Part IV

In case you missed them:
Part I
Part II
Part III

Whew….this is a heart workout!

So…..it came time to wait! For whatever reason (this is something I want to research)….they liked to schedule the procedure between 8 & 12 weeks.

I don’t recall much about this time except that I took a trip to Italy with my high school choir while I was still pregnant. My mother went with us. I got soooo incredibly sick. I attributed it to motion sickness because we did so much traveling that day. I wanted SOOO bad to share with my Mom but I knew if I told anyone I wouldn’t be able to stomach going through with the procedure and would surely ruin my boyfriends life. Ironically, I thought I was being selfless. It was a sad trip for me.

The long anticipated day arrived. It was dreadful. My boyfriend drove me to the clinic and walked me inside. I made him check me in. I immediately sat down in the chair closest to the door….it was as far as I could go at the moment. I brought my knees up to my chest and buried my head.

When he returned to my side he asked, “Are you okay?”

“Are you serious? No I’m not okay.” It was all I could say…..my stomach was churning. I sat there, head buried, tears streaming down my face until they called my name.

I don’t remember anything about the preparation or the procedure. The recovery room I remember vividly. For whatever reason, I remember this more than anything else about the whole situation.

I lay in my bed still groggy from the anesthetic, awoken to girls laughing. It made me want to vomit. I was so repulsed by their flippancy. They were laughing and carrying on and making friends with the girls in the bed next to them. I felt so alone…..so isolated…..like I was the strange one for feeling so bad about what I had done. I just remember being so confused.

I did not grow up in church. I did not come to know the Lord until I was 20 years old. It was not because of my relationship with Christ that I was overcome with guilt.

I think this is very important. There are so many people out there who claim that there is no such thing as Post Abortion Syndrome. They say that it is something made up by the Pro-Life community to scare women. I am here to tell you that they are CRAZY! I knew nothing of what I was actually doing. I had no idea that I was killing a living being or what my choice was costing and yet my heart still screamed with guilt. I believe that God has written the Truth on our hearts.

"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be" (Psalm 139:13-16)

I believe that those who say they have not experienced any remorse or any sort of PAS are lying to themselves or have suppressed those feelings and will one day be confronted with them.

I was sent on my way and so my boyfriend took me to the only place I could recover without questions….his workplace. At that time he was a ranch-hand and the ranch had a bunk house. I stayed curled up there for the remainder of the day. I felt like the world had stopped turning. I felt as though life should come to a halt….that he should be so overwhelmed with grief that he would need the afternoon to recover with me. I was wrong. His day carried on as any other. It was the beginning of a very dark period in my life.

The idea that I would feel so much better after the event had taken place was proving to be so far from reality.