The Truth Is…

The truth is, what happened 18 months ago is in the past. The truth is, even writing my story, I continued to play the victim, full of self pity. The truth is, that story is over. It’s taken 18 months and writing it all out for me to accept what happened; it was the result of my mistakes. I can’t play the victim because I wasn’t one. I went down a road I shouldn’t have and that is where it led. I’m not the same person I was back then and I’m very glad of that. I’m not even the same person who wrote those first few posts, full of resentment and constantly feeling sorry for myself. I used to beat myself up thinking about how I had brought it all on myself, the truth is, I did. I can’t blame anyone or change what happened, I can’t continue to be angry at Jack when in reality, I was better off without him. I can only accept it and hope that sharing my story of abortion will maybe help even one woman feel less ashamed or embarressed by her decision. I know that I made the right choice for me at the time, and I wouldn’t change it. It was a traumatic experience and one that I wouldn’t wish on anyone, yet it happens to women all the time.

To this day I still occasionally think about what might have happened if I had chosen differently. What that child might be like, what they’d look like, the colour of their eyes, their hair. I don’t know if this is how other women feel, what I do know is that I was unprepared for the emotional trauma that having an abortion brought me. I believed I was strong enough to come out the other side and move on, but I wasn’t. I guess I thought that if I was brave enough to make this decision, then I would be brave enough to make it through without becoming overwhelmed. I do still believe that bravery is the right word for the choice I made. There is so much taboo, so much negativity and contraversy surrounding abortion, you might feel pressurised into accepting and continuing the pregnancy without being emotionally, financially or psychologically prepared for it. I’m not saying that what I did was courageous or inspiring, but I followed my gut and did my best not to feel ashamed of that. I don’t believe any woman should be ashamed of that.

18 months on Jack is still with Tessa and from what I gather, they are happy. Tessa and I even parted on friendly terms, though I never speak to Jack anymore. I guess I still feel a little resentment towards him because of what my relationship with him led to, and ultimately this is the part of me I want to change.

Henry’s support never waivered, and to this day whenever I make a mistake or start to doubt myself, he accepts, forgives and reassures me. Henry is what got me through the events of last year, and what continues to get me through all the big and small problems that we face. I will always be thankful that he is in my life, a man who loves me despite all my biggest mistakes.

A Lesson Never Learned

I could say that after that day, life went back to normal, but it didn’t. Henry and I were trying to work through everything, putting all that had happened behind us and at least trying to move forward. I was so grateful to him. I couldn’t believe the lengths he was willing to go to for me. I don’t think I’ll ever understand why he stood by me, why he tried so hard to be there for me, to stay by my side when most men would have walked the other way.

I had been avoiding going out and particularly drinking in public. Everything still felt so raw, so new, I was afraid of what might happen when people asked where I had been or what was wrong, but the time quickly came for me to step back into my social life. A friend from work was having a birthday party at her flat, and my flatmates somehow persuaded me to join them, claiming that it would be good for me to go out and get my mind off everything. It seemed like a good idea.

I hadn’t had alcohol in a while though. Due to the morning sickness and my general inability to keep anything down over the past few weeks, alcohol wasn’t really on the cards, nor was it wanted. I tried to pace myself when we got there, but quicker than expected the drinks were flowing freely. It felt good to be out with my friends again, to be sociable, to not feel like whatever I put in my body is just going to come right back up. People occasionally asked me what the situation with Jack was, so I told them of how he had slept with me after New Year and then started dating Tessa. Their responses were usually “what an arsehole” or something of that variety. I just didn’t want to talk about him. Not yet.

As the night wore on I became more and more intoxicated, and the more I drank, the more I began to feel everything I was trying so hard not to. I didn’t want to make a scene and I didn’t want it to come out in front of so many people, but I could feel the tears coming, I could feel the wave of emotion about to break. I removed myself from the apartment and went into the stairwell, where I climbed some stairs and let myself feel it.

As I sat there weeping, a girl from work who I despised walked by and asked if I was alright. I told her I was fine – she was the last person I wanted to speak to. She was quickly followed by Gary and Nicole, two people I actually liked. They stopped and came towards me, Nicole gently placing her hand on my knee as she asked what was wrong. I shook my head and tried to tell them I was fine but the words were stopped by the unending flow of tears that I couldn’t seem to control. “Is it Jack?” Nicole asked. I nodded. They tried to give me words of comfort, said he wasn’t worth it, that he was a dick, all the things you’re meant to say.

