there was a man standing outside at the entrance on the road and I was so scared that I was going to hell. My mom said “just ignore the stupid man; he is only there to scare you.” Well I am not sure if she realized but I already was scared. We walked in and my mom signed me in, when I looked around there was a lot of women in the building. I was told to go sit down till my name was called; I had overheard one of the girls saying that this was not their first abortion. All I could think about was how you could be proud of this, its murder and you don’t need to brag about it. About two hours later a woman called my name and took me into a room and said to piss in a cup so I did, and then she led me into another room and said to take off all of your clothes including your panties and gave me a room number to go sit in. There were about six other girls in the room already, each of them having their own reasons for being there. All the women in the room could tell I didn’t want to be there because I wasn’t talking or answering them and I never looked at them directly. A woman that worked there at the clinic, came in at different times to make us take pills that made us dizzy and to dilate our cervix. Then we were escorted one by one into a room where we were told to lay on the table edge of the table and put our feet on this piece of metal. The woman that was standing beside me was telling me what the Dr. was doing and she saw that I was crying but didn’t care or say anything, she just ignored me. I remember being in so much pain and felling the tube go in my cervix along with the sound of a vacuum cleaner. After that I was led into a room were the other women were sitting and most of them were crying, I was told to sit in a chair and they put crackers and drink on the table beside me. I never talked to my parents again for months after and my sister had told my cousin what happened and then she told everyone in the family. During a family cookout my cousin had asked me if it was true or not and I lied and told her that “Who ever told you that is just trying to mess with you.” I knew that she knew the truth because she could see it in my eyes, later that night at the cookout she pulled me to the side of the house and told me that she knew and I didn’t need to lie to her. So I told her everything that had happened, that day at the cookout I had never had so many dirty looks at one time. A few days later my mom called my doctor and he put me on Zoloft for depression because my mom said that I was becoming distant and I didn’t care what happened to me. Which she was right I was on my way to destroying my life, after my abortion I had pushed away my family, friends, and even CJ. But my boyfriend would never let me push him away, causing me to start many fights with him about how he never tried to stand up for his baby, ect, ect. I had also started to cut myself every time I stated to think how things would be right now if I didn’t have the abortion. At one point the depression had gotten so bad (even with me taking Zoloft) that I had tried to overdose on some pain killers. That is when I had realized that I needed to find help but I didn’t know where to start looking and I was scared that if I told my parents that I wanted help that they would laugh at me and tell me to grow up and get over it. I decided to do some research on remicade treatments I take for my Ulcerative Colitis, to find out my dad lied to everyone about the treatments causing birth defects, making me very upset. That night I had tried to overdose on Ibuprofen and Tylenol hoping that God would realize that I couldn’t handle the life that I have anymore, I was sick of being lied to just for other peoples benefit. I did research on the treatments when I first found out I was pregnant but nothing on the topic came up on the computer and I felt like an idiot because I should have called my gastrointestinal doctor and talked to him about the effects of remicade treatments. After weeks of searching the internet I had found a place called Rachel’s Venured and so I e-mailed the web-site and found out that there was a retreat coming up soon in Greenville, South Carolina. I thought about it hard and I just couldn’t come around to asking my mother about going, and I was scared that if I did ask my mom and she agreed that the people there would push religion on me. A few weeks later my senior year of high school had just started and I had missed the first week because I had gotten put in the hospital because I had a flare-up from my Ulcerative Colitis. The entire week I was in the hospital all I could think about was, how I miss my baby and how it was the only thing that was important. Every day I would wish that something would happen to me, so I would be there with my baby. When I got out and went back to school, I couldn’t be around my friends that were pregnant or have a baby of their own because it just broke my heart knowing that I will never get to see my baby until I die and even then I probably won’t because I will be in hell. While in English 4 all students has to do a senior project, which consist of: research, job shadowing, and community service. The project is about what career that you want to go into after you graduate high school, and I choose to be a firefighter. I went and talked to the Captain of Lugoff Fire Department about my Job shadowing and she recruited me as one of the now eight explorers. I was so happy that I was on the track of becoming a future female firefighter; every time I was there at the station everyone treated me like I was a part of their family. I could talk to the people there about anything and feel comfortable about it. I had become extremely close to one of the members (Ben) of the fire department because he was in the same age group as my brother and my sister. Me and Ben would/could talk about anything including his divorce, religion, my boyfriend, his son, cars, ect. The only thing that I couldn’t bring myself to talk about was my abortion and how much I regret having it, in fear that Ben would look down on me or say something that would upset me even thought Ben is a nice guy who does like to help people with anything. Me and my boyfriend CJ stated to spend less time together and started to spend more time arguing with each other. Finally I had enough of the arguing and so I just told him that I needed a break from our relationship and if he didn’t know why then he was an idiot because we have been arguing about it for the past four and a half to five months. To this day I can’t even stand looking at him because it reminds me of that day in May. I wish I could get over the fact that I had no control of what my parents forced me to do. I know that it will never happen but I do wish for forgiveness from God, and I wish I knew how to cope with my abortion. I don’t feel comfortable talking about my abortion with anyone not my parents, my sister, or even CJ. I know that CJ has realized over the months that I still can’t get over what happened and that I do blame him, because he was the man of the relationship. Even thought I fought for my baby’s life every day and yet CJ had only tried to fight for the baby only once, to me he didn’t even care what happened to the baby, and to this day he still acts like he doesn’t care. Me and CJ are now trying to work things out and might be moving in together around January, but before we do move in I need to find help and not deny the fact that me and CJ will always be fighting and will never get along until I find forgiveness. The only thing that is keeping me going and not going back to the path of destruction right now is the fact that I know that my baby is in a better place with God and with family that loves him/her and I will hopefully get to see my baby again someday. But sometimes I still have flashbacks and nightmares about my abortion and there are times that I will wake from a dead sleep yelling and crying out the name Noah, and I am not sure why. I guess even when you try to make yourself forget about something that destroyed your life, you truly cannot because it is always in your memories and you will never forget about it



I had written this back in December of 2010. Since then things have changed, me and CJ are no longer togater, we broke up in early January . CJ is now in the Army, has a new girlfriend, and from what i have heard from one of his brothers whom is my sister's boyfriend: he has forgotten all about the abortion. As for me I have upgraded from an explorer firefighter to a volunteer firefighter, me and Ben are now dating, I am in college majoring in Criminal Justice, and still looking for a job, and still trying to cope with the abortion, I still have nightmares about abortion and at times I see the same baby in my dreams over and over again. The rumors that have been spread through out my family are still spreading about me getting an abortion and when I am confronted I still lie and tell them its not true and it never happened, but I dont know how much longer I can keep it up, and I do talk to my baby almost everyday still and those days when I dont then that night is usually when the dreams of abortion that wake me from my sleep happen...I do want kids eventually and me an Ben have talked about it and we both agree if it happens then it happens but I did tell him to wait till I am 19 befor we are certin we want to try. After Graduation me and CJ no longer talk or keep in touch with eachother...As for me and Ben we have talked about me moving in with him as soon as I find a stable job...I have looked into going to one of those retreats for people that had an abortion but to me they seem like a weekend of bible study and since I am not a strong christian I am scared to find out what goes on thier that they dont tell you about, and I also dont know how my parents would react if i told them I wanted to go since I do still live with them for the time being.