2 ½ years ago, in April 2018, I had an abortion. At that time, I was in my early 20s, in the middle of my studies, and I just couldn’t imagine having a child right now. My decision was made pretty quickly: I wanted to stop my pregnancy.
So, I first did some research on the internet. The first thing I found on the internet was a video of a uterus in which an embryo was torn into small pieces by medical interventions. The baby was displayed in the 20th week of pregnancy. In the video, first the head was torn off, then the remaining limbs.
I could not find any information about who performs such abortions and where they take place. When I called my gynaecologist, the receptionist told me that they have no appointments for the next three weeks.
Completely taken by surprise and emotionally unstable, I turned to a friend who gave me the advice to go to profamilia. I made an appointment with profamilia immediately, I didn’t want to wait any longer. On the phone I was that I could have a consultation meeting with a male person this week. If I wanted to speak with a female counsellor, I would have to wait until the following week.. I didn’t want to wait, so I decided to have a talk with the male person. My gut feeling was not quite convinced, but I was sure that this person was trained for such talks.
On the day of the counselling, I was particularly nervos and emotional. I went to the appointment alone. The man who was about to advise me accompanied me to the consultation room. As soon as he closed the door, I burst into tears. But the counsellor hardly responded to my crying. He said he would introduce himself first, then I would have a little time to calm down. It turned out that he helped out and was a couple therapist by profession. It was hard for me to calm down, but he asked me to tell him what had happened. Sobbing, I tried to tell him.
Immediately after my report, he explained to me the possibilities there were for an abortion. As I did not want to take hormones, the only option was surgery. The counsellor told me that many women would survive the operation well without anaesthetic. It would hurt, some women had reported, but (and he was examining my body) I was certainly not that sensitive, was I?
At the time I thought that I was strong enough to handle the pain. I didn’t know yet that it had nothing to do with being strong. Looking back, I would have preferred to have made a different decision.
My abortion counselling didn’t feel really helpful. I would have liked more emotional support and empathy.
Two weeks later was the date for the actual procedure. After a short talk with the doctor, I was taken by a nurse to a room with half a dozen beds, with women* lying in them, who were either having an abortion behind or in front of them. My boyfriend had to wait outside, but was allowed to be present at the operation at my request. Just before it was my turn, a young woman* came back from the operating theatre and passed out. A nurse took care of her. The mood was depressed.
Then it was my turn. The doctor showed me the embryo’s amniotic sac through the ultrasound machine. The nurse held my hand. The operation was terribly painful, I cried and I could not stop crying even after the operation. They had forgotten to bring my friend in during the operation. I stayed in the room with all the other women* for another half hour before I could finally get out and into the arms of my friend.
I recovered quickly. But 2 weeks later my gynaecologist called me and said I had to go to the hospital today. As my pregnancy hormone had not dropped even after 2 weeks, I had to have another operation to remove tissue that had not been sufficiently removed during the first operation. At the hospital, they wanted to send me away right away at the reception, we were supposed to come back on a weekday. Only after some back and forth was a doctor called in, who urgently recommended that I have an operation the following day with an anaesthetic so that I would not have to go through the pain again. In any case, she would only perform abortions under anaesthetic because the pain was simply too great. Today I am glad that I decided to have the anaesthetic, because everything went well.
It was only months after the procedure that I started talking to individual friends* and selected family members about what I had experienced. To slowly feel my way, who reacts how? Fortunately, I only had good experiences – but I also weighed up how the person might react and only told them if I thought they would handle it well.
And despite all the good experiences, I am still afraid of being stigmatised by people and, therefore, often keep this story to myself, even though I would like to share it.
To all those who are about to have an abortion: I wish you empathetic, informative and feel good counselling. I hope that the counselling centre will continue to support you after the operation or at least refer you to supporting institutions and that you have a safe environment.
I would like us all to have better access to information about abortions and for each of us to have freely available information about all doctors who perform abortions.
Our bodies belong to us!