“No you don’t understand. It’s more than that. I’m not just crying over some stupid guy…I…I had an abortion on Monday.” I didn’t mean to say it. I didn’t even want to say it. The drink was messing with my brain and apparently my tongue. For some reason I hated the idea of them thinking I was simply crying over a guy, over Jack. The idea to me was repulsive. This was much bigger than him. I found myself explaining everything that had happened, trying to calm myself down. They stood and listened, rubbed my back, stroked my hair, and told me how sorry they were this had happened. After I finished I realised what I had done. “Please, please, don’t tell anyone!” I begged. They both rushed to confirm that they wouldn’t breathe a word of it to anyone. I thanked them and tried to wipe away the tears.

“Come on,” Gary said. “Lets get back in there and get you another drink!”

 

Here Is Gone

After I had screamed and cried we went back to silence. I was staring down at the floor as Jack refilled my wine glass. “You know, I think it was going to be a boy.” I said. Jack stopped and looked at me quizzically. “I haven’t told anyone this, but since it happened, I’ve been thinking about it. I think it was a boy. I wonder who he might have been, what he would look like…” I stopped talking as tears once again began to fall down my face. Jack sat down beside me and put his arms around me. He didn’t speak, he just let me cry.

As the night wore on and the wine flowed, we spent a strange but necessary evening together. One moment we’d be telling each other stories about our family, our dogs, talking like we always did when we were close, and then the conversation would somehow lead back to one of the many things standing in our way. Tessa.   “How much does she know?” I asked.

“I told her.” Jack replied. HE WHAT?! “I was drunk and confused about everything, I felt like she needed to know.” I stared at him, horrified. I was mortified that Tessa knew something so personal about me, and that I didn’t even get a say in whether she knew or not.

“How could you tell her without asking me or talking to me about it first?!” I exclaimed. Once again, his selfish, thoughtless, personality floated to the surface.

“I…it just came out, I was drunk. I’m sorry.” he replied, sheepishly.  I tried to be angry with him. And I was, but I was running out of energy. I had spent the entire evening being angry and upset with him and with every glass of wine I drank I realised how much I had missed his company. His light-hearted, easy going conversation that made me feel so at home. I knew that this night, this time spent together talking out the good and the bad, was the last one there would be. We weren’t the same anymore, the relationship we had was gone, and we both knew it. I couldn’t be friends with him anymore, not like before, not if I wanted to make things better with Henry.  Not while he and Tessa were together, not after everything that had happened between us. I knew it was over, and as ridiculous as it was, I was sad about it. I was sad that I was losing one of the best friends I had ever had – well, if we excluded the months of December and January.

For six months Jack was my best friend, and sometimes my lover, and despite all the pain he had put me through, and all the heartache he had caused me, and more importantly Henry, I would miss him. I know it seems stupid to still care about someone who treated me the way he did, but I’m human, and everyone can admit they’ve retained feelings for someone who broke their heart, can’t they?

We shared a bed that night for the last time. We didn’t even kiss, but he held me in his arms till he fell asleep. It didn’t feel sexual, or romantic, it felt like comfort. The kind of comfort I wished he had given me the day I told him I was pregnant, and every day since. I didn’t sleep a wink that night. I had so many thoughts running through my head, and part of me wondered if maybe the reason I was here, with so many strong feelings towards him, was because I was in love with Jack. Was that why I kept overlooking his wrong doings? Why I spent an entire night with him instead of just saying my piece and then leaving? Part of me was so desperate to stay in his life, for him to say he still wanted me. Why? Because I was in love with him? I didn’t know. All I know is that despite myself, despite everything I had learned about him in the recent weeks, I remember feeling heartbroken knowing that was the last night I would spend with him.

Slippin’ Into Darkness

I’m not pregnant. I’m not pregnant anymore. It’s over. Things will be better now.

These thoughts ran through my head endlessly in the days following the abortion. I kept telling myself over and over again that I should be happy now, that it was over and life could be good now. I didn’t feel better. I didn’t feel good or happy. I didn’t feel like it was over. Nurses had told me that some women often felt feelings of loss, anguish, pain, and so on afterwards. I remember thinking to myself that that wouldn’t be me. I had never been interested in children, how could I feel the loss of something I never wanted? The nurses told me that counselling was available to women if they wanted it, but I laughed it off. Like I’ll need counselling.

