Kim

Kim's story is collected especially for the SHHH project. All informants and stories in this project have been anonymised. All names are changed.

I had a fuckbuddy who had done a vasectomy, gotten the snip. At the start, I insisted we used a condom anyway, to make sure, but eventually I let go of control. We had sex six times without a condom, and then I didn’t get my period. Later we learned that his tube had grown back after surgery and that he was no longer sterile. When my pregnancy test showed positive, I felt cold and apathetic. This was not fucking fair. I was angry with the situation, angry with my fuckbuddy and angry with myself.

The worst part was the time between the discovery of my pregnancy and my abortion. I googled to find an abortion clinic, and called to make an appointment. That was on a Thursday night, and the first available appointment was on Monday. It felt like an eternity. I cried a lot and didn’t want to do anything. Eating disgusted me. I didn’t want to feed the parasite growing inside of me.

The gynecologist asked if I was sure I wanted an abortion. I replied that I had never been so sure about anything in my entire life. Then, she gave me the first pill. The second pill I got to bring home. Two days later I took it. I felt so liberated! The abortion itself was not too bad. The way I remember it, it felt like period cramps, and a heavy bleeding.

When I think back on the most important decisions of my life, the ones I’m happiest with, my top three are:

1. my abortion
2. my abortion
3. my abortion​

I never wanted to have children, and I still don’t.

After my abortion, I began looking for stories about abortion. Most of them were about straight women in monogamous relationships with a guy, women who wanted to have children later but not now. There was a lack of stories of people who never wanted kids, neither now nor in the future. As a not very monogamous queer, trans person, who never wanted children, I still felt rather alone in my experience.

To accept it, and to not feel ashamed, I started telling people my story online. For each time I wrote about it, it got easier. Now I feel fine about more people finding out. I’ve started to feel like this is something I want to share with others.