When my second baby boy James turned 6 years old a couple of weeks ago, in a social media post, I wrote about the difficulties I had conceiving and carrying him. I also wrote that he was my fifth pregnancy. He wasn’t. He was my sixth. You see, the first time I ever found myself pregnant was when I was 23 years old, before the pregnancy I lost prior to my first boy, Georgie, and after the two miscarriages I had before James. That first pregnancy ended with an abortion.
I have these moments, kind of like flashbacks of what happened during those days. But throughout the years I have had a tendency to just put them away. The sheer shame and guilt I felt haunted me for many years, especially during my first miscarriage when I was 28 and made a conscious decision to have a baby with my partner. Perhaps that abortion I had five years ago is the reason I lost this baby, I would say to him, tears streaming down my face.
I remember the moment I saw those two lines on the pregnancy test. It was one of the scariest moments of my life. I remember feeling as though the ground beneath me had just disappeared. After the initial shock, I fell to my knees sobbing, completely unable to control my body. How could this happen? How could I allow this to happen? What the fuck am I supposed to do now? Even through the disappointment and fear and the literal and physical shakes I was experiencing, I knew what I had to do. I was in a loving one year relationship with a man – the father of all three of my children and my partner in life – but we, I, him, didn’t want this. Now was not the time because we simply weren’t ready. We had plans to travel, to explore, to make love, to grow together, to experience life on our own terms. I could feel, in every bone of my body that this pregnancy was NOT what I wanted. And the reason all those thoughts were swirling in my mind is because I knew I had a choice and I knew I had access to that choice. There was a road I could take that would save my life, my relationship, the life I wanted to create WHEN I wanted to create it.
My man had a best friend who had recently had an abortion. We called her and asked for the name and number of the doctor. I grilled her about her experience. At that time I didn’t even have a gynaecologist, there was no medical person I trusted or knew to help me make sense of my decision. We booked an appointment and scraped together the money we needed. I barely slept that night because even though I knew I didn’t want to be a mother at that time and there was always the sense of security in knowing there was a safe way out of this situation, my thoughts were racing, doubt reared its ugly head a few times and guilt doused me in cold sweat. I now notice how I was forcing myself to imagine life with a child, conjuring up images of Hollywood movies and idyllic visuals, willing it to make sense in that moment. As lovely as they were, it just didn’t seem right. It didn’t make sense.
I don’t remember the month of my abortion nor do I have any memories of the doctor’s face. But I remember the late evening appointment we went to, the little room we were put into and a screen being turned on to reveal what was apparently the foetus growing inside me. You are almost 8 weeks and there is a heartbeat, I remember him saying. He pointed to a specific area on the screen and I saw a little flicker, barely. That image is burned into my mind, as are the blurry night lights of the city I tried to focus on through wet eyes, as we drove home, both quiet, trying to absorb and understand what all this meant. It was a Friday. On Sunday morning I would go in for my abortion.
Knowing what I know now about abortions in Cyprus, I see why I was scheduled in on a very early Sunday morning, why it was all done quietly and quickly. What I was doing was illegal. What that doctor was doing was illegal. Any abortions performed prior to 2018 were illegal. Thousands and thousands of women over the years have been risking up to 14 years in prison for chosing to have an abortion. I did not know that. I don’t think they did either. There was no internet bursting with information about terminating a pregnancy, no sex positivity and social media! We, I, knew about abortions because we were all having them and we talked about them, especially when we felt safe. I believe that the reason most of us chose to keep our abortions a secret isn’t because we were afraid of jail time (!) it was because we felt bad about them, we felt we did a horrible and inexcusable thing so it goes without saying that we should definitely not be talking about it.
My abortion shame ended the day I saw Georgie’s face. It took a further knock when I had James. By the time Danny, my third and final baby, was born, my abortion held a different narrative. These souls, these people, my people would not be here had I gone against my instincts and done what was expected of me.
To wish that I never did it, to regret it and fault it, would mean that I regret and wish my boys were never born. To be ashamed of it would mean that every nursery rhyme I have sung to them, every song I have taught them, every book we have read together, every friend we have made, every meal we have cooked, every life event we have celebrated, every pain and every laughter we have shared, every hug and loving kiss I have given them and they have given me, every I Love You Mama that has given me light during the darkest days, every part of who I am and who they are and who our family is, was a mistake. My life was built with the building blocks that I chose, with the love and experiences that I wanted, with a freedom that was fought for and will not be taken for granted. My life, my body, my choice.
