QuestionI am right now 6weeks pregnant. I am getting a medical abortion done next monday. This will be my second medical abortion.I was wondering, according to this girl I know who had three abortions, because she had two medical abortions,her doctor told her that her chances of having mentally challenged child is very high. She will get pregnant but her child will be influenced by it. Also my boyfriend wants me to keep the child so bad and I don't. He keeps telling me I might have mentally challenged kids or never able to have a child again. I know he is very upset because both of them were his and now I am terminating the second one.
Is that true though? I want to have a child when I am ready.
AnswerIt sounds like both that doctor and your boyfriend have been trying to pressure you and your friend into not having an abortion. There is absolutely no truth to the claim that medical abortions cause you to have mentally retarded children in the future. In fact, having a medical abortion now does NOT AT ALL affect any future pregnancies or children.
Here is how the medical abortion works. You know you're taking two sets of pills, right? Both of them block certain hormones in your body, and fool your uterus into thinking it needs to have a period, and that you are not pregnant at all. That is ALL these pills do - they block some hormones, and produce other hormones which make you have a period.
Of course, if you have a "period" when you are pregnant, the products of conception in your uterus (fetus, placenta if it has developed, etc) will also be removed from your uterus, and it becomes an abortion. Did you know that medical abortions work exactly like miscarriages? The same hormones and same mechanisms are involved. Have you heard anybody tell you that miscarriages cause mentally retarded children in the future? Of course not! They have no effect on your future children. The hormones are blocked (and released) only for a short time in your body. The effects of the pills die out in about 3 days.
The one thing that IS affected is the fetus. Some of the chemicals in the pills cause the fetus that is now in your body to stop developing. The same thing often happens when you have a miscarriage, too. Now, if the medical abortion is not successful (for about 1% of women, it does not work, and I was one of them), then even if your fetus has not stopped developing completely, it will be bound to have a lot of birth defects if you change your mind about having an abortion and decide to carry it to term. So your boyfriend and that doctor are a LITTLE right - after taking these pills, you shuldn't change your mind about having the abortion unless you are OK with having a mentally/physically abnormal baby that is quite unlikely to survive very long even if it survives through the pregnancy.
Note that nothing is affected in FUTURE pregnancies. Only this one is affected.
Also, you are unlikely to face this situation, because if medical abortion has worked for you before, it will almost certainly work again. It is a person's inherent body chemistry that stops the pills from working, and you apparently don't have such a body chemistry.
Here is the FDA question and answer website for medical abortion pills. You will find all the possible side-effects from real clinical trials there, and you can see that there is NOTHING about effects on future pregnancies, let alone that it causes mental retardation. (http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/infopage/mifepristone/mifepristone-qa20041115.htm) and (http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/infopage/mifepristone/).
Warning: the websites above may alarm you because they discuss the BAD side effects of medical abortion almost exclusively. Be sure to note that the chances of death, infection and other side effects from the abortion pill are FAR LESS than the chance of death and infection from giving birth in USA. Just read all that with some perspective.
At this point, I'm going to try and advise you NOT to have a medical abortion. This is because in my experience, surgical abortion is SO MUCH EASIER. It's way less painful, there is a much shorter recovery time (maximum 1 hour), the chances of complications is much lesser, and most importantly, the entire procedure lasts only 10 minutes. As you know, medical abortion means painful cramping for 4-8 hours, and a recovery time of up to one day. Many doctors in Europe (mainly France) object to medical abortion as being an unnecessarily painful, barbaric way to induce an abortion when other ways are much better.
I'm only telling you this because I wish I had known all this before I tried medical abortion myself. I had cramps for 24 hours, and the pills didn't even work! So I had a surgical abortion, and I was astounded at how much less painful, how much faster it was. I wish my doctors had told me this so I'd never have had to undergo all that cramping, and even miss a day of work. With the medical abortion, everything was over in an hour, and I was able to go right back to work the same day.
Anyway, just keep in mind that this is entirely your decision. Your boyfriend is not the one who is going to have to go through the pregnancy, YOU are. You have the complete right to decide not to have a baby right now.
If your boyfriend becomes persistent, just show him this list of things YOU and YOU ALONE are going to have to go through, which he cannot help:
nausea, vomiting, constipation, heartburn, hemhorroids, dizziness, exhaustion, weight gain, stretch marks, hair loss, pimple breakouts, dark patches of skin on your face and body, painful breasts, urinary tract infections, incontinence, gestational diabetes, urinary leakage, breast leakage, swollen hands, swollen feet, swollen ankles, varicose veins, blurred vision, frequent headaches, constant gassiness, painful childbirth, vaginal and perianal tears, painful recovery from childbirth, breast tightness/mastitis, loss of vaginal elasticity, greatly increased healthcare costs, bearing the costs of maternity clothes and bras, loss of pay due to all the sick days you'll have to take, possible loss of employment, difficulty FINDING employment if you're pregnant, resulting lower payscale for having had a baby (hundreds of studies confirm women who have had babies are seen as less competent and committed than women who are childless, resulting in dramatically lower pay). Listed above are only the VERY COMMON symptoms and side effects of pregnancy - you may also be among the significant minority of women who suffer minor and major complications to their health from being pregnant, including permanent diabetes, permanent high blood pressure, and sometimes even death.
This stuff is not a joke. I am pregnant right now (I'm happy about it, it was planned this time :D) and let me assure you, hanging around the bathroom all day because you feel like you're ging to throw up any second is not fun. Neither is puking your guts out after every meal. The complete exhaustion that comes with the first three months of pregnancy will leave you feeling like garbage - have you ever been continuously ill for three months? I doubt it. It's no joyride. The later effects of pregnancy are even worse. Unless you truly want to have this baby, let me assure you that you will not like making all the sacrifices and enduring all the effects of pregnancy. All women experience at least 8-10 of the symptoms I listed above. This is not something that only happens to SOME people.
Ask him if he thinks it's fair to force you to do this against your will. Pregnancy is not easy. Having a baby is even more difficult. The choice to have a baby is something that should be made very carefully, not with incorrect information and only because the pregnancy happened accidentally.
If your boyfriend continues to pressure you to have this baby, you should seriously consider whether you are OK with someone who does not seem to respect your body or your wishes. They key to a good relationship is mutual respect, and that means knowing your boundaries. No person has the right to pressure other people into doing things to their bodies that they don't want to do. Contrary to what you may have heard, your boyfriend doesn't "have a say" in this matter. It's YOUR body, and until the baby is born, only YOU have the right to decide what to do about it. Having a baby should be a two-person decision - unless BOTH parents are sure they want to have the baby, it's best not to have one.