I was wrong. I thought that the act itself would be the hardest part of the whole ordeal, that the day I had just spent terminating my pregnancy would be the worst thing that ever happened to me, but it wasn’t. The week that followed was possibly the lowest and most unhappy I’ve felt. I felt loss. I felt anguish, pain, heartache, regret. I felt all of it. I was overwhelmed by what I felt and I couldn’t understand it. Henry encouraged me to use the services that were being offered to me, to go and see a counsellor, to talk to someone completely apart from the situation, someone neutral, someone who could help me understand these emotions and why I was feeling them. I was too proud. I thought if I went to a counsellor it meant I wasn’t strong enough, that I was weak. Turns out it was weak of me not to go. I should have had the strength to admit that I needed to talk about it to someone who wasn’t connected to it. Someone who wasn’t my flatmate, or my best friend, or Henry, or Jack. But I never did.

I was confused and upset and completely lost. I was so angry with Jack, but I still had feelings for him. I was so in awe of Henry and everything he had done for me, so full of love for the man that had gotten me through the past few weeks.

After a couple of days had passed I knew I needed to talk to Jack. He still didn’t understand what he had done wrong, or how he could fix it, nor did he see anything wrong with his decision to spend time with Tessa rather than me. I went round to his apartment so we could get everything out, and I had no intention of holding back.

He tentatively opened the door, standing there like a dog with its tail between its legs. I said a quick hello and marched past him into the living room. We sat down on separate couches, both of us with our eyes glued to the floor. Jack broke the silence “So you’re pretty angry with me, aren’t you?” I looked up and glared at him, the expression on my face being enough to answer his rather stupid question.

I had driven over there with a speech prepared, ready to dish out everything that he so readily deserved, but sitting there across from him, it all went out the window. I wilted in his presence, I felt weak, vulnerable, and small. He sat there waiting and waiting for the onslaught he knew was coming but I couldn’t get my words out. I was so full of anger, hurt, and sadness I couldn’t speak.

“We’re gonna need wine.” Jack said. He wasn’t wrong. He left the room and returned with two glasses of white. Thank God.

“You acted like you didn’t care.” I finally managed to force out. “You never acted like it was your responsibility, you just left me to deal with it. Because I was the one who actually had to go through it, you acted like you just got to sit in the sidelines and ignore everything that was going on. You never asked me if I was ok, you never tried to be there for me.”

Jack sat opposite me, listening as I spoke, tears streaming down my face as I tried to let go of everything I felt towards him, of how he had made me feel these past few weeks. He didn’t offer much in response, I think he knew that there was nothing he could do at this point, and that I needed to air all of it out more than anything else.

“I know I could have handled it better, and I thought we were talking about it, I guess it just wasn’t enough.” He replied. I snorted. It wasn’t even close to enough. His words brought out the anger in me and, through my tears, I shouted at him for being so incompetent. For leaving Henry to pick up the pieces, for spending his time going on dates with Tessa instead of being there for me. I cried and shouted, and cried some more. Jack just sat there and took it.

I Go To Sleep

I pulled up at the pavement, threw open my door, and vomited onto the street. When I was done I closed the door and tried to regain some form of composure. Henry looked at me with pity and sadness, took my hand, and gave it a comforting squeeze. “Hey, its Glasgow, people will probably just think you’re hungover!” he joked, trying to lighten the mood. I smiled briefly at him, but I wanted to get home, so I started up the car again and continued driving.

When we got back, I crawled into bed and waited for something to happen, for the pain to start, for it to be over. The nurse had given me a pack of strong painkillers just in case, and Henry urged me to take some, but I told him no. Even when the cramps started, longer and more painful than any period I’d ever had, I refused. I guess I decided that I deserved every ounce of pain that I felt. It was my punishment.

All day I went from bed to bathroom, over and over again. The cramps ranged from unbearable to almost unnoticeable, I went from crying to calm constantly and Henry took the brunt of it. I would snap orders at him, from getting me food, to bringing the TV through from the living room so I didn’t have to leave my bed. I started obsessing about a bar of chocolate that I wanted, but I didn’t have any in the flat. Henry being the amazing creature that he was, went off into the night to find me one. It was pissing rain and freezing cold – this is Glasgow in January – but he went without hesitation even when I told him I was just kidding.

