This story was submitted to us.

Just because you didn’t become a mother then, now, or ever, doesn’t mean you don’t have a mother’s heart.

Sometimes loving a baby means choosing not to bring it into chaos; protecting them. Doing what is best for them. Keeping them away from potential heartache, confusion, and unnecessary struggle.

I’ve had three abortions. Two in my twenties and one in my late thirties. I never planned on having a third ever, but there I was. In grad school, not married, with a partner who didn’t want to be a dad.

What was the most loving choice? To force him into fatherhood? To understand that my infant would have to be in childcare from the start because I was the only one with reliable income? To go off my medication for depression — possibly stemming from my last abortions and alcoholism?

The pro and con list showed me plain as day what was right, not only for me, but for the child’s potential life.

I made the decision each time, but especially the third time, out of complete willingness to do what was best for the baby and also for myself.

I’m not terribly relieved. I can’t even tell you it gets better. It still haunts me, daily, the sadness and regret, but the lists were so terribly unequalized. It was the right choice even though it wasn’t the easy choice.

I always thought I would be a mother, but it didn’t turn out for me like that. Instead I work with disabled children and their families; and that is I think what I was always meant to do.

My own motherhood is my sacrifice for the families that need caring, loving, knowable professionals on their side as they navigate each bumpy, unpredictable year.

This website helps me see that I’m not alone. Being a woman is difficult in many regards, but this choice, to abort . . . that is distinctly ours to make. It’s one of special weight and gravity. Only you can decide.

I believe that I gave each of those souls back to the creative, loving power in the universe. They would be better off there . . . protected and cared for in the best way — not stuck on earth here in circumstances that might be damaging indefinitely.

So I just hope that this little entry can help any reader know that you are ok . . . you are. I’m helped to know I’m not the only one . . . and neither are you.

~ Keri