This story is published at Shout Your Abortion.

I ran a marathon three weeks after the first one. My mom still has the picture of me at the finish line, looking back at the camera with tears in my eyes.  There was a lot of pain radiating out from the center of me, but I felt powerful, restless–accomplished.

The second one was after getting back from almost a year of off-again, on-again traveling through South America. I was alone for this one–making choices in a snowy January in my parents’ downstairs bathroom that seemed way beyond my years.

That one haunts me more. They asked if I wanted to know if the ultrasound showed twins.

To this day I still believe that it was two.

Both times were from the same man. Both times were surgical–I still remember the tropical beach scenes on the ceiling.

Slowly, I have come to a place inside my own heart where I have forgiven myself and the circumstances that surrounded my choices.

The man who gifted me these decisions was abusive and manipulative, and there is a 99% guarantee that I currently would be across the Rainbow Bridge if I had chosen to bring those lives into the world.

It becomes less painful every minute, every day, month, year — knowing that the love that was created in my womb is now back in the Universe, cycling through the trees, the air–and hopefully–the stars.