Learning

Ok so here we fucking go. There's no way this is really happening. I'll wake up tomorrow and Greg (not his real name) will be back from vacation and everything will be back to normal. Right?

I called Polly (not her real name). She's the closest friend I have that's basically a doctor. Also, who else could I tell? She asked if she should come over. I love her. No - I'm going to drown in the rest of this bottle of wine and go to sleep. Two hours ago I was sure I was going insane. Driving myself crazy for no reason, right? We've all had this type of scare, right? When your college boyfriend sits nervously outside your apartment bathroom with his face in his hands pretending the same damn thing. This. Isn't. Happening. But, then it's not happening. So, you go to the bar and take a celebratory shot and go back to your regularly scheduled programming. That's not just me. Almost everyone I know has gone through some form of that same story. So, that's what's happening now. This IUD is still in there - the doc will tell me that in the morning. Those stupid drug store test were wrong.


Back to sobbing into this bottle of wine. Maybe this writing will help.

Welcome

When I discovered I was pregnant I began to write. Not because I intended on blogging or publishing, but because I needed an outlet. I knew deep within my heart that there could not possibly be a human on this planet that would understand what I was going through. For that single reason, I confided in myself. Through a Google doc. It became a vault where I could store my feelings away and don my mask for the rest of the world. It worked. For a while.

I recently read an article about a nameless girl in some mid-western state who walked into the woods behind her house and swallowed an entire bottle of sleeping pills. They found her, she lived. She left a note to her family divulging her truth. She wrote about the emptiness she felt while living in a guilt ridden state of loneliness. A secret kept that emptied her body and her life. A secret that almost killed her. At 8 weeks she found out she was pregnant. At 11, she terminated the pregnancy. She never told the father or her family. She was alone.

I wanted to squeeze her. I wanted to look into her face and tell her -- "me, too".

So, here it goes. I'm publishing what I wrote down before and after my abortion. These are the things that no one talks about. The shame and emptiness and guilt and regret. But also the elation and relief and hope. I hope you will find that you are not alone in your journey.