It is not a story about one decision. It is a story about love, fear, survival, loss, motherhood, grief....
Finding out I was pregnant changed everything. There are certain moments in life that divide everything into a “before” and an “after.” Finding out I was pregnant was one of those moments for me. I remember the weight of that realization, the fear, the uncertainty, and the overwhelming number of thoughts that immediately started running through my mind. I wasn’t just thinking about myself anymore. I was thinking about a life that had suddenly become very real to me. I had to think about what kind of life I could provide, what my future would look like, what kind of environment a child would be brought into, and what kind of relationship I would have with the baby’s father. There were so many emotions happening at the same time that it was difficult to separate one from another. There was love. There was fear. There was uncertainty. And there was grief for a future I didn’t even know whether I would get to have. The pregnancy also forced me to look honestly at my relationship with my bf. Our relationship wasn’t simple. There was love, but there was also pain, instability, betrayal, and emotional turmoil. There were things happening between us that made me question whether bringing a child into that environment would be fair to either of us, or to the baby. I had to make one of the hardest decisions of my life while carrying all of those emotions at once. I thought about what it would mean to continue the pregnancy. I thought about what motherhood would look like. I thought about the kind of family I wanted my child to grow up in. I thought about whether I could protect a child from the things I was experiencing in my relationship. And eventually, I had to make a decision that I knew would change me forever. It wasn’t a decision that came from a lack of love. That is one of the most important things I wish people understood about my experience. For me, love and loss existed at the same time. I could love my baby and still recognize that I wasn’t able to bring her into the life I wanted for her. I named her Alana. Giving her a name made everything feel even more real. She wasn’t just an idea or a pregnancy anymore. She was my baby. She had a place in my heart. And even though I knew I had made the decision I believed was necessary, knowing something is necessary doesn’t make it painless. The experience itself is difficult for me to describe because there wasn’t one single emotion that defined it. There was sadness, fear, confusion, and heartbreak. There was also a part of me that understood why I had made the decision. Those feelings could exist together. I didn’t suddenly stop loving Alana because I made the decision to end the pregnancy. If anything, the decision forced me to confront just how much love I already felt. I carried the emotional weight of knowing that this was a moment I would never be able to go back and change. There is something uniquely painful about making a decision that you believe is necessary while simultaneously wishing that your circumstances had been different. I wish I could say that I walked away from the experience feeling one simple emotion. I didn’t. Part of me understood. Part of me hurt. Part of me mourned. And part of me kept wondering what my life,and Alana’s life, might have looked like if things had been different. The pregnancy ended, but my relationship with the experience didn’t end that day. In many ways, that was only the beginning. Afterward, I had to figure out how to continue living my normal life while carrying something inside me that felt anything but normal. People can look at you and see the same person you were before. They don’t necessarily see what you are carrying. I still had responsibilities. I still had conversations to have. I still had to wake up every morning and move through the world. But internally, something had changed. I grieved Alana. I grieved the pregnancy. I grieved the possibility of who she could have become. And I grieved the version of myself who had imagined a different future. One of the hardest parts was that my grief didn’t always look the way I thought grief was supposed to look. Sometimes it was sadness. Sometimes it was anger. Sometimes it was guilt. Sometimes it was simply missing someone I never got the chance to know. There were also moments when my grief became connected to my bf and everything that happened between us. The relationship had already caused me tremendous emotional pain, and the pregnancy made everything more complicated. I wasn’t only grieving Alana. I was grieving the family and future I had hoped might exist. At one point, I had given Tyler an ultrasound picture of Alana. That picture meant something to me. It represented proof that she had existed. It was a tangible piece of a moment in my life that I could never recreate. When he returned that ultrasound picture to me, it hurt in a way that was difficult to explain. It felt like something deeply meaningful to me had been handed back as though it no longer mattered. I had already been struggling with the loss, and seeing that picture again brought so many emotions back to the surface. There were things said between us during that time that hurt me deeply. Words that I will probably never forget. There were moments when I felt blamed, misunderstood, and emotionally abandoned while I was already trying to survive my own grief. And eventually, I had to accept something painful: I couldn’t keep sacrificing myself to maintain a relationship that was hurting me. I couldn’t bring Alana into a life where I believed her father would continue causing emotional pain and instability. That realization didn’t make losing her easier. It made the loss more complicated. Because I wasn’t only mourning her. I was mourning the life I wished I could have given her. I had imagined a world where she could have been loved, protected, safe, and surrounded by peace. I wanted to be the mother who could give her that. And when I realized I couldn’t guarantee that kind of life under the circumstances I was living in, I had to make an incredibly painful choice. I still love her. I still think about her. And I still consider her a part of my story. There was a point when I wanted to honor her with a ceremony because I didn’t want her existence to disappear simply because her life was brief. She deserved to be remembered. And so did the version of me who loved her. Today, I don’t think about my experience as something that can be reduced to one word. I don’t believe I have to choose between saying that I knew why I made my decision and saying that I still grieve. Both can be true. I can understand the circumstances that led me there and still wish things had been different. I can know that I made the best decision I could with the life and circumstances I had at the time and still feel sadness. I can love Alana and still understand why I couldn’t bring her into the world I was living in. Those truths don’t cancel each other out. For a long time, I thought healing meant eventually reaching a point where I wouldn’t feel anything anymore. Now I understand that healing may simply mean learning how to carry the love and the grief without allowing either one to destroy me. Alana will always be a part of my story. She changed me. She taught me that love can exist even in the middle of impossible circumstances. She taught me that sometimes making a choice out of love can still break your heart. And she taught me that grief doesn’t always mean you regret your decision. Sometimes grief simply means that something mattered. She mattered to me. And even though I didn’t get to watch her grow, hear her laugh, hold her, or see who she would become, I will always know that she existed. I will always carry the memory of her. And I will always carry the woman I became because of her. This is my story. It is not a story about one decision. It is a story about love, fear, survival, loss, motherhood, grief, and learning to choose a future when the present feels impossible. It is the story of Alana. And she will always be a part of me.