He returned as I was making another trip to the bathroom, after having been to three different shops in order to find the chocolate I was looking for. When he handed it to me, I just wept. I was overwhelmed by his complete devotion and selflessness. I wept because I didn’t deserve him, because of everything I had done to him, and because it was so wrong that he was in this situation. When he finally calmed me down, with soothing words and two of those strong painkillers, with the worst of the cramps and the bathroom trips over, we snuggled up in bed and I quickly drifted off to sleep, weary, emotionally and physically exhausted from the past 24 hours.

At around 4am Henry and I woke to the sound of my phone ringing. I picked it up and looked at the screen. Jack was calling me. I put the phone back down. This was, as I said, the night of the staff party, and as I had relieved Jack of his duties with me, he was spending the night getting drunk with our co-workers, which included Tessa. I ignored the call and tried to go back to sleep, but minutes later, my phone went off again. I couldn’t pick up with Henry right there, and I was furious that given all I had been through that day, Jack had the nerve to call me, drunk, at four in the morning. I turned the phone off, and went back to sleep.

When I woke the next day, I felt hungover, as though I too had been at the staff party till 4am. I had two missed calls and three text messages from Jack. The first one simply said “I miss you.” The next was a more slurred and miss-spelled version of the first, and the third was a long winded, hard to understand message again focussing on how much he missed me. I wanted to scream and cry in frustration. I looked over at Henry, who was just beginning to stir, and once again wondered why I had ever let myself fall for Jack. Why I had given up this kind, selfless and wonderful man for a guy who was immature and selfish.

I sent him a text, asking him how on earth he could say these things to me after I had spent the night having an abortion while he was out partying with Tessa. Unsurprisingly, his reply was that he was sorry, and that he had meant he missed me as a friend. Did he know anything about women? How did I fall for one so dense?!

When Henry woke up he had a smile on his face. “You’re not pregnant anymore!” he exclaimed, as though he was once again trying to make light of the situation. I just looked back at him glumly. I thought that I would feel a sense of relief, that I would feel more at ease now that it was done. I didn’t. In fact, the worst was yet to come.

The Day That Never Ends

I was awoken early Monday morning by the urgent need to be sick. I dragged myself to the bathroom and let the foul taste of stomach acid fill my mouth. When I was done heaving I sat on the bathroom floor, not wanting to move, not ready for this day to start. Henry came to the bathroom door, knocking softly, reminding me that we have to go soon. I pull myself up off the floor and clean myself up, force myself to eat an apple and drink some water.

Without Jack and his car, I was driving us to the hospital. This was probably a mistake. My stomach was twisting itself into knots over and over again, my hands were shaking with fear, the nausea came and went in waves. We pulled up at the hospital and I turned the engine off. I lay my head on the steering wheel and turned to face Henry. I could see my own fear mirrored in his face. He began gently rubbing my back as he reassured me “It will all be over soon, tomorrow, you won’t be pregnant, and everything will be back to normal.” I tried to smile in response, but it wasn’t real.

We returned to the ward we had been to just two days before, and were guided to a hospital bed in a room of six. Only one other bed was occupied, an elderly woman sat directly across the room from us. I wondered if she knew why I was here, if she could tell by the shame and fear on my face. Why was she here? As I wondered, she picked up her phone and began talking quietly to someone, and I was torn back to reality by the taste of stomach acid once again rising in my throat.

I stumbled my way down the rows of beds to the hospital toilet where I threw up the water I had drank and the apple I had eaten. When I finally re-emerged from the toilet, the nurse was waiting patiently for me next to Henry. I sat down on the bed while she explained what I needed to do, then she pulled the curtain around the bed to give me some privacy. I don’t want to go into too much detail about it, but I was given six pills, none of which went in my mouth.

I was also having to get an injection because of my blood type, and was getting the contraceptive implant put in my right arm. I lay on the bed as the nurse explained everything to me, not really listening, but nodding my head to suggest I understood. Henry’s hand gripped mine tightly, my eyes staring into his as he watched the nurse insert the tube into my arm. I had been given a local anaesthetic and couldn’t feel a thing, but the look on Henry’s face made me wince. I looked down at it after it was bandaged, and even though it was mostly covered, I could see violent red and purple bruises bleeding out of the top of the bandage.

A different nurse came to give me my injection. I could tell she knew why I was here and she clearly didn’t approve. “Stand up please,” she asked, rather curtly, as she stood there with the needle in her hand. I stood up and went to lift the back of my dress. A further humiliation of today was that the injection had to be in my butt. I had barely gone to take down my tights when the nurse forced them and my pants down with her own hands and stuck me with the needle. I let out a small yelp of pain, to which she sniggered under he breath. She disposed of the needle and simply said “You can go now.”

