2020 Story
“I'd had no idea that almost all of the women in my friendship circle had abortions as young adults. They spent hours and many tears telling me about their physical, emotional, and financial experiences of abortion. ”
I got pregnant in 2020 one week into lockdown. When I missed my first period, I assumed it was because of my severe anxiety over a global pandemic. I took a home pregnancy test and it came back negative. When I missed my second period, I went into a clinic and had a blood test done. They asked me if I wanted to come in for an ultrasound and I just started sobbing. At that point I was 9 weeks pregnant, so I had 3 weeks to decide whether or not to have an abortion.
When I started asking women around me for help making my decision, their abortion stories started coming out of the woodwork. I'd had no idea that almost all of the women in my friendship circle had abortions as young adults. They spent hours and many tears telling me about their physical, emotional, and financial experiences of abortion.
At the time, I was three years into being self-employed as a small-scale farmer. I was working 60-80 hour work-weeks to keep my small business afloat. I had spent all my savings on the business; it was my best shot at earning a living wage with my skillset. I knew that if I had a baby my business would be over. I had only two dreams for my life--own a small farm, and have children when I was ready. I realized that if I kept my pregnancy I would be giving up on both dreams.
I had a surgical abortion at 11 weeks at Planned Parenthood in Spokane. The last thing I remember before my abortion was the nurse gently wiping my tears away with a kleenex as I went under anesthesia. The first thing I remember after my abortion was a full-body sense of both loss and relief. My primary emotion about my abortion now is profound gratitude that I was able to make that choice for myself. To this day, I speak as openly and honestly about my abortion as I can in my community. I want women to know how many of us have had abortions; I want women who are questioning whether or not to keep their pregnancy to have me as a resource to help them decide, just like I leaned on the women in my life for my decision.
Since 2020, my business has doubled in sales every year for the last 4 years. Financially, I'm finally at the point where my partner and I feel stable enough to have kids. There is no way we would have been able to afford to live in rural Idaho and pursue our dreams here if I had kept my pregnancy. Because I chose not to have that baby, I can now choose to have a baby and contribute to the small Idahoan community I wanted to raise a baby in.