Angel Above

Happy New Year everybody!!!

So tonight my blog isn't going to be about my abortion really at all, instead it is going to be about an amazing woman who died a year ago tonight at midnight, rollerblading with her daughter.

Her name was Toni Torres. She was an amazing woman who I didn't know as well as her sister, whom she raised, or her daughter or her fiance; but I did know her. She was always there for everybody. I first came to know her because she worked for my mom. I would do filing and things for my mom in the office and got to know her.

Chola Loca was her name in Roller Derby 

Toni always looked out for me. She was a sweetheart. If it weren't for her there is a good chance that I never would have gotten away from "Steve" and I would have a child right now and an abusive person in mine and the child's life.

Her in a Roller Derby Outfit, Also what she was buried in

I would run into her where ever I was in town and then if I was with someone that she knew was trouble she would tell my mom and my mom would come lecture me. I would get so mad at her and I had just been busted for it about two weeks before she died and was still frustrated at her. I knew she did it to keep me safe, but I just thought, "its my life, let me learn from my mistakes." If it weren't for her I would have been with a guy who had been to prision for beating his ex-girlfriend and who had tried to strangle me. I would still be with the baby's father still who she let my mother know after my graduation party that he had a 4 year old son he had lost custody of and that she had worked with him in a correctional facility. So even though she was probably breaking laws, she saved my life in a lot of ways.

I know she effected other people in the same way. She was an amazing woman and I miss her like crazy. Her smile was contagious and so was her laughter. She didn't have an easy life growing up, her mother died and she was stuck raising her sister. Then she had a daughter and raised her also. She was an amazing role model and I hope that I can be close to who she was.  She was fun. She was honest, trust worthy and just awesome. She even did roller derby. Miss you hun.

Tonight has been fun but I have thought of you all night, especially when watching the ball drop. This holiday will always be filled with the memory of you, in everyone's heart that you touched. Mid-night will always mark the time of your death. Can't believe that it happened then. Miss you dearly.

R.I.P
Toni, forever in our hearts, forever in our minds, and never forgotten.

2 Years And Counting

Hey all,

Sorry I haven't done any writing in a while. I'm in college and have been studying for finals and getting ready for Christmas break. Now I have been spending time on Christmas break with family and friends but I will get back to writing and finishing the blog soon.  So for those of you who may have forgotten about what I wrote about previously you might want to look back other wise we will just say that I wrote about the struggles I went through emotionally and mentally right after my abortion.

In this blog I will talk about the struggles I have faced emotionally and mentally over the past two years and things that have helped me over come them. I will also write about the abusive relationship I was in after this happened along with some other things that happened to me and how that didn't help my healing process. I will use "Paul" for my abusive ex-boyfriends name. Oh, please remember that all names in this blog are fake. Thanks. :)

Also, there are other page tabs at the top of my blog, they are not done yet but I plan on working on them over my vacation, sorry it is taking me so long you guys.

This past summer in June was the marker of two years since I had my abortion. It's probably not healthy that I remember that but it really wasn't all that long ago that it happened and it was a traumatic event.

I don't really know where to start I guess....

Like I said in my previous blog when I first left planned parenthood I felt relieved and like my self and I hadn't in a long time. Then about 6 months to a year later I really started to struggle with my choice.

Shortly after having my abortion I started dating "Paul". He made me smile and laugh, I thought he was different from all the others and he was just what I needed. I told him about my abortion and he took it really well and told me I was strong and stuff. While dating him I had a hard time being around babies. His brother's wife had their daughter in September, shortly after we started dating and it was hard for me when I got to hold her because it just made me think about the fact that I could have had a baby like that to hold and take care of. I then started doubting if I had actually made the right decision or if I should have had the baby and then fought with all my might to get full custody of it. I struggled because I had, had names picked out for if it was a boy or a girl. I had started to get attached before I had my abortion. But none of this hit me until about six months later. I felt like "Paul" was the only person I could talk to about how I was struggling but eventually he started to get tired of dealing with it and he would get mad and tell me to quit, he didn't want to hear about it. That made me feel beyond alone. I just didn't know what to do.