With my body aching and bruised, we walked quietly back to the car. As we drove, I turned to Henry, “How long will it take?” All day. The pills I took would induce a miscarriage, which would take the form of a heavy and painful period, during which I would pass large clots of blood and, at some point, the embryo. Silent tears fell down my face, my stomach churning as I rounded the corner onto a busy street. “I’m going to be sick.”

Here It Comes

The day I had been dreading was finally here. Well, the first of two days. On Saturday the 26^th of January, I headed to hospital. This was just a preliminary appointment, but it was also the point of no return. They would give me a pill today that would begin the whole process. There was no going back from it.

I sat in the waiting room, with Henry dutifully by my side, my legs shaking constantly, unable to sit still. Another girl around my age sat across the room from me, the only other person in the room besides us. Despite myself, I wondered if she was here for the same reason as me, and what decisions, or even mistakes, had led her here. I guess my brain was distracting me from what was really going on, and what I was about to do.

Eventually my name was called. I turned to Henry and just stared at him, wide-eyed and terrified. He looked straight at me, grabbed both my hands, and gently pulled me to my feet. I breathed out. Thank God he was here. The nurse took me through the process, and explained that the pill I was about to swallow would kick start the initial stages of a miscarriage. I felt like vomiting. And it wasn’t the morning sickness. I still couldn’t believe I was here, that this was happening, and this was the decision I had made.

I took the pill, barely speaking a word the whole time, and confirmed that I would return to the hospital that Monday to complete the…process. I wanted to get out of that place as quickly as possible, every inch of it made my skin crawl.

And so I went home. Henry offered to stay with me, but in truth I just wanted to be alone. I sat in bed feeling sorry for myself, and wondering if I would hear from Jack, if he would suddenly swoop in and tell me he would be there for me on Monday.

Surprisingly, after forcing a response out of him, he informed me that he had gotten the morning off of work. I was so shocked I didn’t know what to say. I had become so cynical when it came to Jack that I knew, if I hadn’t begged him to try to get the morning off, he never would have got off his ass and done it himself.

Not only this, but his actions over the past couple of weeks had made me feel completely betrayed and abandoned, and I realised, there was no way in hell I wanted to share this experience with him. So I told him just as much.

I told him that I was thankful he had gone to the trouble of getting it off, but frankly, I would rather have someone there who I truly trusted and who had been there for me from the beginning, and that person just wasn’t him. Unsurprisingly, Jack’s retort was that he didn’t understand why I felt this way, and that he just didn’t know how to handle the situation.

“Well Jack,” I told him, “now you won’t have to.”

Where Does The Good Go

After the scan, and a second, slightly less panicked blood-taking, Henry and I were shuffled back to the office while the nurse went off to secure an appointment for my procedure. Henry continued to hold my hand, though I could see he too was becoming quite shaken by the whole experience. The nurse returned with my appointment dates. An initial one on the 26^th, and the real thing on the 28^th of January. It was two weeks from now.

Two weeks. That was it. I would be knowingly pregnant for a total of three weeks. Was that all it amounted to? Those three weeks felt like the longest of my life, and it seems mad to think that so much happened in such a short space of time. But that was it. Henry and I went back to my apartment and talked about how far along I was, and we both agreed it probably wasn’t his. I begged him to forgive me, and told him how sorry I was, that he didn’t need to do all this for me, that I would understand if he needed to walk away. His response is true testament to the kind of man he really is, and I was unbelievably lucky to have him.

All he said was, “I am not going to abandon you in this.”

Later that day I got in touch with Jack. I told him about the appointment and the dates I had booked for the procedure. The appointment on the 28^th happened to coincide with the annual staff Christmas party, which I knew he had already requested off. I told him that the nurse advised it might be best for someone to drive me to and from the appointment, and that I needed to have someone with me at all times for the rest of the day and night. Henry didn’t drive, but Jack did. I was hoping he might get the hint and step up to the plate. The problem was Jack had a second job, and it was this one he used in his response: “I’ll need to see if I get it off both jobs, so I won’t know if I can come with you for a week or two.”

I wasn’t surprised by his response, but it didn’t make me any less angry about it. This was one of many occasions over the month that I just lost it. It was completely true that he would have to talk to his manager about getting it off, that was totally reasonable, but while he told me this, he did not once ask how the appointment at the clinic itself actually went. He didn’t apologise for the fact that he couldn’t make it, he didn’t ask if I needed anything, or if I was ok, he just asked me to wait.

