This story was published at Project Voice, which is no longer accessible on-line.
This story is for the twin babies I chose to abort three weeks ago. I pray they are up in heaven right now, surrounded by my love and my boyfriend's love and god's love for them. I am writing this for every woman alive. I am writing this for me.
I have not been the same since March 31st, 2007. I do not think I will ever be the same woman who walked into an abortion clinic on a rainy Saturday morning. I cannot take it back, nor can I take back what happened in the very first month after I got pregnant, long before I knew the truth.
I am 30 years old. I have two beautiful children who have shown me the purest meaning of love. I would give my own life for my kids. And yet, I decided to take away the lives of not one, but two children that were growing inside my body. And this is why.
I am a recovering drug addict. I abused heroin and cocaine off and on since I was 20 years old. I was never down and out-- I graduated college, I have had great jobs, I even had a family, and I had the chance to be a stay at home mom for two years. But, I have spent the majority of life in horrendous pain and suffering because of the awful choices I made throughout my addiction. I had been clean from drugs for almost three years when I abused cocaine in November 2006. When I relapsed and used cocaine for six days in November, I was two weeks pregnant.
I had no idea how far along I was since I had periods. Four weeks earlier, I was driving my car and just began to gush blood and tiny clots. It lasted for 2-4 hours like that. [My boyfriend and I] decided that we had to terminate the pregnancy for several reasons, though we both wanted to keep them so very badly.
In the week before my appointment at the clinic, I all of a sudden had a VERY pronounced bump. I was horribly embarrassed walking into the clinic. I told them about the bleeding the month before, so we assumed I was four weeks. The doctor did an ultrasound. I was 18 weeks pregnant.
I had used drugs after we conceived, in the very critical first stages of the first trimester. And when he looked at the screen, he said, "Oh, there's not one, but two." I can say with all truth that I wanted to die at that moment. I could not believe that I was pregnant with two precious babies and had ingested poison, pretty much. I threw up all over myself. I knew right there, that we could not take the risk of possibly having two babies that could be seriously unhealthy because of my selfish choice to use drugs.
We went home and lay in bed and held each other and cried. He went through a period of anger with me and blamed me for us not being able to keep him. I hated myself, blamed myself too, I wanted to die. My boyfriend came around and showered me with a ton of love and forgiveness. We could not have kept them anyway, we are struggling to stay afloat with my two kids as it is. The timing was so unfair.