QuestionHi Pat, I recently had an abortion, which was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I currently have an 11 year old and 19 month old daughters, and I'm 40 years old. This pregnancy came too soon and with a man who's been cheating on me. It was also his idea to have the abortion. I'm just really having trouble getting over the fact that I had to do this. I never thought my life would come to this! I feel that I need to justify this act by becoming a foster parent or possibly adopting, which I probably couldn't afford to do since I will be a single parent soon. Although, I was never financially supported by this man since we never married! It's so hard to deal with this alone. I can't tell anyone and don't want anyone to know about my decision on Feb 19th. On top of all this, I went to babycenter.com to see the size of my unborn child and knowing this kills me inside. My baby was a breathing, living human at 8 1/2 weeks pregnant.
Can you tell me, is this how you see a baby/embryo at 8 1/2 weeks or can you tell me something to make me feel better about my decision.
Please help, I could really use someone to talk to about this. One more thing, it'll be a month this coming friday the 19th, of march, and I'm still spotting. Is this normal?
Thanks so much for you help!
AnswerHello, sandi,
My heart goes out to you. You should never have experienced the coercion you did.
I will go through several thoughts, and I won't have enough time right now to write as I would like to, but I will definitely spend more time talking to you about this.
The first thing I need to say, will be the bad news, but after that the good news. For your own healing and peace of mind, it is important that you recognize that you didn't HAVE to do it. You could simply have refused. Why is this important? Because you will have a nagging niggle about this until you make yourself aware of this. At the same time, you should never take the blame for what other people did to you. Allow yourself to feel a sense of outrage toward the man who did this to you.
The next thing I will tell you is the good news. God is willing to forgive you for having an abortion. This is really important because your heart won't rest until you are assured of His forgiveness. Regardless of whether you believe in Him or not, your heart will secretly tell you that you must be reconciled to God for true peace of mind. Failure to be reconciled will leave you in some kind of intermediate limbo. You may reach a point of more or less equilibrium, but you will never be spiritually or emotionally free. I mentioned being willing to acknowledge you didn't have to do it because forgiveness depends on repentance. Repentance means being sorry you did it. Yes, you are sorry, but right now, you're not fully owning up to it. Once you do, then forgiveness is available for the asking. God the Son came and died for you because of this and all the other things you and I have done. God is such a forgiving God. He loves you totally and completely. And He has given us examples of people He forgave in the Bible. I will give two examples. The first is King David. David wanted Bathsheba, so he sent her husband to the front lines in battle so he would be killed. In spite of this, God forgave him, and arranged for him to be an ancestor of Jesus. You can read his thoughts in the Psalms, and in general, I think you would get comfort from reading them. The second is Saul. Saul was going around killing Christians. But Jesus appeared to him while he was traveling to Damascus to kill more Christians. God transformed Saul into the Apostle Paul. Paul is important to me because in part, I owe him my faith, because he preached to my ancestors. If God was willing to forgive these two men, He is willing to forgive you.
Forgiving yourself will be difficult. I want to talk more about this when I have more time, because I won't be able to stay now and talk more. However, forgiving yourself IS possible. It is also necessary, because if you are unwilling to forgive yourself, then you are denying that God will forgive you.
You can get counseling. There are programs and services for women such as yourself, and they are run, for the most part, by women who have also experienced abortion. You can find an organization near you that offers this by going to this web site:
http://www.pregnancycenters.org/
They also make available counseling by email.
Two other things before I go. First, having an abortion is not normal, so anything that happens as a result, such as the spotting, is also not normal. Is it common? Probably. It depends partly on what kind of abortion you had. If you had a pill abortion, it's very common. If you had a surgical abortion, not so much so.
The other thing is that it may not be wise for you to adopt or take in a foster child. You need to come to terms with your abortion before you even consider it, and you will need to spend some time thinking about how your children will react to your abortion. They may not know about it, but they will sense something is wrong. It could affect your ability to be a good mother. I'll talk about this more later.
Please take care. Even though I can't talk more right now, you will be in my prayers. Please take care of yourself. Don't harm yourself in any way. On top of the abortion, this would simply be another wrong thing to do. I'll write when I get back. If you respond, I can respond to that. If not, I will revise this answer. I don't know if you will get a notice of the revision, so if you don't get a message that I left you a response here, please check back later tonight.
PS Sandi, I am back from what I had to do. I see that you have read my message. I hope you are OK. I worried about you since I wrote to you.
Please know that I have grieved God myself, so this is not a situation where I feel I am somehow better than you are.
There is a web site where you can talk to other women who feel the way you do. You may find this helpful. It doesn't solve all the problems, but the support is well worthwhile. Please go to this link:
http://www.afterabortion.com/
Please let me know how you are doing. You are on my heart, and I pray that God will sustain you and lift you up.
