"Although we know it was the right decision doesn't take away the guilt and grief about it."

This story was submitted to us.

I was 35 when I had my second abortion. I was in a long term stable relationship with my husband and we had just welcomed our daughter only 12 months before. I had undergone my first abortion at 31 after falling pregnant very unexpectedly - although the decision for that first one was very hard we both knew it was the right one for us at the time and it is actually what led us to deciding we would want to have children in the future.

Once our daughter arrived we had spoken about perhaps having just one more down the track and were shocked but happy when we fell pregnant just before her first birthday. The age gap was a bit closer than ideal but we felt lucky to be pregnant at all after having some trouble conceiving our daughter.

When we went for our first scan we were completely shocked when we saw not one but two on the screen. I felt instant dread because I knew how difficult having 3 children under the age of 2 would be and having 3 kids was never something either of us had wanted. We had a great relationship but didn't have any help from extended family/friends and my husband worked 6 days a week so it was really hard even just having our daughter in her first year.

We took a week to really think about what the reality would be for all of us financially, emotionally, mentally and physically. We really tried to imagine our lives with three children so close in age but it was not something either of us could envision without struggling in almost every way and impacting our daughter’s life in a negative way. Ultimately we decided we could not continue with the pregnancy. It was a very regretful decision as given there was just one we would have been welcoming a new baby into our family but because there were two we ended up with none. It felt like double the loss even though it was our decision.

I'm still in shock that it all happened as twins did not run in our family and we hadn't even known anyone who had any. Although we know it was the right decision doesn't take away the guilt and grief about it. I still hope one day that I will be able to give my daughter just one more sibling but we will have to see what the universe decides about that.