I was fed up of waiting for him to get up off his arse and at least pretend to care about what was happening, and so, inevitably, I lost it. I screamed at him for being so incompetent, and asked him how in the hell could he sit there and do nothing, while my ex-boyfriend ran around after me, taking care of me, knowing full well it wasn’t his kid? How could he not even bother to ask if I’m ok, to offer to take me to the clinic or the hospital without me having to ask? It just made no sense to me and I let him know. All he had to say was that he just didn’t know what he was supposed to do, that he had never been in this situation and didn’t know what to do with himself, or how to act.

I countered this by screaming about how Henry had not been in this position before, yet somehow he knew what to do. I laughed at how a man three years younger than him was doing a better job, and told him I was disgusted by his behaviour, that he was so wrapped up in making Tessa his new girlfriend, he had forgotten to care about me. Apparently, my bringing Tessa into the conversation meant, obviously, that this was not about the pregnancy, but it was about me being jealous, and that I clearly still wanted him.

I swear to God I almost punched him right in the face. Twat.

The Shame of it All

The day of my appointment at the clinic finally arrived, and unlike Jack, Henry was skipping his classes and cancelling all other plans that day to accompany me. Looking back, I can’t say how glad I am it was Henry who was sat with me in that waiting room. I was terrified, looking around the room at posters on adoption, STI’s, and being a new mum. I couldn’t keep my legs still and I kept turning round to Henry to ask, “What if something goes wrong? How long do you think I’ll have to wait?” Each of my questions were met with a knowing smile and a firm squeeze of my hand, which he never let go of as we waited.

“Everything will be fine, don’t worry,” Henry told me. I tried to believe him but I was so full of paranoia and fear.

After an agonising wait, my name was finally called and we were directed into a small office. The nurse who met us there asked me a bunch of medical questions that I answered quickly and robotically. She talked me through the two different types of abortion available to me, which I had already obsessed about and spent days trying to get Henry to tell me which one was better, because both sounded pretty unpleasant to me.

I won’t go into too much detail, because, frankly, it just reminds me of the days agonising over it. It was a case of medical versus surgical, the only perk of the surgical option being that you were knocked out for the whole thing. I ended up choosing medical, which meant, being so early on in the pregnancy, I could go through it in the comfort of my own home, rather than spending all day, maybe two, in a hospital, and I wanted to spend as little time there as possible. I was already sick of nurse’s offices and waiting rooms.

Henry and I were taken to an examination room for my scan, and to have some more blood taken. The nurse asked if I wanted Henry to leave the room for this part, as it was quite personal. At this, I quickly said no and grabbed Henry’s arm, to dash any notions he now had of leaving. I didn’t want to be left alone.

The scan was unpleasant. I think now about how that event is such a big deal for women and couples who planned for this, how seeing that first image on the scan is a miracle and an incredibly happy moment. For me, it was the moment when Henry and I would find out exactly how far along I was, confirming who the most likely father would be. I lay there as the nurse completed her scan, focusing on Henry’s face, which held an unwavering, but deeply unhappy smile. I knew this was killing him, and I think it made me fall in love with him all over again to see what he was willing to do for me. It made me hurt too. Hurt for all the pain I had caused him over Jack. Jack, who was out there going about his normal day, looking forward to a date that night with Tessa. Yes, he told me he was going on a date the day of my appointment, and no, he didn’t get in touch to give any well wishes or words of comfort. It was total radio silence.

I was so ashamed. Here I was, getting an ultra-sound because of my relationship with Jack, because I cheated on Henry, because I left him for a guy who wouldn’t be there for the girl he got pregnant, and there was Henry, by my side supporting me the whole time. How the hell did I get here?

Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now

After Jack left, the next few days were filled with me trying to act like everything was fine. At work, at University, at home. I was emotionally and mentally exhausted, and tired of putting on a happy face. Then I started to feel nauseous.

One morning, during a two-hour lecture, I began to feel horrendously ill. During the break between the first and second hour, I told my lecturer I wasn’t feeling well and headed home. But I couldn’t make it home. I had to stop off at a University building and run to the toilet, where, the second I locked the door behind me, I spun round and vomited into the glaringly white toilet bowl. I let myself sink down onto the bathroom floor as I wiped my face, blew my now running nose and dried my tearing eyes.

