This is an anonymous guest blog submission.

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My husband and I are 7 cycles in to TTC.  I wouldn’t quite say that we’re struggling, as I’m not sure yet that we have fertility issues, but I definitely did not think it would take this long.  I didn’t think it would take this long because I’ve been pregnant before, and I got pregnant after one month off birth control.

5 years ago, I had an abortion.  I was with my now-husband, but at the time we been dating for about a year and had just moved in together.  We lived in a tiny, one-bedroom apartment.  We were living paycheck to paycheck, often struggling to make rent.  I had gone off birth control for no reason other than my own irresponsibility – I had forgotten to get my prescription refilled and by the time I remembered, I was a week into my cycle and decided I’d just wait until after my next period to start the new pack.  I figured it was no big deal.  I’d been on birth control for 8 years at that point, and had always heard it take a few months for the birth control to clear your system.

I realized I was about a week late one day on jury duty.  After confirming with a pregnancy test, I told my boyfriend.  We were both completely terrified.  We talked about it and talked about it, and cried about it and talked about it for what felt like centuries.  We finally both came to the conclusion that having a baby just wasn’t the right thing for us.  But more importantly, it wasn’t the right thing for the baby.  We wanted to be able to give a child more than what we could at that time.  So, together, we decided to have an abortion.

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It was not a decision we made lightly.  We weighed pros and cons, we listened to our hearts, and I think we probably both prayed on it a bit, even though neither one of us is very religious.  It may not have been right for all couples, but it was right for us.  I have never regretted that decision, nor has my husband.  I’m not ashamed of it, but I’m not proud of it, either.  It just is.

As a couple who has now been married for 18 months and has spent the past 7 months TTC, I still don’t regret that decision we made.  What I do sometimes struggle with is that the thought of “What if that was it for me?  What if that was my one and only chance to be pregnant?”

Sometimes I think that I was foolish to squander my chance.  But then I remember that it wasn’t a foolhardy decision.  It was a well thought out, deeply personal, difficult decision.  Sometimes I think about what I’ll do if we really do have fertility issues.  Should I go through all the fertility treatments, knowing that I could get pregnant at one time?  The answer is, I really don’t know.  I see some of these women – these amazing women that I’m commiserating with on a daily basis – who’ve struggled for months, if not years to get pregnant, and sometimes I do feel a little bit guilty.  I feel a little twinge of it there in the pit of my stomach.  I feel like I don’t have a right to complain about taking 7+ months to get pregnant.

The other thing about this is that I kind of remember what that first pregnancy was like (as short as it was).  I had absolutely no signs of pregnancy until I realized I was late for my period.  No nausea, no sore boobs, nothing.  It wasn’t until after I’d missed my period that I started feeling those things.  So now that I’m waiting through two-week wait after two-week wait, over-analyzing every little thing that looks or feels different, I keep reminding myself of that.  I was a week late when I realized it.  Later that week, my boobs got sore.  The following week, after our initial appointment at the clinic, I had some evening nausea.  That was it, though.  I remember thinking to myself at the time, “If this is the worst it gets, I’m ok with that.”  But it’s hard, sometimes, because I want to say, “With my first pregnancy…” but I can’t, because it’s not something I’ve openly discussed with too many people.  Not out of shame, just out of respect for my relationship.

I don’t write this with the intent to spark a debate about abortion.  Whatever your feelings are on that topic, I respect that.  I write this because so many people, when talking about abortion, assume that a woman will live to regret it.  5 years out and now ready and waiting to have a baby, I can honestly tell you that I do not regret it.  I have never looked back and wondered if I made the right decision.  I have never sat around and thought “I wonder what our life would be like now if we’d had that baby.”  I don’t wonder what the baby would be like now.  It’s not worth it to me.  What I wonder is what our future children will be like.  An what our lives will be like 5 years from now, now that we’re ready to bring a baby into the world.