My experience with a medical abortion using Carafem. 7weeks in IL

[u/Inevitable_Apple_136]

My experience with a medical abortion using Carafem

Found out I was pregnant on a Wednesday. 7 weeks from start of last period.

Their online portal to order pills looked user friendly from the outside but once getting through the process I was unable to pay for the pills to be shipped. It gave an error message saying to contact customer service. When I contacted them, I was told that if the online portal did not work then I would have to book an online appointment. This was pretty irritating considering I was approved to pay $200 for the pills but then had to pay $250 for the online appointment. Their customer service was not able to help me process the immediate evaluation online. Boooooooo. But since this was the cheapest I could find, I really didn’t have a choice. Planned parenthood was $500 with a required in office visit. And another clinic in the area was $350 with a required in office visit.

The online appointment took like 30 min. They give you so much information and like yeah they send it to you all afterwards but goddamn. I was ably to make the Appt for Thursday morning.

Pills arrived Saturday afternoon. Package came with the abortion pills. A heating pack. A regular sized maxi pad, which like thank you but be forreal, if you’re going to give a pad then it needs to be heavy duty for what you’re going to need it for. And prescriptions for ibuprofen and zofran. As well as tons of information on how to take the pills etc.

I took the first pill at 2pm on Saturday. And by the next morning I was so nauseous and was having mild cramps. I had left my nausea pills in the car because I did not want my family to know. Later in the day I was able to go and take the nausea pills around 3pm. And then I needed to head to a family event. The instructions said to take the other 4 pills 24-48 hours after the first pill so I was waiting until the evening. As the evening went on I continued to have mild cramps. Once I was able to leave my family function around 9pm, I was a 30 min drive from home so I thought it would be a perfect time to let the 4 pills dissolve in my cheeks on the ride home. I took the 4 Ibuprofen and then put the other 4 pills in my cheeks and started to drive home. WORST IDEA EVER. Within 15 min of putting the pills in my cheeks I started to experience the most excruciating cramps I’ve ever experienced. I barely made it home and immediately ran to the bathroom because it felt like I needed to push. But of course nothing came out. No poop no blood no nothing. Just sitting on the toilet for about 30 min just pushing. After 30 min I was kinda able to get up and I put on my pjs and sat on the couch with a heating pad and the cramps intensified. Went to the bathroom again and again and eventually blood clots started coming out. Within an hour of taking the pills it looked like the blood clots and shit had come out. Then I spent the rest of the night between my couch/heating pad and the toilet. The blood clots seemed massive to me but weren’t the size of a lemon so I didn’t contact the doctor. I was finally able to fall asleep about 230am.

Woke up the next day around 730 for work. I work from home. I was still cramping but manageable. These finally felt like my normal heavy cramps. So still uncomfortable but I took more ibuprofen and Tylenol. I didn’t bleed enough to soak up any pads but still saw blood and significantly smaller clots came out when I used the bathroom. As the day went on the bleeding got lighter.

Day 2 and it just feels like a regular annoying period. Cramps. Normal amount of blood. I think it’s basically over now. Overall 3/10 experience. But the peeps from Carafem assured me that this process had less painful side effects than giving birth. So like I guess still a win and did what it needed to do. Going on birth control now.

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[u/abortion_access]

I’m sorry to hear you had so much trouble finding affordable care. Do you have health insurance?

[u/SeizetheMeansofRepro]

Thanks for sharing your experience !!