I Was Able to Choose an Abortion, and It Saved My Life

This article is part of POPSUGAR's 50 States, 50 Abortions, a large-scale storytelling project that aims to elevate the voices of people who've had abortions. For more information about how to find an abortion clinic near you, please visit The Cut's abortion service finder.

Content warning: The following essay briefly alludes to suicidal ideation.

I first started suspecting I was pregnant for a kind of silly reason. On "Eastsiders," one of the characters couldn't stop peeing, and that's how she realizes she's pregnant. While watching the show, I was like, "Oh my God. I have to pee all the time." The more I convinced myself that I was pregnant, the more pregnancy symptoms I began noticing.

Then I started watching the second season of "The Walking Dead." One of the characters becomes pregnant, and she vomits when she smells meat. The same thing happened to me when the person I was living with cooked meat. My partner told me I was just stressing myself out.

I am a very cautious person by nature. I use various contraceptive methods. But once I thought I was pregnant, I was like, "I literally cannot live with this pregnancy." As soon as it was humanly possible to find out for sure, I bought a pack of tests from the pharmacy. My first one was positive. Immediately, I was like, "OK, I need to get an abortion like yesterday."

I had just turned 25, and it was 2020, during the early days of COVID-19. Because of the pandemic, I had been laid off from my job, and I was worried about the money I'd have to spend to have an abortion. Then I remembered I had donated to abortion funds in Alabama before. Probably 20 minutes after I'd gotten my positive pregnancy result, I was on the phone with the Yellowhammer Fund, an organization in Alabama that helps people seeking abortion but can't afford it.

This stranger I was talking to was only the second person who knew I was pregnant, after my partner. They were extremely pleasant, and they didn't mind that I was rambling out of panic. They evaluated my financial status, and I put them in contact with the clinic I planned to go to. I pretty much just didn't have to worry about it, which was a true blessing.

Nothing else was that simple. Because there were no abortion clinics in Birmingham, where I lived, I had to travel to Tuscaloosa, which is a little more than an hour away. You could only make appointments for 8 o'clock in the morning, and then you had to sit and wait all day.

I would leave my house at 6 a.m., and I would get there as soon as they opened. Because of COVID, only a certain number of people could be in the lobby, and they had a temperature check. I think I had to present a negative COVID test. There was this very persistent group of protesters outside of the clinic every time I was there: three old guys who try to shame people out of having abortions.

The first time I went to the clinic, it was too early to do an ultrasound, and in Alabama, you have to undergo an ultrasound before you can have an abortion. So I had to go back. The second time, I had to get a physical and emotional evaluation, which Alabama law requires at least 24 hours before the procedure. The doctor asked me a lot of personal questions, like, "Are you sure? Is anyone making you do this?" They tried to convince me to look at the ultrasound while they did it, and I gracefully declined. It wasn't their fault, because they're under extreme scrutiny thanks to the law.

I came back the next day to get the pills for a medical abortion. The first pill stops the fetus from growing, and the second, which you take hours later, induces a miscarriage. The second pill is the one that starts the bleeding. My best friend was there for me the day I took the second pill, and we watched anime, and she made me hot tea. But medical abortion takes a huge physical toll. Your uterus hurts, and you're tired, and you're throwing up, and you can't eat because everything sounds gross. I had a long-distance partner who was extremely emotionally present for the whole process, but it hurt a lot to not have my romantic partner physically present.

I had to go back to the clinic a couple weeks later to see if the termination had been effective. But when I showed up, they told me that the doctor who had evaluated me and given me the pills had retired. (That doctor was very old, and I tip my hat to him because he was in the last bastion of doctors who would perform an abortion in Alabama.) So I had to go back again a week later to see the new doctor, and then I was finally done. I was actually lucky to be unemployed, which made it easier to go back and forth to the clinic so many times.

It took five weeks for my bleeding to completely end. Some days were a lot heavier than others, and the first week was the worst. I thought I was bleeding out, and it hurt really badly, like the worst period cramps you could ever imagine. I definitely thought I was going to die. But I was afraid to go to the hospital and pay money just to have them tell me I was overreacting or worse, for a very Christian doctor or nurse to tell me I deserved the pain as punishment.

One thing they recommend at the clinic is to have a partner perform a uterus massage on your abdomen. So I did it for myself, and that is one of the reasons that I wish that I had my partner with me. I felt like a sad dog performing an abdomen massage on myself, but it did help.

The abortion was probably the most painful experience of my life. I like to complain, but I felt like a burden complaining about my abortion pain, so I kept a lot of it to myself. I was also embarrassed because I felt stupid to get pregnant. Now I'm able to look back and know I wasn't stupid. I shouldn't have been embarrassed. Not talking about it made it hurt worse, physically and emotionally. That's why it's so important to me to talk about it now.

I talked to one of my family members about it, and it felt like this big confession. My family member was like, "Yeah, I've had two." It was such a shock and such a relief because she is even more of a cautious person than I am. I could not believe she had two unwanted pregnancies. I realized having an abortion is so normal. The day the Dobbs decision came down was one of the worst days I've had in a while. But because I've been so open about my experience, everyone around me gave me support.

I didn't anticipate getting pregnant, but I really, really, really don't anticipate getting pregnant again. If I do, I will have another abortion. I literally love abortion. I think that everyone deserves a way out of anything bad. And to me, pregnancy is something bad. When Roe v. Wade was overturned, I felt a deep, deep, deep existential sadness that a lot of people, including myself, would be losing a way out of a situation that frankly made me want to die. I had a way out, and it kept me alive.

— Simona (they/them) (Alabama), as told to Victoria Edel

If you or a loved one are experiencing suicidal ideation or are at risk, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline has several resources and a 24/7 lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.

Image Sources For "Click For Stories From Each State": Unsplash / Aaron Burden, Getty / Sergii Iaremenko/Science Photo Library, Unsplash / Manik Roy and Photo Illustration: Patricia O'Connor