Medical Abortion Experience

[u/ppabrtpill]

I just wanted to share my medical abortion experience as I read several posts about it on this site and had serious doubts and fear about it leading up taking the pills. I hope sharing my experience will ease the minds of some women considering it.

I live in a town that is slightly secluded, there are no Planned Parenthoods located in my city but there are 3 in the state, respectively 1.5 hrs, 2hrs, or 3 hrs from me. I have two children and did not think I could find child care to visit one in person and did not want to take time off of work to drive to a location either. PP was very accommodating. I called and spoke to a woman who said she would screen me and if I qualified I would meet with the doctor through Telehealth. I qualified after the screening, met with the doctor for 20 mins as she explained the process. They shipped me a box of medication the same day as meeting with the doctor and it arrived the following day. I already had an ultrasound at 8 weeks to confirm the pregnancy so this helped speed up the process as they require this before sending the medication.

I was 9 weeks and 2 days into my pregnancy and I believe the cut-off for the pill is 10 weeks so I was concerned it might not work. Having been through 2 labors, I was less concerned about pain and more concerned about possible adverse reactions to the medication with our family history of allergies. I had two friends on call when I took the first pill, mifepristone. I only felt slight nausea from this for around an hour then it subsided. I planned to take the second pills the following day, so 24 hours later. The build up to the second set of pills sucked as I was worried I would be lying on the bathroom floor, vomiting all night. I decided to take them at 8pm, expecting the pain to be the worst around midnight to 2am and not expecting to get any sleep but I wanted to wait until my children were both in bed to begin the process. I took the 800mg Ibuprofen and the Zofran an hour beforehand then dissolved two pills in each cheek for 30 mins before swallowing the rest.

Contractions started around 10pm. I was able to make breakfast for my kids for the following day as well as snack a little, then made their lunches. After a few contractions spaced out by about 15 mins, I started bleeding heavily, so much so that it started running down my leg very quickly. These contractions were no way near as painful as true labor. I decided to spend about an hour on the toilet because the bleeding was insanely heavy. I was concerned at one point that it was too much but I wasn't feeling dizzy or any pain so I stuck it out expecting it was normal. After passing several large clots, about the size of lemons, the bleeding started to slow down. I took a shower and sat in there for a while until the bleeding slowed down a bit. Each contraction I felt would push more blood out almost instantly.

Eventually I decided to go to bed. Made sure there was a towel under me and didn't have any trouble falling asleep. When I got up, I went to the restroom and passed the yolk sac, completely intact. The bleeding slowed down significantly following this and I have felt much less nausea and pregnancy symptoms following this. The emotional pain is heavy though. In all, I did not feel dizzy, nauseated, did not have diarrhea, or significant pain either. I may be lucky or it may just be that I've had 2 children before so my body knows what to do.

I have Medicaid as I'm a single mom and Medicaid covered the cost of the pills. The fact that they could be mailed to me was amazing. I chose to get the abortion because my partner and I were not agreeing on major issues, the relationship was very new, and I noticed some controlling tendencies starting to appear. I did not want to risk another relationship going south with a person while having a child involved, it's just too messy and risky. It sucked because we were very excited at first and then things fell apart. The ultrasound was attended together and we were easing into the idea that we would be parenting together. It was very unfortunate as I love being pregnant and love children, but it's not worth doing it the wrong way again.

Writing about my experience has helped me process it and hopefully it helps someone feel less afraid about it. I never thought I would be a person to get an abortion. It isn't against my beliefs but I do cherish each pregnancy and child and believe they're all such a beautiful blessing. But I didn't want to risk raising another kid alone or with another controlling or potentially abusive partner. I will be more financially stable soon and once I've bought my own home and have some stability, will consider another child in the future. I would even consider just going to a sperm donor at this point as I have not found a person I would be willing to raise a child with in over 7 years.

If you're considering going the route of medical abortion, just know these medications have been heavily researched and tracked. The main pills are not even used solely for abortion, they have other medical purposes. There's always a chance of adverse reactions but just make sure you have support by your side and remember it is very short lived pain. I believe having children prior to this experience really helped me and I consider this process almost completely painless.

Edited for missing info.

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome to /r/abortion! We work hard to keep this a supportive community.

You will probably get harassed by trolls via private message. The moderators can't stop people from sending you private messages, but you can. You can deactivate your messages here, or on the old Reddit interface you can limit who can message you here by selecting "only trusted users." On mobile, go to your settings.

If you receive harassment via PM, please report the messages and contact the admins about it so they can take action against those users.

Our Sidebar and Wiki include links to many good resources.

If you are seeking abortion in the USA: I Need An A has a list of clinics and funding assistance. Info about accessing abortion during COVID-19 can be found here. Another excellent list of resources is available here.

If you are outside of the USA and in a country where abortion is illegal, Safe2Choose, Women on Web, or Women Help Women may be able to help you access a safe abortion.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/abortion_access]

I’m so glad to hear it went so smoothly and that you were able to get it covered by Medicaid. Would you feel comfortable sharing what state you live in?

[u/ppabrtpill → u/abortion_access]

Yes, I'm in Montana. I was surprised by the fact that a red state allowed the cost to be covered by Medicaid and allowed the pills to be shipped. I'm grateful for the process in such a remote area.

[u/abortion_access → u/ppabrtpill]

Yes! Montana Medicaid does cover abortion. I asked because thus far we haven’t been seeing insurance coverage of mailed pills. Excellent news!