Jo
I'm in a loving relationship and it wasn't too long ago when I found out I was pregnant. My boyfriend and I would love to have children someday, right now is not the right time for us. When we found out that I was pregnant we where happy but also sad as we knew in the stages of our lives that we are in right now, we could not afford to keep the baby. So we both decided together that I would have an abortion.
2018 Malawi
I do have mixed feelings on how my abortion went. I know it was the best decision that my boyfriend and I could make at the time we are in now. On the other had it still hurts. We are both still very upset that we needed to make this decision. Every day is getting better and I'm learning to forgive myself. As a mother I would nothing but the best for my children, knowing that I can't provide the basics for them would be a huge burden on me.
I took the Micopristol pills in the morning. Before I started I made sure I had a stock up on food, pads, pain killers, pillows etc., as I knew I would not leave the house for the rest of the day. When I took the first dosage it took about 30min until I started bleeding. I had a few cramps and felt a wave of nausea but that left quite quickly. 2 hours later I was really cramping and in a lot of pain, but I was very hungry and managed to eat a burger that my boyfriend bought me. It took maybe 3 days for the heavy bleeding and worst cramps to stop. For me it took about 2 weeks in total for the entire bleeding to stop and then about one week extra just spotting. Apart from the physical and emotional pain I didn't have any complications or bad experiences using the Abortion Pill method.
My boyfriend and I both want to work on saving to have a family in the future. We both didn't want to have our parents raise our child financially and since we are both young and working they would also have to help us raise a child physically.
Did the illegality of your abortion affect your feelings?
Not really. I understand that in some countries where abortion is illegal there are no safe options or support group. In Malawi abortion is illegal but I did manage to have a very safe abortion. It took sometime to get the pills that where prescribed to me, but one pharmacy did it.
How did other people react to your abortion?
Not many people knew about this. Only very close friends and family. All where very supportive and helpful.