So there was the first thing I started to struggle with, being around babies or young children.  Along with the second thing I began struggling with, "did I make the right choice?" Then when ever that question would hit I would feel like a horrible person, I would remember them asking if I wanted to hear the heart beat and me saying no, because I knew I wouldn't be able to follow through then. Then I would wonder, "maybe I should have heard the heart beat just to make sure that its the choice I want" I just couldn't get away. These questions and feelings would make me feel like a murder, which in turn would make me depressed. I struggled extremely bad.

I was holding all of that in. I wanted to go to counseling but I didn't want to tell a stranger the choice I had, had to make. It was bad. So then I was in this relationship with a guy who slowly was becoming abusive. He would yell at me, make me feel like everything was my fault. We would get into fights and he'd pin me against the wall or block me in a room. He was bigger then  me. One time he left finger print bruises on my arm and his mom asked where I got them and I had to tell her I didn't know. He put my knee through a wall at his moms once in his room and rolled my arm up in a window and left a bad bruise. But he would eventually say he was sorry and that things would change and then they would for a while. I thought I loved him, we got "engaged" but that was fake in my mind, he just used it to have more power over me.

Going through that only caused my feelings and depression to worsen. I was with him for over a year before I finally got out. 

I still struggle to this day about my choice. Not as much as I used to because people have helped, which I will write about in another entry. But I struggle at holidays for some reason, I see people with their kids and think, "Wow I'd have an almost 2 year old." Things like that or I will wonder if I would have been a good mom or if I made the right choice. I hope that at some point it will get easier and I will stop having those feelings. I even worry about when I do have kids some day if I will be able to handle it or if my past will haunt me. I just have to keep healing and telling my story and bettering myself. I tell myself I would want that child I didn't have to have been proud of me and hopefully he/she would be proud of the person I am becoming.

It is hard though. What helped me the most was finding out that I wasn't alone. That other girls have been where I have been. Had happen to them what happened to me.

But I will save that for another entry. I hope all of you had a Merry Christmas or a Happy Holiday. Please have a safe New Year as well.

The Fight For Strength Begins

Please remember that for all purposes the names in this blog entry have been change but will stay constant throughout this entire blog. Thank you!

So the last time I wrote anything I wrote my story out and tried to just tell my story without interjecting into it how I felt and what I struggle with. Today I am going to write about the things I struggled with right after my abortion and in a later blog entry I will write about some of the things I struggled with a year later and then two years later. Then after those two blogs I will write about what has helped me to start healing and who has really been there for me.

Initially when I walked out of planned parenthood having just taken my first dose of the medication I had to for the abortion. The first step when it comes to the medication abortion is what Planned Parenthood calls "The Abortion Pill", "The abortion pill works by blocking the hormone progesterone. Without progesterone, the lining of the uterus breaks down, and pregnancy cannot continue." (Planned Parenthood) This is what started happening the minute I took the pill at the clinic. Nothing felt different to me. I still was nauseous but emotionally I felt more free. I knew that I didn't have to worry about "Steve" anymore. My mom took my to Ihop for the first time in my life right afterwards and I ended up throwing up in their parking lot. I was scared to death. Here I was having just taken that pill and I was throwing up. A million thoughts raced through my head:
What if it didn't work?
What if I had only a partial abortion?
What if I now had to have a surgical abortion?
What if I now had to keep the baby and it had birth defects?

I was so scared. I was just at the 9 week mark which is the last week that they will allow you to do a medication abortion. My mom had to call the clinic and they said that since it had been in my system for up to twenty minutes that I would be fine. That made me feel a little better but I was still nauseous so we went in and ate some breakfast because we had, had to be down there by eight in the morning.

The next day is when the pain and emotional struggle started.

The next day is when I took the rest of the pills for the medical abortion its called Mistoprostol. "The second medicine — misoprostol — will cause you to have cramps and bleed heavily. Some women may begin bleeding before taking the second medicine. But for most, the bleeding and cramping begin after taking it. It usually lasts a few hours. You may see large blood clots or tissue at the time of the abortion." (Planned Parenthood) This was the worst part. This is when I came to realize what I was doing. What my provider had me do was I think it was eight pills, I had to stick them under my tongue for a few minutes to let them dissolve, I then had to swallow whatever had not dissolved. They gave me prescription painkillers and an antibiotic to take. The painkillers didn't help me though. During this time you are not allowed to use tampons, you have to use pads and for me that was just disgusting. I threw up Rollos that day because every time the pain got bad I would get sick. I was very fortunate though because whenever the pain got bad I would rush to the restroom sit down and I would expel part of the pregnancy. The biggest part is when you are really losing the pregnancy that happened about two hours after I took these pills. It comes out about the size of an orange or your fist. Mine was probably the size of a fist and that's when the emotions of what I was doing really hit because I realized what that was. That happened a couple more times for a day or two and they weren't as big after the first time and then for about a week I bled and would have what looked like small clots but it was just part of the lining of my uterus. 

