Your family history points out a sad truth. I am sure some girls had abortions on the side to keep from getting a savage beating at the hands of their parents. The conservatives ,awash in hipocracy, believe in overbearing control and ignorance for their children. There will be children raised with no information on birth control. They will make sure schools cant give info out ,or teach it. Then wonder what happens when they get a little space.
I lived with a girl who was adopted. Both her and her brother were. Their parents never told them. They adopted them and abused them both. She lived in fear until she was 20. Its not all hearts and flowers like antiabortion people think.
No, Bryan’s got it right.
Well, actually, the statistic is probably an approximation of the rate of women who will have one or more abortions over their lifetimes, so if your office has women who are in their twenties, they may not (yet, if ever) have been put in that position.
Even so, the odds are only about 17.55% that exactly 5 out of 20 women (with a rate for the entire population of 25%) will have abortions. This is from a branch of statistics called the Poisson Distribution. Although it’s the single most likely result (well, it’s tied for first), it’s at best an approximation.
Trivial digression. It’s not important.
Mine does too. You deserve a lot more and I am humbled with admiration that you’ve turned into such a progressive, bright young woman despite your less-than-ideal upbringing. You’re lovely, Anaamika.
My sister, living in the Bible Belt and surounded with conservative people, told of returning from an overnight workshop with some other mothers. In the return trip, they were talking about various things, and one lady confessed that she had once had an abortion. Then, another confessed, and another, it it winds up that all eight of them had. These are all middle class, mostly (if not all) church goers, and yet this is something that (1) they had all experienced, and (2) something they felt ashamed about and were completely blown away that others also had had the same experience.
Obviously something is wrong here.
I had a similar experience regarding “being an 18yo virgin”.
To me, it all ties up into “for something so central to our life, we sure treat information about sex real bad!”
Your adoptive parents sound truly terrible, I’m impressed that you have turned out so well.
Incidentally I think you would make a very good parent, not that it is a reason to become one.
A long time ago my long term g/f got pregnant, she was 36 and had told me that she ‘was not very fertile’ - which must have been true as she was not exactly a nun, and I don’t mean that derogatively.
Abortion was a no brainer, and I don’t think that either of us regretted it, although I’ve occasionally wondered … but not with regrets. The biggest by product was that she became paranoid about contraception.
Anaamika, this is a wonderful thread. I’m so glad you started it and so glad for the interesting, thoughtful questions and responses you’ve gotten.
Inspired by your spirit, I’ll share my experiences briefly. I had an abortion 15 years ago in my late 20s. I was married at the time, and my husband or I were about 90% sure we didn’t want children, but not sure enough to do something surgically decisive. Unfortunately, we got sloppy with the birth control (I had had so many “near misses” over my years of being sexually active that I’d begun to think I wasn’t very fertile, so I stopped being so careful. Big mistake.)
My husband and I both had no qualms about choosing abortion, which made things easier. The part that was toughest for me, though, was that I found out I was pregnant perhaps two weeks after conception (missed a period, had unusual physical symptoms, such as sore nipples, and thus took a home pregnancy test). I had no doctor at the time, so I looked up “reproductive services” in the yellow pages, found a private clinic a few suburbs away, and gave them a call. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t perform an abortion until someone was at least eight weeks pregnant. So I had to spend the next six weeks knowing I was pregnant, feeling nauseous every day, not saying a thing to anyone about while I felt awful, and waiting until I could get the procedure done. Talk about a waiting period! It was one of the tougher times of my life. If anything, it strengthened my resolve to get the abortion.
I was offered a choice of local or general anesthesia for the abortion. Not having any medical experience (I was raised a Christian Scientist), I opted for local because it sounded less drastic and cost a bit less. As it turns out, I was the only one of the eight or so women getting abortions that day who didn’t get general anesthesia. They all went ahead of me, while I sat in the waiting room for a few hours. I think the staff kind of forgot about me, because eventually the doctor can into the waiting room, saw we there, and said something like “oh, there’s another one.”
I wish in retrospect that I had gotten full anesthesia because the local didn’t do it. When they stuck in whatever it was to instantly dilate my cervix, it hurt like hell (like my worst menstrual cramp tripled). I don’t recall feeling much else, though. It was over pretty soon, and then I was in the recovery room, eating crackers, drinking gingerale, and throwing up. My husband must have been in the waiting room too, because he went with me and was there to take me home, but for some reason he’s not part of my memories of that experience.
Things were tough for a few weeks afterward, in that I had to swallow these big antibiotic pills that the clinic gave me to prevent infection. (First pills I’d ever taken in my life.) Then, the following week, we went on our annual vacation to the lakeside cottage with my in-laws and I couldn’t go swimming, nor did I feel I could explain why. I’m sure they were confused (I love the lake), and it all felt very awkward.
I haven’t hard any psychological scars that I’m aware of. Every so often, I calculate how old that baby might be now with a kind of awe. But I still don’t ever want children, so I don’t regret what I did. (By my thinking, for a stably married woman with no children to have carried a child to term and then given it away would have been far more traumatic and socially unacceptable for my family and me than an abortion was.) Still, it does bother me that this one thing is something I feel I can never tell my mother, with whom I have an otherwise close relationship.
Finally, I can echo the experiences of people who’ve learned that many women around them have had abortions. So far in my life, I’ve mentioned my abortion to five female friends (generally during “girl-getaway” type weekends when we’re relaxing late in the evening over drinks and the topics turns to deep, dark secrets). Turns out, all five had an abortion too at some point in their lives. That surprised me a ton. It’s all over the place, but hardly ever talked about.
Sorry this is such a long post. But writing about it openly has been a useful experience for me. So thanks for listening. And thanks again, Anaamika, for the forum.
Owlett, you had to wait six weeks? 15 years ago? What the hell…I mean mine was already 11 years ago so the time frame wasn’t that different. I can’t imagine having to wait six weeks, with all the accompanying problems that pregnancy brings, just because someone said so. I am so sorry to hear that.
I also knew almost instantly that I was pregnant. Within two weeks anyway. Forget the missed period, although of course that was the biggest sign, I just knew and I never have had that feeling again. Physically my breasts were sore, and mentally I felt…different somehow.
Again, thank you all for participating in my little thread, and sharing your stories, and for your kind words.
I have occasionally wondered about the child that never was, too - I mean, it’d be 10 years old now. I’d have a 10 YO child! And considering where I am in life and especially the fact that I am *quite * decided now not to ever have children, I know more than ever that I made the right decision.