New Mama’s recent post on abortion set me to thinking on this issue. I’ve had three pregnancies in my lifetime. The first was unplanned, unwanted and ended in an abortion. I was 19 years old. While the second wasn’t exactly planned, it was certainly wanted, but sadly ended in a miscarriage at nine weeks. That was almost two years ago. The third was planned, wanted, and resulted in my dear daughter, M.

I have no regrets about my abortion, but having two pregnancies terminate – one wanted and one not – has broadened my perspective somewhat. When I lost my baby two years ago, I was devastated. It happened so early in the pregnancy that at first my emotions didn’t feel “justified”. It took me a while to realize that I wasn’t simply mourning the loss of my baby – I was also mourning the loss of my hopes and dreams. The moment I realized I was pregnant, I was consumed with thoughts of the tiny life inside me. Would it be a boy or a girl? What would my pregnancy and birth be like? What would my baby be like? What would s/he look like as a newborn, toddler, teenager, adult? When that second line turned pink, my future jumped tracks and became something entirely new and mysterious. It wasn’t just me and R anymore – we were bringing another life into this world.

When I went for my first OB visit at eight weeks, the doctor did an ultrasound. There was no heartbeat yet and things looked a little undersized. The doctor grilled me on my dates – was I sure I was at eight weeks? I was positive, but he didn’t seem convinced. He drew some blood and we scheduled another appointment for a few days later. He told me not to worry, but when I asked for a pre-natal vitamin prescription, his face revealed the truth before he had a chance to hide it: “Why would you need those?” it said.

That afternoon all symptoms of the pregnancy disappeared, and a few days later another ultrasound confirmed that the pregnancy was not “viable”. I spent the intervening days in a state of intense grief. I knew in my heart that my baby wasn’t going to make it, despite everyone’s reassurances to the contrary.

Once I knew for sure, I had to make a choice. Let nature take her course? Or intervene and have a D&C? While I usually eschew unnecessary interventions, I did not think I was emotionally strong enough to handle a “natural” miscarriage … I longed for the obliteration of anesthesia and pain medication. In the end I settled on the D&C, and while it may not have been the easiest thing for my body, it was definitely the right thing for my mind.

After the D&C I grieved for many weeks, inconsolable crying that left me hopeless and spent. I was also tortured with paranoia – what if I was one of those serial miscarriers? Now that I had finally decided to start a family, how ironic would it be if, more than a decade after my abortion, I found that I couldn’t carry a pregnancy to term? Was I being punished? Had I lost my only chance?

I reconciled a credit card statement a few weeks later, and as I sifted through receipts for pregnancy tests, pregnancy books, pre-natal vitamins, celebratory dinners and doctor’s appointments, I relived my journey from ignorance to discovery to joy to excitement to grief, one day at a time. Laid out in front of me, I saw the tracks of my new life abruptly severed, abandoned, leading to nowhere. But I found it impossible to just pick up and resume my old life as if nothing had happened. That old life was gone. The old me was gone.

But I kept going, one day after another, and warily avoided investing myself in the future, since I had learned the brutal lesson that it can slip out from under your feet in an instant. I also learned that I wasn’t a serial miscarrier … we conceived the very first time we tried, and I had a perfectly normal, uneventful pregnancy that resulted in a very healthy baby. And I am now well aware that this is the experience of many, many women. Turns out, miscarriages are much more common than I ever knew. Not that this knowledge makes it any less painful.

But all of this led me to spend a lot of time pondering what it means to be pregnant, and the depth of the loss and grief I felt, even if my baby wasn’t even technically a “baby” yet. And while I don’t think I will ever stop being pro-choice, I sometimes wonder about that baby I let go so many years ago. Because I realize now that the abortion destroyed more than just a few cells – it extinguished hopes and dreams, a child’s future, a mother’s love.

I had no concept of this at the time, and certainly wasn’t conjuring up joyful visions of my unmarried, single mother, college-drop-out future. And frankly, I was a mess – and I don’t say that lightly. I would have been a horrible mother. In short, I still believe an abortion was the right thing for me, and I would make the same choice if I had to do it over again.

The last week and a half have been really hard for me as we’ve moved M into her crib. I’ve cried over what it has taken to accomplish this, and mourned the loss of closeness and intimacy of having her in my bed, while at the same time rejoicing in the fact that I’m actually sleeping at night. I’ve wrestled with the contradiction of being happy and sad at the same time, but life is full of contradictions, and I’m learning that holding onto them, instead of discarding one in favor of the other, means living a much fuller (if somewhat uncertain, and sometimes more painful) life.

And so it is that I can affirm my decision to end that long ago pregnancy, while also recognizing – yes, even grieving – the life and love that could have been. I will always respect a woman’s right to choose, but since losing my second baby, and having M, I will never look at that choice the same way again.