This was the worst part. I realized what I was doing. I was in so much pain and my sister kept asking me what was wrong. I had back contractions on top of normal ones. My mom was a huge help in this. 

The weekend this happened I went to see what was going to be her new house. The day after the initial part of the abortion and the worst of it was over I felt more like myself. I thought emotionally I was going to be okay. Then that day we went to the zoo and i was fine until I realized how many pregnant women were around me and how many babies, also then later in the day I started cramping again. 

I wasn't comfortable being around little kids, babies, or pregnant women for a while. I am not totally against abortion but I am to a point and I struggle with that constantly and majorly did right after my abortion. I tried to tell myself that because it was the medication one that it was more like a miscarriage than anything else but it was still really hard for me. Plus it was like my mom didn't want to talk about it and she didn't want me to talk about it with other people. Today I understand why but then when I really needed someone it really hurt. I struggled at the start with wondering if I had made the right choice or if I was being selfish. It was just a hard time. I wish I could say that things got easier but they really got harder a year later. That is for another blog entry though. So for now that is all. 

My Story

I guess this is where I write my story and what happened to me and how I came to make the choice that I did. All the names in this blog though will be changed.

Hi guys,

I'm a junior in college now and what I am about to write about happened to me my senior year in high school right at the end.

My parents divorced my freshmen year in high school and I started to act out I guess you could say. I would lie about where I was going or who I was with. Well my senior year in high school the first half I spent dating this guy who we will call Chris. Lookings back now he was a total scurve, so why I thought it was a good idea to date him I'm not sure. Anyways....we dated for a while from the summer because my senior year until about half way through it. One weekend I went to the Mall of America with my dad, his fiance, and my sister. It was a month or so before prom so my dad bought me my prom dress. I was so excited to get home though to see my boyfriend because he was just going to be coming back from "visiting" his grandma who was in the hospital in Wisconsin. I put visiting in quotations because he was lying about that. I mean its one thing to lie but its really low to lie and say that a family member is in the hospital. What he was really doing during that week was cheating on me. He went to Wisconsin to see an ex-girlfriend, he would have gotten away with it except for that night when he came over I came downstairs wearing my prom dress so he could see it and noticed a huge hickey on his neck. He lied and tried to tell me that he must have gotten it from something in the hospital so that was the end of that.

Shortly after breaking up with him I met a guy who seemed amazing. He made me laugh, smile, and was there for me through the whole Chris scenario, for our purposes we will call this new guy Steve. Well, we started dating and things got hot and heavy fast. He lived on the other side of town from me and I would go over there often. Slowly though I started to figure out that things weren't right. He was really controlling and hated me being around my parents. We hardly ever hung out at my house it was always his house. "Steve" was also a scum bucket. He had never graduated from high school and the day that I graduated he seemed to be pissed about it. Anyways. We dated and he took me to prom. Well a few weeks after prom I found out that I was pregnant. I was devastated  it was the end of my senior year and I wanted to go to college and make something of myself. (no i did not get pregnant on prom night it had happened before that)

I was so scared to tell "Steve" because I didn't know how he would act. I was really stupid though because from day one he told me that he couldn't have kids because of some accident that he was in. Well because I was so afraid to tell "Steve" I told my best friend "Sam" (girl) first. She was amazing and there for me 100%. The time came that I needed to tell "Steve" and he was actually happy about it! I am sure it didn't stress him out like it did me because he was doing what he always did, NOTHING. He had no job, nothing. He got mad at me because as I was telling him I was crying because I saw it as something that was going to potentially ruin my whole life. From then on things only got worse; he didn't want me to hang out with friends, but nothing would stop me from hanging with Sam, he didn't want me around my family and he didn't want me to have fun. The further along I got the worse my pregnancy symptoms would get. I had terrible morning sickness, only it wasn't just in the morning it was off and on throughout the day and I never knew when it was going to hit. The worst parts were that car rides made me sick and certain smells were horrible. The smell of sex was one of the worst ones. The mix of the sweat smell with the sex smell made me throw up every time. It got to the point where I didn't want to have sex but he would make me feel so bad that I would cave in.

