Most difficult decision I’ve ever made – but I know it was right one

My world crumbled in front of my eyes as those two pink lines showed up. I was 17 years old.

I had supposedly done everything right.

I was on the pill, I used condoms.

Yet still I was facing a life I never imagined as I looked at the pregnancy test.

So, when the news broke that the Supreme Court had overturned the Roe v Wade ruling – the constitutional right to abortion – my stomach turned into knots.

Thousands of women now being forced into that life they never imagined.

Having no choice, no say on what was going on inside their own bodies.

And had I not had the choices I did, my world now would be entirely different.

America seems to have taken a huge leap backwards in time and my heart aches for those women who now no longer have the choice.

My heart aches for the children who will be forced into a world that isn’t as bothered about them when they are actually born as when they were a group of cells in their mother’s womb.

At 17 I never thought I’d have to make the heartbreaking decision to have an abortion.

And that’s what it was, heartbreaking.

But if I could turn back time and be making that choice again would I change my mind? Absolutely not.

I wasn’t fit or ready to have a child, I was barely scraping by looking after myself, how could I put an innocent child into that environment?

It is so easy to be on team “I could never have an abortion” when you have never been in the position.

I know because I used to think exactly the same.

This wasn’t a form of birth control for me, and the vast majority who chose a medical termination. This was the hardest choice of my life, which I think about daily even now 10 years on.

But I was lucky. I was allowed the choice.

It wasn’t a quick decision. I went over my choices for weeks. I even saw my baby on a scan and still keep the picture in my bedside drawer.

But I was that baby’s mum and it was my duty to make the best decision for them.

That decision was to not force them into a world that wasn’t ready for them.

The day I went in to hospital for the procedure I was just shy of 12 weeks.

The staff were pleasant and made me feel at ease but the moment I remember crystal clear was seeing my pre-op assessment.

The word ‘yes’ was circled alongside the question “Is the patient pregnant?”

It hit home that I would be going in pregnant and coming out not.

But I knew in my heart this was the right choice for me.

Now, nearly a decade on, I am a proud mum of eightmonth-old Tommy.

When I found out I was pregnant again my reaction was entirely different.

I was ready for a baby. I had a career, a home, a partner. I had a stable environment to give my child the best chance at life.

It didn’t mean I forgot about my abortion though.

I think of the what-ifs and could-have-beens all the time.

Would they have looked like Tommy?

Would they have thrived being the older sibling?

But I know that I wouldn’t have had the life I do now had I not had the choice at 17.

And I know they wouldn’t have had the start to life that Tommy now has.

I know I made the right decision.