I went through with it.

We arrived at the clinic at 8am, and the entire waiting room was full of girls wting for abortions!
i couldnt believe it. I was so nervous i was shaking. after at least an hour, i was called into another waiting room where they put a hospital bracelet on me, took my insurance info, and sent me upstairs.

I had no idea what was going to happen next, because they dont really tell you. i waited in a room filling out paperwork, a tv in the background playing aids education videos over and over again.
They call me into a room and take my blood. I hate having my blood taken and had no idea it was coming. the doctor barely speaks english and after he takes the needle out, i ask him to stop touching my arm. (it makes me want to punch people for some reason) he misunderstands and keeps touching it.

The next room is worse. A russian or ukranian woman who is going to do my first ultrasound. She pushes so hard it gives me cramps. her face hides nothing as she is shocked at how far along i am. when i ask how many weeks, she snidely replies that a counselor will tell me that shortly.

i go back out to the waiting room, and wait. the waiting is killing me. i have been here for at least three hours now. I know i am father along than most of the women there. from looking online i had promised myself, 13 weeks and i am keeping the baby. i sat there. i waited, and finally a large black woman (my counselor) calls my name.

A tense elevator ride later and we are in a tiny windowless room. She tells me i am 12 weeks 3 days. even though i had already thought this was possible, its not what i wanted to hear. i ask to look at the ultrasound. "you're only making this worse you know" she replies, as she takes her cell phone out of her pocket, answers it, and starts yelling at her child about a bad report card. I sit and cry, shaking uncontrollably again. I don't want to do this. i want to run out of this horrible place, run away with my baby. I have John and my mom called into the room. I show them the ultrasound and tell them how far along i am. My eyes search Johns for something, anything that will tell me not to do this, he'll be here for me. Instead he reassures me that everything will be alright.

I inform my "counselor" that I am continuing with the procedure, and head back up the elevator, a lamb to the slaughter.

They send me into a bathroom to change.
I look at myself in the mirror. who am i? how can i do this? and another part of me says, you have to. i change into my gown and join the other girls. there are 12 of us and most had been waiting for over an hour. Its almost 2pm now. a nurse comes in to inform us that theyu recovery room (which i can see by craning m y neck around the corner) is full so they sent the doctors to lunch. We sit and wait at least another hour and a half. I have been here since 8 in the morning, had nothing to eat or drink since 10pm the night before, and i am starving, parched, nervous and want to get this over with. what is taking so long?

then they start calling names. I thought i was somewhere near number 10 but it turns out i was third. stunned, a deer in headlights, i walk down the short hall to the operating room. the put my on a table where i slide down all the way to the end, and my legs go up in the biggest stirrups i've ever seen. a large trash can is wheeled over just below my butt. That's where my baby is going. i think. thoughts of John rushing in the room telling me not to do this fill my mind. i want to get up and run, but i'm almost there, i'm almost done. the anesthietiologist puts the iv in my arm, which hurts a lot. the doctor comes in, holds my hand and asks if i have any questions, to which i shake my head no. i am silent. i am so scared. as the medicine starts to flow through my veins to knock me out, i promise myself one thing, never again will i do this.

i wake up from what seems like a nice sleep into the reality of a nightmare. the recovery room is a row of chairs where you sit with a pad in between your legs and cry in pain while they take your vitals. you cant have anything for the pain (which is supposed to be just mild cramping) until you are vital enough to get up and walk to the next room. my pain is so bad it is as though someone stuck an ice pick up my uterus. every time i attempt to put my bottom onto the chair i shoot back up in pain. i realize i am white knuckling the arms of the chair, and cry out for help. the nurses are overwhelmed and offer little. one proclaims that she "just cant deal with this"

a girl is wheeled out and woken up. i recognize her from the waiting room. she is screaming and crying that she is selfish, and that she is going to hell.

that's when i look down and notice i have no pad, and am gushing blood onto the chair.

i do everything i can to get to the next room so i can have some pain relief. they remove my i.v. i have to keep reminding the nurses that i am next for my shots, of which they stab me with two and then walk away. i have to wait until a bath room is empty and then walk there to get dressed. the pain is immesurable. i have never felt anything this bad. some of the girls are walking around as if nothing happened, but i am not doing so well.
in the bathroom trying to get dressed a gush of blood fills my thick pad in an instant.
i ask the nurse if this is normal and she looks worried, and goes along her way.

in the next room i am handed a cup with two antibiotics and Some motrin
an ice pick through the uterus and they give me motrin!
get me out of this torture chamber i think, as i text John to call the car service

the entire way home, i grip his hand over each bump, each turn, and cannot put my butt onto the seat of the car. at home they have to lower me onto the couch, and i scream in agony with each cramp. this is nothing like they say it will be in the pamphlets. although i was a bit farther along than the other girls.

one thing i have learned the hard way is this:
if you're going to do it, find a place that is reputable, safe, and able to take care of you afterwards. no one should have to be in that much pain and be ignored, or told that ibuprofen will take care of it. no one should feel as though they are on an assembly line when they are going through something that is already so emotionally and physically hard to deal with.
no one should go to planned parenthood on a saturday. just because you "have an appointment" does not mean you are going to receive the kind of care you may need. I was there from 8am until almost 5pm, and would have been much less traumatized by the whole event had i gone somewhere a little less busy, and a little more caring for the individual.