Eventually things between "Steve" and I just kept getting worse. I was supposed to be having fun it was the end of my senior year. I didn't want to tell my mom or anybody else until after graduation because my mom was so excited. Well "Steve" ruined my graduation party because he just staired and wouldn't have fun, the day of graduation he was a jerk to everyone, including me. So after that I decided to go to my dads lake house for Memorial day weekend with my friend "Sam" and try to figure things out. At this point I had tried breaking up with "Steve" multiple times but every time I did he would black mail me with this unborn child, saying that if I did he would tell my mom. Memorial weekend came and I was trying to have fun even though being on the boat made me nauseous and "Steve" expected me to text him 24/7 and he would get mad if I didn't reply fast enough. That Monday I was supposed to hang out with him but I decided that I wanted to go to the beach with Sam instead. That made him so mad to the point where we finally broke up. I lied and told him that I didn't even know if it was his, which cut me to the core because I've never cheated before and then I lied after he started threatening me and my family and said that I had miscarried. I was so shaken up from the things that he had been saying to me that when I went up to my room to get something and my mom called me into her office and asked what was wrong, I just lost it. She guessed that I was pregnant and asked me what I wanted to do. At this point I had kind of gotten use to the idea but I didn't want "Steve" in my life for the rest of my life and I knew that every time my child was with him I would worry about him/her.

My mom asked if I wanted an abortion. I said yes. Up until this point my whole life I thought I was against abortion, but the minute my mom asked that was the first word out of my mouth. I was surprised and my mom was surprised that she had asked. I still don't believe that abortions should just be used as a form of birth control for people who don't use their heads. I guess people could say that, that was what I did. That I took the easy way out, that I could have fought for custody, sucked it up and had the dad in mine and my childs life, or put it up for adoption. But this is what I have to say. I believe that I made the right choice for both me and what would have been my child. I wouldn't have been able to afford a child right out of high school, I wanted my child to be proud in their mother, and now when I do have kids they will be proud in the mother that I am because I will have finished college. That yes I could have tried to put it up for adoption but that, that wouldn't have happened because he probably wouldn't of signed the papers. Yes I could have spent thousands in court and still probably lost and then worried constantly about my child, especially when he had lost custody of a son before.

I digress. After saying yes my mom called planed parenthood and I went down. They showed me a video of what I could go through, they did an internal ultra sound and asked if I wanted to know if it was twins, hear the heart beat, and see a picture. I said no, because I knew if I heard the heart beat that I wouldn't be able to go through with it especially if it was twins. I did see a picture of it when I stood up to put my pants back on that was really hard and to this day I can remember the picture clear as day. I found out that I was starting my ninth week and that I was just at the mark of where I could do the pill abortion instead of the surgical one. It was a painful process and it tore my body apart but I did it.

I wont act like I am okay from it. It has been 2 years and I still struggle with the choice I made and experience cognitive dissonance over it. But that is for another blog entry.

So for now this is my story of how it happened.

Welcome To Life

Soooo I am a little nervous about working on this blog. This blog is my life story of getting pregnant my senior year, the hard ships I faced then, still go through now, and could struggle with for a while; but also how I have gotten stronger through all of it.

I am a junior in college and am just now getting comfortable talking about what I have been through. There are two reasons that I am comfortable talking about it now: I finally told my little sister who is completely against what I did and she was understanding of it and I have a professor who pulled me aside one day after I wrote a paper over cognitive dissonance of this subject and she told me her story over what she went through and it helped me knowing that I wasn't the only one out there. Because of her I am going to speak in her class over what I went through.

I am writing this so that other girls or women may know that they are not alone and that there are people out there that have gone through similar situations. I know that there are people out there that could read this and are going to be so against it that they think poorly of me but that is their choice.


I guess if people read this and decide to post comments that are nasty I will handle it because this is my choice. If that makes them feel better about who they are then again that is their choice. But to girls out there who may feel like they are alone or have nobody to turn to, if you read this and find yourself needing to talk or advice just comment with your email and I will write to you. This is going to be my way of becoming stronger, helping other girls and women, and getting information out there on all the sorts of choices we have.