Why I had an abortion

I was in my mid-twenties when it happened and, like lots of young women, not quite sure who I was meant to be. I knew I wanted financial independence and a career, and to travel - but there was pressure to look for a partner, too, someone to settle down and have children with. It's a confusing age. I was a freelance writer, seriously into yoga and alternative therapies, and having a ball of a time living in my flat in west London, going out a lot, making friends, when suddenly there it was - an unwanted pregnancy, a time of intense denial and, shortly after, one of the most difficult decisions I've ever had to make.

I'm sure some women subconsciously act out their biological desire to reproduce by relaxing their attitude towards contraception, and that not all "mistakes" are genuine. In my case, who knows? Clearly, I have to take responsibility for becoming pregnant, though I still think some men cling to an outmoded belief that contraception is an entirely female business.

Whatever: it was the wrong time, and - though the relationship I had with the father was reasonably solid (we had been seeing each other for more than a year) - the wrong man, too.

Abortion is still such a taboo that when you're actually faced with it, it's very hard to find the kind of information you need to get through the crisis. Nicole Appleton's decision to write about her experience is incredibly brave in that context, and I remember Tracey Emin having the same kind of courage in a television interview.

More women have abortions each week than take driving tests. Yet when I went to the huge Waterstone's in the Earl's Court Road to find a book relating another woman's experience which might help me understand what would happen - there was no such book in stock. In the end, the decision was hard, but never truly in doubt. I didn't take a home test, but when I had missed a period I went straight to a clinic - and got told off by the doctors for not planning things properly, which was not the response I needed.

When the pregnancy was confirmed, my first thought was simply: no, I can't possibly do this now. I felt terrible, awful. In a strange way, I also felt rather pleased that at least I could get pregnant. You hear so many scare stories: I'm sure that I'm not the only one to have felt such perverse relief under such circumstances.

I told my boyfriend, a landscape gardener in his late thirties, and he was initially supportive, but he was not ready to be a parent and neither was I. We just weren't prepared to set up some kind of pseudo-family. I knew I couldn't compromise my choice of partner - and, I guess, my chance at long-term happiness - by deciding to have the baby.

A girl I knew when we were both at university became pregnant and had to abandon her master's degree. I thought about that, about missed opportunities and the unfairness of it. Above all, I didn't want to become a single mother, which I'm sure sounds very selfish. Thousands of women feel the same way, however, so there's no point avoiding the issue. Waterstone's should take note.

Of course, I felt incredibly weepy and quite desperate at the time. When I had thought through every possibility, I booked myself in for the termination when I was three months pregnant. The most moving thing is that your body is undergoing enormous change, getting itself ready for nothing. I got very sick and lost a lot of weight.

My partner and I split up shortly before the termination, which confirmed the wisdom of my decision. We'd talked briefly about keeping the baby, but neither of us was committed enough. At my first appointment at the clinic I was the only woman there without a man, and probably the oldest woman.

I found that interesting: a dozen teenage girls, 16 and 17-year-olds, were supported by their teenage boyfriends, pimply lads who had come to hold their hands, yet my own, much older, boyfriend had abandoned me to it, I suppose.

The procedure seemed quite oldfashioned, in retrospect. Only once, during a very valuable counselling session, was I allowed to feel like a thinking woman who'd made a mature and rational decision. I had to have a scan, but the nurse wouldn't let me see the screen until I absolutely demanded to. She told me that I really shouldn't look - but I wasn't denying that I was pregnant, not at that stage.

How could seeing the foetus make the decision harder? In fact, in many ways it made it easier: I felt in control, as though I was making a decision based on all the facts; that I was fully understanding the complex issues of responsibility and irresponsibility that surround a termination. It made it absolutely real, and no more sad than it already was.

My mother, who is a health visitor, was incredibly supportive, as were a number of close girlfriends - but I worry about women who don't have that kind of personal support network, or who are too frightened to tell people, because there's not much aftercare to the procedure. And since it's such a hidden operation, so furtive in some senses, there are bound to be women who have no outlet for their feelings afterwards.

Friends of mine who have had abortions say, "Oh, my baby would be two years old now," or, "I wonder what my baby would look like," and clearly there's a great deal of unresolved emotion there.

My termination was messy, and at first a failure. I was given a general anaesthetic but when I woke up I was still pregnant, which just prolonged the trauma. I had to go back for a second operation within a few days, and afterwards suffered a number of medical complications.

On the first night I really felt my old self again, and was getting ready to go out with friends, I was suddenly in terrible pain and began to haemorrhage. I called a doctor for advice and he told me to get myself to hospital immediately. It was all quite scary, and left me feeling very fragile.

As far as guilt - the final taboo - is concerned, I'm 30 now and feel none. The knowledge that I can still have children has helped enormously in coming to terms with what happened. Women's experiences are different, but for me the shame exists only in other people's reactions and in society's general attitude towards abortion.

It's important not to sentimentalise - or trivialise - it. I'm deeply sorry that Nicole Appleton feels so devastated by her experience, but I'm not sorry that she had the pluck to speak out.