Interview with a Broken Heart: One Woman's Story of Abortion Part 1

My mom had seven miscarriages before she had me and always told me I was her miracle. My sister was born a couple months after I turned three. Up until the summer of first grade my life was great.

That year, while we were vacationing in Iowa, my dad started getting severe headaches and blurred vision. We came back home to Omaha and soon discovered he had a non-cancerous brain tumor right on his brain stem. He went through an eighteen-hour surgery that was only supposed to last nine hours but even then the tumor was unable to be completely removed. He lived for nine more months with a tract in his throat and being fed through his stomach. Once I caught him trying to eat popcorn and smoke in the bathroom. I felt so bad.

On June 3, 1990 my six-year-old sister and I (8 years old) woke up to our grandma's voice. We wondered why she was there so early in the morning. Just as we started walking into the living room we heard the ambulance coming down the street. The paramedics rushed in and went into my parents' bedroom. They cut my dad's shirt off, trying to revive him but it was too late. They let my sister and me each choose a teddy bear they had with them.

My mom tried to stay strong for us and she became my best friend but in 1994 her diabetes started taking over and she became blind. She didn't pity herself but she kept saying how sad she was that she couldn't watch her daughters grow up. I was heartbroken at how selfless she was. On December 15, 1997 I went into my mom's bedroom like I did every morning to say goodbye to her but she didn't respond. In denial, I left to catch the bus for school and hoped that it was just my imagination and that nothing was wrong. In the courtyard before homeroom one of my friends came up to me and told me that my name had been being called over the intercom to go to the office. I was soon taken by police car to the hospital were my mom had been taken. It scared me to see all the machines my mom was hooked up to, but even though she wasn't alert, it seemed like she was getting better and was going to be ok. We wanted to stay at the hospital but my aunt said we had to come with her. The next day when we went to the hospital I was able to hold my mom's hand and talk to her. She actually squeezed my hand! I told my aunt and her response was "sometimes people do that when they are dying...their muscles twitch." I knew that she hated my mom and they never got along but I couldn't believe what I had just heard. For some reason I didn't cry and she made sure to point this out every chance she got. My mom died that night from a supposed heart attack but since my aunt who was the next of kin didn't request an autopsy. I will never really know.

Two years of living in an abusive situation with my aunt's family. My best friend Jon had been with me through everything with my mom and at age 18 I became emancipated and moved in with him. Soon we went our separate ways to college. I came back home after one semester, visited him over his spring break, and moved in with him in Iowa City.

Jon and I were romantically/sexually involved but we had not become boyfriend and girlfriend. When I found out I was pregnant I had been sexual with three guys, however there was no way possible that my boyfriend at the time, Steve, was the father. After having the ultrasound it was confirmed that the only person possible of being the father was Jon. Circumstances as they were, such as having no mother to talk to, not knowing how my grandma would react, having chronic depression, and the belief that I wasn't going to suddenly leave my current relationship and that Jon wasn't going to leave his, I went to planned parenthood alone.

On January 9, 2003 at the age of 21 and began my medical abortion. I was not informed of anything except I was just getting rid of a little ball of tissues. When they told me they had to poke my finger I almost turned around and left because I hate pain but they soon convinced me it was no big deal. The whole catastrophe was painful, both physically and emotionally but I got through it. While I was going through it, Jon came over and brought me this big white stuffed bear. After he left I started to pass my baby. Like so many others I had no idea that I wasn't passing a little ball of tissue, instead a seven-week fetus.

I guess it all comes down to guilt. I never knew how my mom felt about abortions. Just the fact that she tried so hard to have me and then when I got the chance to have a baby without even trying to, I just simply gave it up.

My sister just recently had a baby at 22 and it so far proving that having a baby at that age can be done. Seeing her makes it hard and makes me think, that could have been me.

Age 25