It was 1997, I was engaged to be married and we decided that we would stop using BC because I was 37 and we knew that it might take a while.
Please note this man and I have known each other since he was 16 and I 18 and he was never a drinker. I started to realize my fiancé had a drinking problem and more and more it was becoming evident. We were first living separately and then moved in together, so I began to see the big picture with the alcohol. He was a maintenance drinker and rarely seemed drunk at first, he was also hiding it. I had one failed marriage and a lovely daughter that I have sole custody of. She was 5 when I was engaged. Needless to say the drinking got worse and I had to call the wedding off and threw him out because I could not have a drunk around my daughter. A week later I am pregnant. I told the father and he immediately began acting a buffoon, threatening that he was going to get the unborn child etc. I decided to end the pregnancy because I knew that I would be on my own financially for this child, I knew that I would have to battle this man every day over this and he was in no shape to be a father of any kind. I had my five year old and she needed every bit of me, so I terminated the pregnancy at Planned Parenthood in San Rafael, CA. My own doctor wanted me to wait till I was 8 weeks, and I could not wait another minute because if I did I would have a 12 year old right now, and I felt I could not handle it emotionally. I already had my five year old on my own, I worked full time as it was and was lucky that my mom helped me so much with my daughter because I would have lost my mind. I did the best that I could do at the time, I think about this often and as I write this I am crying, but I did the best that I could do at the time. Abortion is not easy in any way, but I needed to do what was best for the one that was already here. My abortion was on the anniversary of Roe v Wade and there were nutbags picketing PP, so my dearest friend and I crossed the picket line and then we kissed in front of the nutbags just to confuse them, so, then were yelling at us that were lesbians having an abortion that was pretty funny, and we still laugh about that part. Feel free to share my story and I do not care about anonymity, because I did what was best for my existing child. My name is Kathleen Gallagher and I live in Novato CA, and I did the right thing for my emotional capacity.