Ellie’s Hang out

At 22, I made the choice that felt right for where I was in life. I did not want children now, and I needed to honour what I knew I could handle at that time. That does not mean I have to know with certainty what I will want forever.

Maybe one day I will want children. Maybe I won’t. Both possibilities are allowed. Life is not fixed, and neither are we. What I wanted now does not have to be the same thing I want years from now.

Still, the grief and guilt that followed the abortion have stayed with me. People often assume that if a decision was right, it should feel simple afterward. But some choices can be necessary and painful at the same time. I can know it was the right decision for that moment while still mourning the emotional weight it carried.

The doctors told me I would be sore, that there would be discomfort, and I tried to prepare myself for that. But the pain was far worse than I expected. It was sharper, heavier, more consuming than I had imagined. There are some experiences that stay in the body long after they are over, and I feel like I still carry that trauma with me. Sometimes it lives in memory, sometimes in fear, sometimes in the way my body no longer feels like a place of ease.

What has been hardest is how disconnected I have felt from my body since. I no longer move through myself with the same comfort. My body has felt unfamiliar, like something I inhabit rather than belong to. There are days when I look at myself and feel sadness before I can even name why.

The emotional toll has shown up in quiet ways: heaviness, shame, anxiety, moments of grief that return unexpectedly. It is difficult to explain how you can carry sorrow for something you still believe was necessary. But both truths can exist together.

Through all of it, I was not alone. My mum was by my side and helped me more than I can fully put into words. Her support carried me through some of the hardest moments, reminding me that love can hold you together when you feel like you are falling apart. My boyfriend was there too, steady and caring, standing beside me when I needed comfort most. Their presence did not erase the pain, but it made it possible to get through it.

I did not choose based on the future. I chose based on the reality of that time. If one day I want children, that future desire does not erase the validity of the choice I made then. It only means I am human enough to grow, change, and imagine different versions of my life.

Healing may be learning that I do not have to punish myself for not knowing the future at 22. I only had to know what I needed then, and be grateful for the people who held my hand while I carried the weight of it.

Now, I find myself grieving most days. Some mornings it sits quietly in the background, and other days it arrives all at once, heavy and impossible to ignore. Grief is not neat or predictable. It moves in waves, and I feel myself constantly up and down, never quite knowing what version of the day I am going to get.

There are moments when I feel strong, certain, and able to carry what happened with perspective. Then there are moments when sadness catches me off guard and pulls me under. I can be functioning on the outside while aching deeply on the inside. It is exhausting to move between those two places so often.

What makes it harder is that the grief is layered. It is grief for the experience itself, for the pain I went through, for how disconnected I have felt from my body since, and for the part of me that feels changed by it all. It is grief mixed with guilt, grief mixed with confusion, grief mixed with love for the life I am still trying to build.

Some days I miss the version of myself who existed before it happened the version of me who felt lighter, more certain, more at home in my own skin. Some days I grieve something I cannot even fully name, only feel.

Being up and down does not mean I am failing to cope. It means I am carrying something significant. Healing is rarely linear, especially when the pain is both emotional and physical, both remembered and still felt. Some days survival looks like strength. Other days it looks like getting through the next hour.

I am learning that grief does not always ask for answers. Sometimes it only asks to be acknowledged. And maybe for now, that is enough.