Still so sad

A pro-choice woman who had an abortion more than 5 years ago shares how she is feeling after recently giving birth (my emphasis).

I had a twin pregnancy terminated five years and three months ago and I am still having trouble forgiving myself. It must have been the right thing to do, and it certainly has not changed the way I feel about women's right to chose. But...

No amount of reasoning seems to work in convincing myself that my arguments were sound. It's way, way, WAY past time I realized that my life has moved on. I'm no longer unemployed, or homeless, or self-injuring, or with a partner who is permanently disabled and is depressed and self-injures. I'm with a new (fantastically stable and wonderfully caring) partner, I have a newborn, I have a decent little flat and a permanent job and another three months fully paid maternity leave and I play a sport on a daily basis and have several hobbies that interest me. But I still cannot move on.

I spent the entire pregnancy just thinking about the last time I was pregnant (before the abortion). And how that time I had felt so excited even though I new what I was going to do. I spent this entire pregnancy hiding it from friends, family, work and avoiding talking about it, avoiding anyone with babies or anything on tv with babies or children or pregnant women. Even when I got to the point where it wasn't feasible to hide it I still forbade the father to be excited about it around me. I don't have a problem being responsible; I was well prepared practically speaking and have definitely not got post natal depression. I just never ever felt the least bit of enthusiasm for the experience or what lay ahead. Just direction-less anger. Like, I can't allow myself to be happy about this? Even now, whenever I have a quiet minute, on almost a daily basis, my head is just reliving the abortion. Reliving the arguments in my head, and how it felt and everything they said to me at the time and how I felt straight afterwards. The procedure itself wasn't completely straightforward, and the people-skills of some of the staff members was bad enough that after having complained I received a formal apology.

Just hating every minute of being alive and wanting to undo everything. I'm punishing myself, but in aid of what I don't know. I thought that giving birth and deciding 'the other way' would help me think about something else but it hasn't.