I walked home fast. Desperate to get into a hot bath, close my eyes, and forget the incident. I was quickly catching the cold that was infecting most of my classmates and I didn’t need to be throwing up on top of that. By the time I made it home my head was spinning. I went to the bathroom and began running a roasting hot bath. As I waited for the tub to fill, I started looking up morning sickness. Everywhere I looked, I was told: “Morning sickness usually begins during the sixth or seventh week of pregnancy.” I was six weeks pregnant. Perfect.

I eased my way into the hot water, hoping it would ease my stomach and my nausea. It didn’t. I had barely even started washing my hair when I began to feel the stomach acid rising in my throat. I leapt out of the bath in time to once again stick my head into the toilet bowl.

I messaged Jack, hoping this physical reaction to the pregnancy would trigger some sympathy and responsibility within him. After waiting almost an hour for a response, he told me a long winded story about his day and ended the message with “and I hope you feel better.” Not exactly what I had been expecting.

The rest of the week that Jack was gone I spent most of between bed and the bathroom. I was struggling to keep most food and liquids down, including Lemsips to ease my aching throat and the raging cold that was now fully developed. I had never felt more dreadful. When he could, Henry visited and took care of me, bringing me whatever food I could actually stomach, and different teas that he had read were meant to help ease morning sickness. None of it worked, but I was grateful to have him there looking after me. I desperately wanted to tell my mum, but I was also terrified of what she would think of me once she knew. I spoke to her a couple of times that week, and each time she asked me if something was wrong, as though she could sense the unhappiness and worry in my voice, something I was striving desperately to conceal. I managed to keep the secret till my parents went away on holiday, and I wasn’t likely to hear from them for the next two weeks. It was ideal.

The night before Jack was due back from his parents’, I asked if he wanted to come over the following evening and catch up. He turned up looking calm, and acting more or less as if nothing had happened. We put a film on and I tried to cuddle up next to him on the sofa, but he was reluctant. Rude. I was still in my PJ’s and I apologised to him for my appearance, which might have been putting him off, but I had spent most of the day feeling ill and occasionally being sick. After two films, a minimal amount of hugging and a lot of small talk, Jack left. I was confused and hurt. He hadn’t asked me how I was doing, if I had needed anything, or if he should come with me to the TOPAR clinic appointment, which was looming closer. I was also hurt by the fact that he had barely touched me all night. He had stiffly put his arm around me when I leaned into him and didn’t even give me a hug when he left. What was going on? I sent him a text telling him I was confused, and asking where exactly we were, were we friends, or something more? His reply explained that he thought we were better off friends, that he thought I was amazing but us being more than that never seemed to work out. I figured this was pretty true, and tried to be OK with it on top of everything else. That was fine until the next day.

Jack and I were chatting away online, back to our usual, relaxed and easy conversation I had always loved. He wasn’t bringing up the pregnancy or his responsibility for it, but he was back to normal. I casually asked if he had any plans that evening, to which he responded, “I do actually, I’m meeting Tessa.”

WHAT?! I was fuming. The day after he just told me we should be friends, he was meeting her?! Had he completely forgotten that I was pregnant? And despite the part of me that wished it was Henry’s, I knew deep down, this was Jack’s, and I was filled with rage at Jack’s denial and incompetence. I was furious, and pointed out his perfect timing deciding to call things off with me. He told me, “I’ve been talking to Tessa ever since I decided to stop wasting my time on you.” Now that stung. I was at this point, an emotional, hormonal, increasingly sick woman, and getting sick of pretending none of this was getting to me. I felt betrayed. I asked him if he felt this way, why on earth he slept with me just over a week ago, and how he could do that while making dates with another woman. His response, and at this point possibly the worst thing Jack had ever said to me was, “I was drunk and you were there.”

I had thought that, despite our problems, when Jack and I fell into bed together again, it was because it meant something to both of us and because we both wanted to try and make something more out of it. Apparently, I hadn’t communicated this to dear Jack, and he saw our last sexual encounter as a drunken mistake, not a sign that things were looking up. I asked him how he could do this to me with all that I was going through, that I thought we were both going through. I can’t remember his exact words but they hurt. To be honest, all I remember is that everything he said to me that day, and for the following days was cruel, hurtful and unnecessary, but the individual words escape me. I had been completely dumped for another girl by the father of a child that was beginning to grow inside of me. To say I was pissed off does not even begin to cover how I felt.